Sandra Sue Waldner-Wipf — our Sandie Sue — went home to be with her Lord and Savior on Saturday, September 26, 2026, at Billings Clinic in Billings, Montana. She was 48 years old.

Sandie was born on July 15, 1978, in Morris, Manitoba, to Paul and Lena Waldner and grew up at Oak Bluff Colony as the youngest of five children, alongside her siblings Marilyn, Ernie, Dianna and Kenneth.

Some lives can be told through the facts — where someone was born, the work they did, the person they married and the things they accomplished.

But the facts alone could never tell you who Sandie was.

Writing these words has been the hardest thing Jerry has ever had to do. Wanting to honor Sandie well, he asked a handful of people from different parts of her life to help describe what made her so unmistakably Sandie.

Together, those friends helped Jerry do what felt almost impossible — find the words to tell the story of the woman he loved so deeply, and to capture even a small piece of the beautiful spirit that made Sandie Sue who she was.

One of Sandie’s friends remembered a phrase she heard her say countless times:

“It is my absolute pleasure.”

Those five words captured so much of Sandie.

She had a natural instinct for helping, loving and caring for people — a gift that could never be taught in a classroom or learned in a business school. She seemed to know what people needed, sometimes before they knew how to ask. She listened without judgment, encouraged without expecting anything in return and made people feel that they mattered.

If you were hungry, she fed you.

If you were hurting, she listened.

If you needed encouragement, she gave it.

And if someone she loved was being mistreated, God help the person doing the mistreating.

Sandie had an incredibly gentle heart, but nobody should ever mistake gentle for weak.

She was smart, sassy, tough, independent, stubborn, hardworking, passionate and fiercely loyal. One friend described her as “a fierce defender of those she loved and a trusted friend who can never be replaced.” That was Sandie Sue.

Sandie loved hard. There was no halfway with her. If she loved you, she loved you with everything she had.

On December 6, 2013, Sandie married Jerry Wipf in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At the time, Jerry was living in Montana, and after their marriage Sandie left Canada and everything familiar to her to build a life with him there. And she arrived in Montana very much a city girl. Jerry will never forget one of her first questions: “4-H? What the heck is 4-H?” She truly had no idea.

Through their dear friends Clarence and Julianne Hofer and their children, Waylon, Wesley, Emery and Raegan, Sandie was introduced to an entirely new world — county fairs, livestock, show barns, pigs, goats and Montana country life. And in true Sandie fashion, she didn’t stand on the sidelines for long. She dove right in.

Before long, Sandie could be found right in the middle of it all — spending two hours late at night washing and blow-drying a show goat, asking questions the entire time, and proudly watching Waylon show his pigs. But somewhere along the way, it became about so much more than 4-H. The Hofers became family. Waylon, Wesley, Emery and Raegan were like Jerry and Sandie’s own children, and Sandie loved and cared for them that way. She became a second mom to them. There were sleepovers at Jerry and Sandie’s house, and the kids always knew one of the best parts was what Sandie would make the next morning — her famous pancakes and waffles, made completely from scratch. They looked forward to those breakfasts almost as much as Sandie looked forward to making them. Those were the moments Sandie treasured — a house full of kids, something homemade in the kitchen, and the people she loved gathered around her. If something mattered to someone Sandie loved, she wanted to understand it. That curiosity was simply part of her.

From childhood, Sandie carried a dream that never left her: she wanted to become an American citizen. Meeting Jerry and building a life with him in Montana finally gave her the opportunity to pursue that dream. And for Sandie, becoming an American was never simply a matter of paperwork or where she happened to live. It meant something deeply personal to her.

On October 20, 2022, Sandie was sworn in as a citizen of the United States of America in Billings, Montana.

It was one of the proudest days of her life. Sandie never took her citizenship for granted. She cherished it deeply because she knew what it meant to choose this country, to work toward becoming part of it, and finally to be able to say with tremendous pride, “I am an American.” It was more than citizenship to Sandie. It was the fulfillment of a dream she had carried since childhood, and becoming an American remained one of the great honors and proudest accomplishments of her life.

