Her home is impeccably clean, but there’s so much in it. Hats. Fabric scraps. Homemade clothing. Hand-decorated cards. An old sewing machine. Photo albums.

The walls are decorated with souvenirs from all over the world, but not the kinds of things people buy at gift shops — everything, from the temple pressings she bought in Thailand to the small trinkets from countries all over the world, seems authentic, and their owner seems to be more than just a tourist.

Agnes Sanderson, 91, has already lived a life full of traveling, love, learning and adventure, but she doesn’t sit in her apartment at Homestead Village in Fairhope reflecting on the past very often. She’s busier than she’s ever been in her life.

Her scrawling cursive neatly lines the small squares of her desk calendar, and many of the squares are completely full from the time she wakes up until she crawls back into bed. She plays bridge at least three times a week, leads social activities and is still a member of two garden clubs.

“My theory is that if I’m happily busy all day, everyday, I’m tired and I have no difficulty sleeping,” Sanderson said. “A lot of older people have difficulty sleeping.”

After 63 years of marriage, Sanderson lost her husband Dick in 2004. Six months ago, she moved to Homestead Village. She is extremely happy with her accommodations and enjoys the company of her fellow residents.

“It really is a delightful place,” she said.

Agnes said she misses Dick, but she chooses to happily reflect on their life together rather than grieving.

“I really think grief is regret,” Agnes said. “If you wished you had done something and didn’t, then you have grief. Whenever I have what I call a pity party, I think about what a wonderful life I had and how happy I am and all the marvelous things we did.”

Agnes and Dick met in their hometown of Detroit, Mich. when they were teenagers. They were married in 1941, and Dick served in the Navy in World War II.

“I had a letter from him every day I didn’t see him, and he had a letter from me every day he didn’t see me,” Agnes said. “We had all these letters chronologically boxed, and every time we’d move, we thought we’d get rid of those letters, but we’d start reading them and we couldn’t.”

But eventually, their two children grew older, and Agnes had heard horror stories about kids finding their parents’ love letters and putting them in people’s mailboxes around the neighborhood. 

“I decided those letters were just for me,” she said. “And mainly they said the same thing over and over, so we sat there one evening, and we read them and burned them.”

Throughout their life together, the Sandersons taught themselves skills that would free up their finances for traveling and other hobbies, Agnes said.

“I was very fortunate that I didn’t want things you could buy rather than things you could make,” she said. “Everything I wanted to do, he helped me. Anything he wanted to do, I helped him. We built houses; we reupholstered; we learned oil paints. He knew how to do everything, and so did I.”

Agnes is an accomplished seamstress. Most of her clothing is handmade, but the differences between her store-bought and handmade jackets, pants and shirts are indistinguishable.

And she still uses the same Singer sewing machine her father gave her after she and Dick were married.

“It’s my most prized possession,” she said.

Agnes’ daughter, Vicki Seheele, said her family always lived beautifully because of her parents’ skills and determination.

“They made their world beautiful,” Seheele said. “And I’m confident that as my mom’s life continues to unfold, it will continue to be beautiful.”

Agnes said she and Dick weren’t more talented than anyone else, but they were always willing to learn.

“How do you know you can’t do something until you try it?” she said. “Failing at something is not a sin, but never trying it is. And that applies to cooking, sewing — anything you do.”

And the money the couple saved from their rejection of consumerism, along with Dick’s job, which required travel around the world, allowed them to see places many people can only dream about visiting.

“We were not interested in most things that people want,” she said. “We were more interested in adventures. I’ve snorkeled over clamshells as big as a bathtub on the barrier reef. I have camera-hunted Siberian tigers on elephant back in the jungles of Nepal. I’ve walked on the wall of China.”

The Sandersons retired to Fairhope, one of the many places they had vacationed over the years. They stopped traveling, but their memories and hobbies kept them entertained.

“We had done everything all our lives. We had been everywhere,” Agnes said. “Everything we read and everything we saw on television, we could remember when we were there and the sight and the smell and what happened. Oh my, I had such a beautiful life. I really did.”

Sehelle said the example her parents set for her and her brother, Richard Jr., is priceless.

“They were amazing as a couple,” Sehelle said. “The main thing in her life was her love for my father. They were great friends.”

At the end of Dick’s life, he told Agnes he knew she would be fine without him because of all of her interests and her social life.

“When he was in the hospital, he said, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re so friendly and belong to so many things. I’m so glad you’ve got so many hobbies. You’ll always have something happy to do,’” Agnes said.

And even though Dick has been gone for eight years, Agnes said she is still as in love with him as she was when they met. Her doctor recently suggested she write a book to tell her love story, but she just laughed.

“I had the most courteous, cavalier, considerate, loving husband that could be,” Agnes said. “If I wrote my love story the way I see it and anybody read it, they’d feel gipped.”