Barbies for Tots

By Amanda Dyslin
The Free Press

MANKATO November 29, 2005 11:09 pm

— MANKATO — After a year of tragedy upon tragedy, Terri Santee still is able to smile.
After losing her husband of 15 years in a car accident, she still is able to laugh. After a year of living with cancer, suffering through dozens of chemotherapy treatments that have sickened and exhausted her, she still is able to give.
Santee, 42, lost a great deal during the past year. Not so long ago she had a home full of love and special belongings she and her husband, Eric Santee, held dear. She also had her health.
Most of that is gone now. Yet, during one of the scariest and loneliest times in her life, she has found it in her heart to give to those less fortunate. Today Santee will donate her extensive collection of Barbie Dolls to Toys for Tots at the Realtor Association of Southern Minnesota in North Mankato.
She wants to make sure her dolls goes to girls who will love them as much as she did.
“Eric and I have always bought gifts and given them to Toys for Tots,” she said. “I would really like to see the little girls’ eyes when they get to see these beautiful dolls.”
It starts with one
A 150-piece collection of Barbie Dolls begins with just one, Santee said — a mermaid. The doll was gorgeous, she said, sitting on the store shelf in 1989. She had to have it.
Santee isn’t sure what appealed to her so much about the dolls. She just liked them and started buying more.
“I didn’t look for anything specific, just ones that I liked — lots of ones with long dresses,” she said.
More than 15 years later, Santee had accumulated so many of the dolls that she had no place to display them, not even in the spacious Mankato house she and her husband moved into two years ago. Many sat in their original boxes in closets.
Santee’s husband also enjoyed collecting things. He had an assortment of firearms and memorabilia of “The Simpsons” television show.
In their home with their dog, Bear, surrounded by their collections, Santee said she and her husband shared a happy life. They celebrated their 15th anniversary April 29, 2004, and renewed their wedding vows May 1, 2004, to commemorate the occasion.
A terrible year
Aug. 11, 2004, Santee was diagnosed with cancer. The worst news: It was cancer of “unknown primary.” In people with an unknown primary, the tests find evidence of secondary cancer but do not identify the site of the primary cancer.
“As far as I know, it’s in my liver and in my neck,” Santee said. “I haven’t asked the doctor because I’m afraid, but I understand it’s probably in my lymph nodes.”
As for Santee’s prognosis, Santee didn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know. She simply started chemotherapy Sept. 16, 2004, with her husband by her side and clung to hope.
Four days later, on Sept. 20, her husband died in a car crash near Vernon Center.
“Oh God ... I’ll never forget it,” Santee said.
Santee has since battled her illness alone. Both she and her husband moved to Mankato from the Mason City, Iowa, area, where their families lived, for his job as an electronic technician. She has lived in the area a short while and hasn’t made many friends.
She has endured several kinds of treatments, including chemotherapy that began with one treatment every 21 days, then one every 28 days and now one every week.
“All last year I was so sick on chemo,” she said. “At this point, with the new chemo, it’s not as bad. I’m tired, I have weak pains in my stomach, and I just get a lot of nausea.”
She lost her hair, but now it has grown back.
Bear has been her only companion through it all. But because of two growths on his body, he is scheduled for surgery next Tuesday. And Santee has be strong for him, too.
“If I lose him, too, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said.
Time to move on
Santee decided in August when her doctor moved to Maine that it was time for her, too, to leave Mankato and return to the Mason City area to be with family. Santee believed her doctor was the one keeping her alive during the past year and now there’s no reason to stay here.
“I also want to be with Eric,” she said of her husband, who is buried in Iowa.
So Santee has been busy selling her belongings, including many of her dolls (except for a few she couldn’t part with) and her husband’s guns and “Simpsons” collection. Willa Dailey, Santee’s auctioneer, has been helping her. Dailey’s also the one who suggested donating the remainder of her Barbies (more than 70 of them, including the mermaid) to Toys for Tots.
“So much has been taken away from her to be able to still give,” said Dailey of Dailey Auction Service and Pro-Formance Realty. “These dolls mean so much to her, but she knows she can’t keep hundreds of dolls where she’s going.”
Bernie Thompson, coordinator of Toys for Tots, is grateful for the donation. Thompson doesn’t know what the dolls are worth and neither will the kids, but he’s sure it’s a lot.
“She just wanted the kids to play with them — she wanted that more than anything,” he said. “I was a little speechless.”
Santee just needs to keep her house up and shovel her driveway and sidewalk to allow potential buyers to come in and see the place. The trouble is, she often doesn’t have the energy to vacuum or lift a shovel. She’s relied a little on VINE Faith in Action, but much of the work goes undone.
“The process has been horrible,” she said. “The main thing is I want to get my house sold so I can go. ... It’s really hard to get my house ready for showing.”
If Santee gets too sick, she’ll move to Iowa if the house is sold or not, she said.
For now, she said, she’s looking forward to Bear’s full recovery and to the joy the Barbies will bring to so many children.
“I’m very excited,” she said. “I loved them all.”
Dailey said she’s not sure what will happen to Santee. They haven’t talked about how Santee sees the future unfolding. Dailey just hopes she has one.
“She’s getting weaker,” Dailey said. “(But) I always think there’s hope for people, regardless.”