And woven through so much of the life Sandie built in America was the man she had chosen to build it with.

Jerry was the love of her life. Anyone who spent much time with Sandie knew that because she talked about him — a lot.

She bragged about him, encouraged him, defended him, worried about him and took care of him. One of Sandie’s dear friends said watching her love and serve Jerry was like participating in a master class on how we should love our spouse.

Their marriage wasn’t perfect. It was real. They laughed, disagreed, worked, prayed, dreamed, drove each other crazy, and through every season of life, they kept choosing each other. They were partners, best friends and a team in every sense of the word. For several years, Sandie worked right alongside Jerry in the field with his lawn care business. It was hard physical work, but Sandie could outwork just about any guy beside her. She hauled leaves, moved heavy loads and never stopped until the job was finished. Sometimes Jerry had to stop her. He would catch her trying to lift or haul something far too heavy and tell her to put it down. Sandie would insist she was perfectly capable of handling it. Jerry would insist she wasn’t. Sandie would become even more determined. Stubborn met stubborn. That was marriage.

Eventually, she stepped away from much of the fieldwork, but Sandie remained an essential part of everything Jerry did. She handled the administrative side of the business, the shopping and countless details of their life together.

Things simply seemed to happen.

The groceries appeared.

The paperwork was handled.

The home was cared for.

Sandie did it all.

Even the dishes had to meet Sandie’s standards.

She rarely wanted Jerry washing them. When he did, she would sweetly say, “Okay, honey. Thank you.”

Then she would wait until she thought he wasn’t paying attention and wash them again.

Jerry knew. He always knew.

Sandie also had an incredible sense of humor and was absolutely convinced Jerry didn’t appreciate it nearly enough.

Whenever he groaned at one of her jokes or gave her that familiar look, she would remind him:

“Honey, I’m a funny girl. Just live with it.” Jerry would roll his eyes. Sandie would laugh.

Together, they built a home and a life they loved so much that they came to call it their “vacation home.”

They didn’t need to escape from their life to find peace. They wanted to come home to it. Jerry often told Sandie that she was the kind of wife who made him want to hurry home at the end of the day. Their favorite moments were often the simplest ones — sitting together around the fire after a long day, talking about what had happened, laughing, solving the world’s problems and dreaming about what came next. It wasn’t the house that made Jerry want to come home. It was Sandie. She was the person he came home to, the person he belonged beside, and in every way that mattered, she was home.

Christmas became another special part of their life together. Sandie had never been particularly excited about Christmas lights. Jerry, on the other hand, loved them. And somewhere through the years, his love for Christmas lights became hers too. Jerry loved making Sandie feel special, sometimes in the simplest ways, and the Christmas lights became one of those ways.

During the winter, their home became what Sandie called her “winter wonderland,” covered in lights that Jerry had connected to his smart-home system. Sandie often told him how much she looked forward to turning onto their road at night and seeing everything lit up. So on the nights Jerry made it home before her, he created a little bit of magic.

He would get a notification when Sandie reached the entrance to their road and shut every light off, leaving the property completely dark. Then, as she slowly made her way down the road toward home, Jerry would turn them all on at once.

Suddenly, her winter wonderland would come to life in front of her. And every time, Sandie was in awe. Jerry loved seeing her reaction. He wanted coming home to feel magical for her because, in his eyes, Sandie deserved to be treated like a queen.

The lights were for everyone to see. But the magic was always for Sandie.

Sandie also loved people through food. She was an incredible cook and baker. Christmas also meant beautiful packages of homemade cookies and pastries, carefully prepared and hand-delivered to family and friends. There were Thanksgiving pies, homemade hamburger buns, lemon zucchini bread and always another recipe Sandie wanted to try.

And when it came to Christmas baking, Sandie was in her element. The ingredients mattered. The presentation mattered.

The person receiving it mattered most. The food was never really about the food. It was Sandie’s way of saying: I thought about you. You matter to me. I love you.

Before moving to Montana, Sandie built a career in Winnipeg in the legal world, including real estate law. She worked as a legal assistant at Duboff Edwards Haight & Schachter, where Michael Radcliffe, Q.C., was her boss.

