Pahrump farmer Andersen dies

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 1998 | 10:27 a.m.

The last place farmer Digger Andersen expected to find himself during World War II was in the skies over Europe jumping out of planes as an Army paratrooper.

"The first time I jumped on my own -- the next 12 times they had to push me out," the native Nevadan often would tell folks.

However, on that unlucky 13th jump behind enemy lines, he was captured by the Germans and spent the last three months of the war in a POW camp.

Ever loyal to his country, Andersen many years later donated some of his Old Manse Ranch property in Pahrump so that the town's Veterans of Foreign Wars post could be built on it.

Linford Odell "Digger" Andersen, who for more than 40 years was one of the state's premier cotton, alfalfa and melon growers, died Sunday at his home in Pahrump following a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 72.

Andersen also was the son of 1976 Clark County Mother of the Year Carrie Andersen, the son-in-law of Southern Nevada pioneer Elmer Bowman and the brother-in-law of longtime Clark County Clerk Loretta Bowman.

Visitation will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Pahrump Chapel. Services will be at 1 p.m. Interment will be at the Chief Tecopa Cemetery in Pahrump. Palm Mortuary is handling the arrangements.

"My father had a lot of friends in Las Vegas but never wanted to move here because he thought the big city was just too fast for him -- he preferred

"But he would visit Las Vegas on weekends to buy supplies, go to the casinos and see the shows. He was a fun-loving but hard-working person."

While farming was Andersen's vocation, gardening was his hobby. And while he grew some of Pahrump Valley's cleanest and heaviest cotton on his farm, it was his garden-grown melons for which he gained quite a following.

Many of his customers were Las Vegas residents who regularly made the 65-mile trek to the sleepy Nye County community specifically to purchase Andersen's cantaloupes, watermelons, crenshaws and casaba melons.

Born Sept. 7, 1925, in Overton, Andersen early on got his nickname from the comic strip character "Digger Odell the Friendly Undertaker."

He was the son of longtime Overton farmer Fay Andersen and decided early on that he too wanted to make agriculture his career.

Although Andersen stood just 5-foot-8 in his prime, he was a star basketball player at Moapa Valley High School in the early 1940s.

After graduating in 1943, Andersen joined the Army where, as he put it, the military convinced "this dumb farmer to become a paratrooper."

He was captured on Jan. 4, 1945. During his 89 days as a POW, Andersen was shuffled to four different prison camps and was malnourished by the time he was liberated on April 3.

After the war, Andersen returned to Overton where he met and fell in love with Imogene Bowman. She had been a sophomore at Moapa Valley High the year he was a senior.

"He didn't know me in high school, but I knew him because he dated one of my girlfriends who was a sophomore at that time," Imogene Andersen said. "I used to go to all of his basketball games just to watch him. I thought he was quite handsome."

After a whirlwind romance, the two married in March 1946. They would have celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary next month.

In 1946, the couple left Overton to settle in Pahrump, which at that time had about 100 residents.

Imogene's father, Elmer Bowman, had purchased the Old Manse Ranch and the Kellogg Ranch. He allowed family members to work the land while he oversaw his water well-digging operations in Southern Nevada. The reservoir at Logandale today is named in Elmer Bowman's honor.

Andersen worked for Bowman until the early 1950s, when he took over the Old Manse Ranch portion of the property and continued to work the 800-acre farm until the mid-1980s, when he sold much of the land and retired.

During those four decades, Andersen became a respected cotton and alfalfa grower -- two crops that were vital to the prosperity of Pahrump. Still, he had obstacles to overcome en route to make the farm a success.

When Andersen started farming in Pahrump, his farmhouse had no electricity. He installed two generators in the 1950s and commercial electric power finally came to the farm in 1961, Imogene Andersen said.

But it was government controls over agriculture that upset Digger the most.

"My father did not like it when the government started telling farmers what they could and could not plant," Ferrell said.

Andersen reluctantly took government subsidies not to plant cotton -- a practice employed by officials to prevent a glut on the market -- although his wife said that it bothered him because he was proud of his ability to raise top quality cotton crops.

So, instead, Andersen planted more alfalfa, tended to his livestock and kept the farm going. Although the Andersens had no sons, they had five sturdy daughters.

"We had to pick cotton, milk cows, dig ditches, mend fences -- everything boys would have done," Ferrell said.

"My father was never a wealthy farmer. There were some real lean times. Sometimes we had to live off of what we grew and we had to wear hand-me-down clothes."

Ferrell mused that there were times when her dad longed for the old days when the farm had an outhouse.

"It was difficult for him to live in a house full of women that had only one bathroom," she said. "He used to put signs on the bathroom door limiting the time we could spend in there."

In his later years, Andersen became somewhat of a philanthropist, donating the land on which VFW Post No. 10054 was built and giving to numerous charities. He was a life member of the Pahrump Moose Lodge No. 808.

In 1994, Andersen was diagnosed with prostate cancer. To the very end, he missed the bygone days when he could dig his fingers into the rich soil and harvest the fruits of his labor.

"Farming was all he ever knew," Imogene said.

In addition to his daughter and wife, Andersen is survived by four other daughters, Carol Reno of Reno; Phyllis Pike of Pahrump; Merna Meier of Sparks and Maureen Bouno of Pahrump; a sister, Nola Spooner of Overton; a brother, Phil Andersen of Overton; 21 grandchildren; and four great grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by two brothers.