She came to tell the unsung hero of her childhood history one simple message: Thank you.

Chester sits on the banks of Lake Almanor, on the north fork of the Feather River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Historically a logging town, it is the kind of natural wonderland where people flock to hunt or fish. The last time anyone officially counted, less than 3,000 people lived there.

Guard and Christal Young, Sondra's parents, moved to Chester in 1946 to build the area's first supermarket. Born in Huntington, Utah, Guard was a tall, good-looking man whose broad shoulders almost made him look burly. His mother, a midwife, raised her seven children alone, and he dreamed of becoming the stable and loving father he never had.

Guard and Christal tried to have children for seven years before they finally adopted Jean Christal Young late in 1945. Soon after, on the first day their market opened its doors for business, the Youngs adopted another baby girl, Judith Ann, who was six months younger than Jean.

Nearly two years later, Christal finally got pregnant and the couple was ecstatic. But the baby, a boy, was born with birth defects and died two days later.

"It came as such a blow to Guard," Christal's sister, Geraldine Walters, said, paraphrasing a letter Christal wrote to her. "Guard sobbed and sobbed, and said 'If only I could trade places with the baby!' "

Guard took his family to Provo for a year so he, Christal, and his mother could take classes at BYU and the family could cope with their loss. When they came back to Chester, Christal gave birth to Sondra, then another son, Wayne.

The girls were growing so fast. Jean had a laugh that warmed her mother's heart, and Judy's one ambition in life was to learn to cook and sew. Sondra set the record in precociousness. The Youngs' little kingdom was finally under way, and Guard made it a priority to give his children the fatherly attention he never had. He read the girls stories and tucked them in almost every night.

Chester was so isolated that other than Young's Market, there was only one grocery store in town: Frank Locatell's place, which was two doors down. When payday rolled around every two weeks, the shop owners made the 13-mile one-way trip to the nearest bank in Westwood to withdraw money to have on hand when the local lumberjacks came to cash their checks.

The money runs made Guard nervous. He told Christal that whenever she came back with money in the car she should "drive like a banshee" so no one could stop her. Guard did the same, and he had been pulled over by police going 90 mph more than once on his way back from the bank.