Sandie admired Michael tremendously, and those years gave her a strong understanding of contracts, transactions and the legal side of real estate.

Selling real estate, however, was completely new.

This was Sandie’s first year in real estate, and she had only been doing it for a few months when she passed away.

Her dear friend and mentor Kerry Martinson encouraged her to take the leap, recognizing Sandie’s intelligence, work ethic and remarkable ability to connect with people.

Sandie joined PureWest Christie’s International Real Estate in Billings, brought her pink computer into the office, asked endless questions and immersed herself in learning the business.

And in true Sandie Sue fashion, she went all in.

She held open houses, learned the sales side of contracts, helped around the office, ran errands, cleaned listings and absorbed everything she could.

In only a few short months, real estate had already become something she truly loved.

But what made Sandie special as a Realtor wasn’t something anyone could teach her.

She genuinely cared about people.

When Sandie held an open house, she didn’t stop somewhere and buy cookies.

She spent hours baking them herself.

Every single time.

Then there were Sandie’s Burger Bombs — her homemade buns filled with seasoned hamburger, cheese and all kinds of other delicious ingredients.

Because apparently showing someone a house wasn’t enough.

Sandie needed to feed them too.

When someone hired Sandie, they didn’t simply get a Realtor.

They got Sandie Sue — her heart, her dedication, and the genuine care she brought to every person she worked with.

She called it Real Estate with Heart, and for Sandie, those words carried a deeply personal meaning.

Her dear brother Ernie had lived for years with serious heart issues and had received a heart transplant. At the time of his death, he was again waiting for a donor heart. His journey made organ donation and heart-related causes incredibly important to Sandie.

So Real Estate with Heart was never simply a slogan.

It was a way for Sandie to carry her brother with her into the work she loved.

And it perfectly described the way she lived her life — with compassion, generosity and heart.

Sandie loved her family deeply and had endured tremendous loss, including the deaths of her mother, Lena; her beloved brother Ernie; and, only months before her own passing, her dad, Paul.

Through it all, her faith carried her.

Sandie loved Jesus.

Her faith shaped the way she treated people — with grace, generosity, prayer, forgiveness and compassion — and gave her confidence that this life was not the end of the story.

Earlier this year, Sandie helped write the obituary for her father and put into words the comfort of knowing that when his earthly life ended, he was finally home.

Today, those words belong to Sandie too.

There was so much more life she was ready to live.

More people to love.

More questions to ask.

More evenings around the fire.

More dreams.

But we know the God she loved has welcomed her home.

And if you never had the privilege of knowing Sandie Sue, it is difficult to explain what you missed.

You missed that laugh.

You missed the questions.

You missed the stubbornness and unmistakable opinions.

You missed a woman who could be incredibly gentle one minute and ready to go to battle for somebody she loved the next.

You missed being fed whether you were hungry or not.

You missed having someone genuinely interested in your story.

You missed a woman who could enter your life as a neighbor, coworker or acquaintance and somehow become family.

Her absence has changed the landscape of our lives.

And what an extraordinary gift it was to have Sandie here at all — to have known her, to have loved her, and to have been loved by her.

Sandie was preceded in death by her mother, Lena Waldner; her beloved brother, Ernie Waldner; her father, Paul Waldner; her grandparents; and other loved ones who went before her.

She is survived by her husband, Jerry; her siblings, Marilyn Waldner, Dianna Hofer (Len), and Kenneth Waldner (Jane); and her sister-in-law, Angie Waldner, wife of the late Ernie.

She also leaves behind nieces and nephews whom she loved dearly, including Nicole LaBossiere (Ryan), Pearl Waldner, Kobe Waldner, Ariel Waldner, Payton Waldner, Tristan Hofer, Amber Hofer and Nate Hofer, along with a large extended family and a remarkable circle of friends who loved her deeply.

And then there were the people who may not have been related to Sandie by blood but were family to her in every way that mattered.

She also leaves behind her beloved four-legged family, Zara — her Bubaleh — and Elona.