Sandra Joanne Younghans-Sanchez

Sandra Joanne Younghans-Sanchez, loving wife, mother, grandmother, sister and aunt died after her fight with cancer on Feb. 8, 2016, at her home.  She had just retired from Yavapai Regional Medical Center, after a long career in physical therapy. To her family and friends Sandy was an inspiring combination of strength, work ethic and love. She had a wonderful sense of playfulness along with a strong dose of realism. Sandy faced her many struggles, including this last challenge of cancer, with tenacity and grace.  Sandra was born on November 21, 1949, the eighth of ten children of Carl John and Esther Lillian Bergstrom. She was raised on the family farm in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. She attended school in Osseo, Minn., and worked as a certified nursing assistant after high school. She earned an LPN degree and then went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude in physical therapy from the University of Minnesota. Sandy met and married Gary Younghans, who died in 1978, just seventeen months after welcoming their daughter, Gretchen. In 1990, Sandy married Vince Pappone and they moved from Minnesota to Prescott, building a home together in Yavapai Hills. Vince passed away in 1997.  In 2004, a mutual love of an active, outdoors lifestyle led Sandy and Joe to find each other, and to their surprise wedding at a 2010 reunion of Sandy's family in Glacier National Park in Montana. Their lives together were dedicated to adventure, family, and travel. Sandy loved being a grandmother, a title she earned in 2006, when grandson Fionn was born, followed by Campbell and Rory (all Gretchen and husband John Napier's boys) and James and Olivia (children of Joe's daughter and her husband Jodena and Rob Hargreaves). Sandy felt most peaceful when on a fast walk through her tree-lined hilly neighborhood, and she was happiest at being a spunky, doting grandmother, a role cut much too short.  She will be remembered by many: those who tried to keep up with her walking, anyone who worked alongside her industrious pace, and all of us who love her deeply and dearly -- that love will not end.  Sandy is survived by her husband, Joseph; daughter Gretchen Younghans of Flagstaff, AZ, Gretchen's husband, John Napier, and their children, Fionn, Campbell and Rory; Joseph's daughter, Jodena Hargreaves (Rob) and their children, James and Olivia of Laveen, AZ; sisters Norma Hornbacher (Chuck) of Columbia Falls, MT, Joyce Bergstrom of Townsend, MT, Lois Schelvan (Lance) of Missoula, MT and Adele Bergstrom (Jeff Light) of Minneapolis, MN; brother Jim Bergstrom (Diane) of Becker, MN; brother-in-law Donald Sosnoski of Old Lyme, CT, and sister-in-laws Grace Bergstrom, Minneapolis, MN and Julanne Bergstrom of San Diego, CA, and many special nieces and nephews. Sandy was preceded in death by her parents, Carl and Esther Bergstrom; sisters Carolyn Sosnoski and Arlene Coggburn; brothers Bill and Carl Bergstrom; nephew, Jarrod Neslund; and husbands, Gary Younghans and Vince Pappone.