Anne & Rich Hovland: Gratitude, Grace & Goodness
By Jim Seidl – December 29, 2025
Our dear friend Anne Hovland’s eloquent Commentary in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, describing her and Rich’s challenging health journey over the past few years, evokes heartbreak, compassion, and empathy, on how they are jointly navigating the impairments caused by this most cruel neurological disease.
With Anne’s encouragement, I’m honored to share her Commentary below, inspired by her words of wisdom and grace “… how we live, and what we experience, is about the importance of a caring community. And a caring community needs reality as much as it needs connection. And hope, always hope!
Anne & Rich, your courageous and caring spirits make my heart soar. Your friendship brings joy and uplift to my soul. Your shared lives of love and love of life, bring hope and inspiration to all of us blessed to be in your orbit.
On behalf of our Square Lake family, our heartfelt thanks for your shared spirit of kindness, empathy, and care over the years, which makes our world a better, more wonderful place.
From The Minnesota Star Tribune*
Opinion | Dementia and Alzheimer’s are about way more than memory
"I think the American way of giving 'memory' prime billing as we talk about cognitive decline is a serious and painful failure to acknowledge the myriad other symptoms and behavioral indicators dementia and Alzheimer’s throw at us," Anne Benedict Hovland writes. (Dreamstime/Tribune News Service)
Giving memory prime billing as we talk about cognitive decline fails to acknowledge the many other symptoms dementia throws at us.
by Anne Benedict Hovland
July 9, 2025 at 2:59PM
This month there is an anniversary to be marked with sadness. Three years ago, my 89-year-old husband left our home north of Stillwater to have lunch with a friend in Edina. It was a once-a-month occasion for lifelong friends. He drove away with happy anticipation and enough lead time for an on-time arrival. I left home shortly thereafter to golf with friends. After 18 holes and a bit of 19th hole cheer, I returned to find a frantic dog and no sign of my guy.
Luckily, when I called his cellphone, he answered.
“Where are you?” I asked, trying to manage the tone of my voice against the frantic voice in my head. “I think I’m near Sioux City, Minnesota.” A quick scroll to maps on my phone turned up no such Minnesota location. I would later learn that after mistakenly heading north on Hwy. 169, he turned around drove southwest across Minnesota, ending up in Sioux City, Iowa. Three hundred miles and nine hours later.
Within 24 hours he would be home, the car keys would be hidden and the leap to memory care would be underway.
By this point, we had already been through a difficult few years with his declining cognitive capacity and a host of manifestations that cannot neatly be summed up as memory issues. More about that later. While I was surreptitiously vetting care facilities and taking the necessary steps to qualify him — a definitive diagnosis, medical exams, COVID tests and insurance questions — he was writing lists of our assets to be divided when he chose to divorce me if I wouldn’t let him drive. It was time.
Over the preceding few years, I had tried to cope with his decline. He is a retired family doctor; I’m retired from a management career in nonprofit fundraising. We had a loving marriage. We should have been well positioned to understand what was happening and “manage” our way through it.
So, here’s the beef: Dementia and Alzheimer’s are about way more than memory. And friends, I think the American way of giving “memory” prime billing as we talk about cognitive decline is a serious and painful failure to acknowledge the myriad other symptoms and behavioral indicators dementia and Alzheimer’s throw at us.
Let me start with decline in judgment and reasoning. Like when someone calls and tells you you’ve won the Publishers’ Clearinghouse sweepstakes, and you believe him. And you give him a $200 gift card to secure your winnings. Or when he calls the next day and says it’s the Readers Digest Sweepstakes. And you still believe him.
Or when your normally meticulous desk is littered with junk mail because you’ve decided it’s the right thing to do to answer every appeal that comes your way.
Or when you have written so many checks that you’re recording them in the wrong checkbook and often sending the same charity more than one check a week.
Or when you tell your wife she’s forbidden to talk to your children about these things.
And when the judgment and reasoning decline noticeably, emotional management becomes the next hurdle. When you are unsure of yourself, to the point that minor differences of opinion are wounds to your ego. Or your partner‘s lack of enthusiasm for the latest sweepstakes you’re sure to win causes a chill in the household. When verbal abuse and belittling become your response. When the anger is visible on your face and the mercy of the few steps that separate you prevent escalation to physical abuse.
When the emotional management goes, apparently there’s some brain bypass that kicks in and says, “I deserve more.” Shopping maybe. Sex. Obsessing about things and people and places. So, I would put excesses or obsessions on the list of things way more critical than memory!
Before we talk about memory - because it is, after all, important - let me mention planning, process and decision making. I tell friends that if they want to gauge the decline of a friend or loved one, put a big menu in front of them and see if they can decide what to have for lunch. Or try and play a board game with them. The functions I’m talking about are task-oriented manifestations of decline in judgment and reasoning, but they play out on a small scale in the day to day. These are clues we may want to paper over. We ignore them at our peril.
After having experienced all the above with my husband, I complained to a friend that I regret not having had much affirmation from friends for what I was seeing. He was showing up for lunch at the wrong time or on the wrong day. They could see his ability to express himself was in decline. Were they seeing these things as memory problems only? Is that why they didn’t tell me?
Memory matters. But it is only a piece of the picture. I fear we have tried too hard as a society to sanitize cognitive decline. We are masking the difficult realities to the extent that people like me are alone, angry and feeling guilty when their loved one begins the descent into dementia and/or Alzheimer’s. And sending them off to “Happy Acres” or “Golden Hour” home is a marketing maneuver that leaves everyone underprepared for the next phases of cognitive decline — however they may play out.
As my guy approaches three years in dementia care, I tell friends the back end of the illness is much easier to cope with than the front end. He’s virtually helpless, mostly content and still capable of smiling. Way easier to love, too.
Anne Benedict Hovland lives in Wayzata after many years as a resident of May Township, north of Stillwater. She’s a retired nonprofit fundraising executive and consultant.
Inspired by Anne’s eloquence and lovingkindness, I’m reminded of a favorite poem by Apollinaire:
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high.
Come to the edge.
And they came,
And she pushed,
And they flew.
Thanks, Anne and Rich, from the center of our Square Lake soul, for the beauty of your shared spirit, the wisdom of your shared heart, and the gentle “push” of can-do encouragement you so caringly provide to those of us inspired by your friendship, to live life fully - with passion, generosity, joy, love, curiosity, empathy, happiness, kindness and care.
Postscript:
While working side-by-side with us in 2023 on a series of successful Square Lake Protect & Preserve initiatives, as reference here: Square Lake Conservancy Case Study – October 6, 2023, Anne wrote:
“Thanks again, Jim, and all the comrades-in-arms who are at work on behalf of our lovely neck of the woods—and waters. I came across this letter from 26 years ago that was sent by the grandfather of my daughter’s then roommate after she shared tales of her time at Square Lake in the late 90s. His memories from 70 years earlier are priceless—and show once again the legacy of pristine waters we are working to protect: “Square Lake Camp Letter”
Anne’s family letter beautifully mirrors the magic of how Square Lake has captured the heart and soul of all of us who have been blessed to live and play here. For those interested in learning more about the Boy Scout Camp, this Square Roots Blog post provides a pictorial look into our past: Square Lake Boy Scout Camp Photos.
Respectfully submitted,
Jim Seidl
President, Square Lake Association
Co-Founder, Square Lake Conservancy
Jim.Seidl@legalresearch.com
*Minneapolis Tribune article reprinted with permission from Anne Hovland - 2025.
Square Lake photo reprinted with permission from Brian Clark – 2024.