Sandra Lee on Home & Family

Lucky Charm · ‎03-09-2010

I'm really blown away by Sandra Lee's past (childhood) and her perserverance to forge on.

She opened up a lot about her parents, her upbringing, the marriages, divorces, her father being in prison, etc.

I just read in an interview, her father was sent to prison when she was in high school, she was actually living with him.

She walked in on him raping his girlfriend. Sandra was considered a witness and her name kept being printed in the newspaper. She was so enraged she stormed into the reporters office. She was still in high school!

She kept her chin up, stayed in school, was on the cheerleading team as all of this was going on in her Wisconsin town.

Quite a life she's lead, not all goody-two-shoes, which is what I always thought she was. Maybe it had to do with how she was raised. She practically raised herself.

QVCkitty1 · ‎05-23-2015

That is very interesting, I really don't know anything about her, except that she is our Governor's SO.

" You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Lipstickdiva · ‎03-10-2010

A few years ago, I read an article/interview with her and was amazed. I know she took a lot of flack for her cooking show.

I'm assuming she spoke about her breast cancer? How is she doing?

Lucky Charm · ‎03-09-2010

@Lipstickdiva wrote:
A few years ago, I read an article/interview with her and was amazed. I know she took a lot of flack for her cooking show.

I'm assuming she spoke about her breast cancer? How is she doing?

She's doing great. She did speak about it. Totally unexpected. Mammo on Monday, biopsy on Wed. and finding out on Friday. Her first words were "Get rid of them!" Both, immediately.

Lucky Charm · ‎03-09-2010

@QVCkitty1 wrote:
That is very interesting, I really don't know anything about her, except that she is our Governor's SO.

Yes, she showed pictures of him bending over kissing her while she was coming out of anesthesia from the mastectomy. Very endearing pics.

cookinfreak · ‎03-31-2010

I saw an interview with her one time, and she had basically nothing when she was growing up. I believe she had some siblings and kind of became their mother. She said that was the inspiration for her cooking as she would take cheap ingredients and basically nothing and make something incredible. I think she was on the series on the food channel called chefography and one of her college friends said Sandra would make cheeseburgers, bu she said she just made them so incredibly good and she did that with everything she cooked. She also invented the curtain rods that sat on the window sill somehow so you didn't need any hardware or tools and she insisted that Florence Henderson be the spokesperson for those as she was Americas mom. Don't remember how she got her to do the infomercial, but Florence did do it.

cookin

Lucky Charm · ‎03-09-2010

She's on all week, yesterday she had her sister Kimber on and Kimber's son.

They both had been on her Semi Homemade as guests and looked familiar.

Sandra got quite emotional telling of how she left home at 16 because her pill addicted mother beat the heck out of her.

She said she walked past her mother and her mother gnarled something like 'You just may turn out better than me' and Sandra's exact words were 'I will'. And her mother tore into her badly. This was 3 days before her 16th birthday.

One thing I read in an article today, she says she was sexually abused by her stepfather, who was Kimber's dad.

On the show, Kimber said that things got better for her when her dad remarried and that she loved her step mother.

That must be awful for Sandra to hear, in a way, knowing the man did things 'sexual in nature' to Sandra while young. I believe Sandra divulged this info in her autobiography, Made from Scratch.

Oznell · ‎11-08-2014

I had heard bits and pieces about her difficult background before, but not all the things you all have mentioned. It breaks your heart.

I admire her tremendous spunk and what she has been able to make of her life. By sharing it the way she has, she has probably given hope to other at-risk and sadly unloved children!

momtochloe · ‎11-03-2013

I have always enjoyed Sandra Lee on whatever show she is on and I wish her nothing but the very best. My niece met her in person at a food show in Chicago and said how lovely and kind she was and I will always keep her autographed cookbook in my cookbook library.

Lucky Charm · ‎03-09-2010

@Oznell wrote:
I had heard bits and pieces about her difficult background before, but not all the things you all have mentioned. It breaks your heart.

I admire her tremendous spunk and what she has been able to make of her life. By sharing it the way she has, she has probably given hope to other at-risk and sadly unloved children!

She said she kept promising her little sister (Kimber) that someday she would have rose garden.

Sadly, I don't think day to day, Kimber or any of the other 3 children believed it.

But it came true. Sandra helped them to acquire many nice things.

The siblings also helped her tremendously when Sandra was trying to get her business(es) started.

It was a family affair.