May Steensma Frazee - 111S2

Life Story

May Steensma Frazee

March 9, 1924 – February 20, 2016

Willeta May Rickabaugh was born on March 9, 1924, in Alhambra, California. Her mother had delivered a baby girl named Harriet Elizabeth. The doctor was searching for a placenta, thought he had found it, but it was a second baby girl! She wouldn’t cry and was laid aside so the doctor could attend to mother when an elderly retired doctor poked his head in the door of the surgery suite and called out, “Need any help in here?” 

“Yes, take care of that one over there stat!” Prepping quickly, the old doctor grabbed a can of ether and threw some on her chest. Baby May spontaneously screamed her shock and disapproval!

Thus began the interesting lives of identical twin girls. May and Betty had three older brothers – Max, Al and Don – who were close in age, so their dear mother had 5 children in 5 years! There were times growing up when even the parents could not be sure which girl was Betty and which was May! But their brother Don always knew and clarified.

The twins had happy memories of their childhood – lots of camping trips, homeschool that included a few other children as well, a family orchestra that practiced regularly and played often for churches and other events. May had about 9 years of piano lessons. She played piano or organ for church services most of her life until she was past 80.

May and Betty graduated from high school at La Sierra Academy, and both enrolled in Pacific Union College to take pre-nursing. Their beloved father had waited until all the children were gone from home to fulfill his pre-determined plan to divorce his wife and start a new life with a new wife! The twins beloved mother moved out of her home and joined them at Pacific Union College.

In two years May and Betty graduated from PUC after which Mom and the twins moved to Boulder, Colorado for the girls 4-year nursing course. They all loved hiking together in the Colorado Rockies! Mom had a beautiful high soprano singing voice. They loved going up Boulder Canyon where Mom would sing at the top of her lungs, accompanied by Betty on her violin and May on her accordion.

After 2 years of college and 3 years of nursing school, the girls both took a much needed break. Mom’s good friend, Elder Meade McGuire, recommended she take the girls to a new little place in northern Georgia called Wildwood Sanitarium and Medical Missionary Institute. The year was 1945. Both girls benefitted by almost a year of the program at Wildwood.  Their mother spent the rest of her life, 40+ years, at Wildwood. She became best friends with Mother Frazee, who did not enjoy the best of health. She passed away in 1950. In 1952 Dad Frazee proposed marriage to his late wife’s best friend. So the twins became step sisters to Bill Frazee, since their mother married his father!

Betty and May both finished their nursing degrees and became Registered Nurses. Betty finished at Greeneville, Tennessee, while May preferred to go back to Boulder, Colorado to finish her course.

May then began her nursing career as an operating room nurse in Porter Memorial Hospital in Denver, Colorado. She was church organist for the SDA Church in Arvada, a suberb of north Denver. She noticed a handsome young man who attended regularly with two little boys in tow. All were so neat, clean and trim, she was well impressed! Apparently he also took note of the beautiful organist as a friendship soon developed into romance and a wedding date was set for March 25, 1951.

May took her beloved fiancé, Henry Steensma, all the way from Colorado to Wildwood, Georgia, for the wedding. Betty, a year earlier had married Dr. Alan Harmer, the first Medical Director here at Wildwood. Betty was very near to delivering their daughter, Sylvia, on March 27!

Back in Denver the happy couple set up housekeeping in an apartment near Porter Memorial Hospital where Henry secured a job in the maintenance department, while May continued her work as an O.R. nurse.  After 3 months of settling into married life,  Henry’s two little boys, Henry Jr. and Ray, joined them. The boys had spent the previous 4 months with Henry’s mother, their Grandma Steensma.

Just before Henry and May’s first wedding anniversary, Baby Dona arrived on March 14, 1952. Dona was only three months old when her father, Henry, decided to move his family, from Colorado to northern California. This move was prompted by the doctor telling his mother that if she wished to live much longer, she must move to a lower altitude climate.  Grandma Steensma’s health flourished in California where she lived well into her 80’s.

The Steensma family lived near the St. Helena Sanitarium, not far from Pacific Union College for about six years where Henry, a builder by trade, built and sold a couple houses and helped build the new large Sanitarium Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1956 Nancy was born, rounding out the family with 2 boys and 2 girls! In 1958 they accepted a call to move to Healdsburg, about 40 miles away to help build Rio Lindo Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding high school. In 1962 the Steensma family accepted a call from Wildwood to move back to Colorado to help build Eden Valley Institute, a medical missionary training institute in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Loveland, Colorado.

May worked as Director of Nurses at Eden Valley and Dona and Nancy attended the Eden Valley Elementary School. Every other weekend during the summer months, Henry took his family on weekend camping trips way up in the high mountains. We have many happy memories during those years, of camping, hiking, cooking over  campfires, singing and family worships around the campfire.

By late 1969 Henry was diagnosed with colon cancer, underwent emergency surgery to remove it, followed by rapid recurrence and death by May 14, 1970, at the early age of 47! Henry had made arrangements with Bill Frazee to watch over his girls: May, Dona(18) and Nancy (14). The boys were already on their own. Henry died in peace and in the Blessed Hope of the resurrection.

 With the passing of May’s beloved Henry, May and Dona and Nancy moved from Colorado to Wildwood. Dona was just graduating from high school and had already accepted an invitation from Uncle Bill Frazee to train in as his personal secretary. Nancy at 14 pursued her education. And May gradually became more and more involved in the Frazee’s ministries. So Bill and Helen Frazee along with May and Dona Steensma were a team of 4 in ministry both at home and abroad for 16 years until Helen was suddenly taken from us in 1986.

I wonder who was most surprised when a year later Bill Frazee proposed marriage to May Steensma!  He was considerably older than May, and about 12 years into the development of Parkinson’s disease. But he truly loved her, and they had 9 productive years together before he quietly passed to his rest in 1996 at 90 years of age.

May was still 72 years young. She began filling in the much-needed position of managing the WDF sermons ministry, including re-mastering sermons from original reels to cassette masters for duplicating. She was a great one to visit the lonely, the sick, the discouraged.  She played the organ for church. She mowed her own lawn and kept a small vegetable garden as well as flower beds. She was a life-long hiker. May was a life-long caregiver. For over 35 years May and Dona shared the care of 1-3 elderly folks at a time in their Wildwood home, taking turns driving the Frazees to his speaking appointments. May possessed the gift of helps, the gift of listening, the gift of encouragement.

May would spend her last 10 years requiring care from others due to severe and multiple and recurring compression fractures in her back! Many young people who cared for her would be influenced for life by her faith, her love, her personal interest in them, her confidence in God’s love for each one personally and in the power of the Word of God to restore health in all dimensions. She had life-long habits of memorizing scripture and teaching others the powerful benefits of doing likewise. May passed peacefully on February 20, 2016, of natural causes due to age and confinement.  She was ready, she was at peace. 

Blessed rest, dear May!