HOT PURSUIT

How much can one family endure?

I can’t help but wonder if that’s what Nan Wandrey of Owatonna is thinking. Wandrey’s family has endured an extraordinary amount of pain and suffering over the past several years culminating with the loss of her daughter last month in a heart wrenching set of circumstances after a crash near West Concord.

While trying to get a sense on the most recent tragedy involving the family, I spoke to Wandrey recently to get a better idea of what they have been facing.

In September 2020, Wandrey’s son, Eric, lost his wife unexpectedly at the age of 41.

You may recall how Wandrey nearly died in December 2021 from complications of COVID-19. A group of friends and church members led a prayer vigil for 14 days outside the Owatonna hospital. They sang Christmas carols and prayed in the snow as covid attacked both of her lungs. After a week in Owatonna, she was transferred to a Twin Cities hospital for 51 days.

“It’s miraculous I survived. It’s unbelievable,” she said at the time.

During her recovery at home, she relied on her daughter, Erin Brose, who took care of mom for two months. Erin has always been known as a caring and loving person.

Since then, Wandrey has suffered through the pain of losing several other family members. Among them her father, Verlyn Cornelius, a Word War II veteran, died in August 2023. He was 96. Her former husband, Mark Gilbertson, died unexpectedly last August in Florida.

In December, Wandrey had a large tumor removed from her brain by a neurology team consisting of a father-daughter at the Mayo Clinic. The daughter flew back from Arizona to help her father with the eight-hour surgery on Wandrey.

Though the tumor was “the largest brain tumor I’ve ever seen in someone’s head” as the doctor told Wandrey, it ended up being non-cancerous. The tumor was larger than the surgeon’s fist, she said, adding the doctors told her she was very lucky as it usually turns out to be cancer.

Wandrey came home just before Christmas and made no plans to go anywhere.

“I was afraid I would catch an infection,” she said. “I had a large railroad track scar on my head, so I had high chances of a stroke or brain bleed or a seizure.”

They saw each other for only 45 minutes on Christmas Day. Always caring about others, Brose didn’t want to make her mother sick.

With Brose’s birthday on Dec. 29, Wandrey planned to celebrate with her the next day in between her home health visits. But then that fateful morning fog hit Dec. 30 and Brose was critically injured while trying to be a Good Samaritan and help other drivers in Dodge County. She has been referred to as an “angel of mercy” by one of the other victim’s families.

Wandrey, 65, said her daughter’s femoral artery was slashed. “I thought she would have bled out,” she said. “I don’t know how she made it to the hospital.”

Brose died almost two weeks later from multiple injuries at the hospital with Wandrey and others at her side.

“It’s tough without her,” Wandrey said. “It’s going to be hard, but I know I will see her again because of her great faith. She now has a body that’s healed. She is safe, happy and healed.”

While the crash remains under investigation, Wandrey places no blame on anyone.

“It’s all part of God’s plan,” she says. “God brings us through faith to handle it and make sure were here to help others.”

Friends of the family are hosting a benefit Sunday afternoon at the Owatonna VFW. They hope to raise funds to cover medical and funeral expenses.

Helping financially seems like the least that can be done for a family that has endured so much heartache while going in hot pursuit of displaying such noble intentions.