Sandra J. Kraft

Sandra (Kraig) Kraft died at peace on New Year’s Day 2026 while in Hospice Care at Bethany Retirement Living in Fargo, ND, at age 83, after a short stay at Sanford Hospital’s ICU for breathing complications related to pneumonia. She was visited by immediate family both at Sanford and throughout her brief 6 days in Hospice.

Sandy leaves behind a rich legacy of hard work, creative invention, agricultural achievements, medical service, and deep love for both her family and former pets. Sandra Joan Eitel was born November 27, 1942, to Jonas and Irene (Jantzen) Eitel and raised on a farm with her siblings in Durham, KS. She attended Enterprise Academy, a private religious high school, where she won the “Most Studious'' Award in 1959 as a Junior (Graduated as Valedictorian 1960), while also being proficient musically at the Accordion and Clarinet. She met her first husband, Don Biesterfeld, while he was custom combining from Oklahoma to the Canadian border for her uncle Dan. They eloped to Iowa and lived briefly in Bowman, ND, before putting down roots in Ransom County and having sons Gordon and Scott. She worked as an LPN at Lisbon Hospital in the early 1960s and then the Lisbon agricultural extension office (ASCS). Reflecting her deep affections and empathy for other people, Sandy never forgot her first “Baby Gordy,” who passed at 7 months old.

Sandra would eventually go on to marry Dale Kraig of Sheldon, ND, quickly building a professional life as a self-taught Sunflower Hybrid Seed Engineer while having sons, Michael and William. Sandy established the company “Sheyenne Seeds” after moving to a large farm south of Sheldon in 1973 that had been inherited from Dale’s parents Herman and Emma, also setting up numerous seed Nurseries (experimental plots) in Florida, Wisconsin, and Mexico, to which she would frequently travel.

Her successes, including eventual large sales to farmers in France, Kenya, and Brazil, received national attention on the 6 AM “Country Day” TV morning show out of Chicago (WGN), with the “Sundance” hybrid seed rated #1 in the world in 1981 for both highest yield and oil content. Along with the seed “Dakota Gold”, these achievements had already by 1979 led to her being awarded "For Significant Contributions to the Sunflower Industry” by ND’s governor during the halftime show of the 1979 NDSU Harvest Bowl. More personally, she had an enduring impact on the Sheldon community: a whole generation of Sheldon teenagers would come of age hoeing weeds and tending sunflowers in Sandy’s many Nurseries on hot summer days.

Sheyenne Seed was then acquired by Seedtec of Fargo in 1983, where she continued work as a nursery seed engineer. After divorcing Dale Kraig in 1983, she married her third husband Jim Kraft, a professional welder whose family roots were in Valley City, in early winter 1985 at Valley City courthouse. They moved back into the first farm where Mike and Bill had been born, from where Sandy daily commuted to Seedtec offices in Fargo while Michael finished high school in Sheldon. After Jim tragically passed in a rural car accident in late 1986, Sandy kept close ties with Jim’s mother Betty, his sister and brothers, and his earlier children Missy and Nathan, who frequently stayed at the farm. As the seed industry changed, Sandy would go on to learn Medical Transcription at a Fargo technical college, moving into a long-term job for St. Luke’s-Meritcare of Fargo in 1989 and buying a house in North Fargo for William’s last three years of high school.

Above all, Sandy stressed the importance of family, raising her kids on frequent trips back to her extended relations in Kansas, including many Thanksgivings at her original farmhouse, her parents retirement house, and her brothers’ homes. On the Holidays, she showered her sons with large amounts of birthday and Christmas gifts and drove them between far-flung farms on Halloween for rural Sheldon trick-or-treating, as well as staging elaborate Easter candy hunts among farm equipment sheds. In later years, she enjoyed lavishly decorating Christmas trees and having annual Christmas Eve meals out at a favorite Chinese Buffet with her grandsons.

Finally, Sandy had a deep and abiding love for furry animals during her Fargo years, not only raising pet cats Charlie, Sasha, Sophie, and Chloe, but also feeding an entire family of wild rabbits through her sliding door during her 16 year stay at Dakota Estates Apts in South Fargo. She also was remembered very fondly by friends at her Independent Living Apt in Fargo (2016-2019) and eventually the professional Staff at both Bethany locations for her always-friendly, cheerful, and happy attitude, even in the midst of challenging health conditions.

She is survived by sons, Scott (Shemayne Maynard), Michael, and Bill; Scott’s sons, Evan, Alex, and Levi; two great-granddaughters, Emma and Ivy; siblings, Gary, Vernon, Milton and Betty, across Kansas, Missouri, and Florida; and additional family, Janel Kraig and Jade Roesler.

She was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Jim; and son, Gordy.

Memorial: Friday, March 13, 2026, at 11AM, at West Funeral Home, with visitation one hour before the service. Service will be followed by Lunch and then burial.

Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Fargo, ND.

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