Elisabeth Anne "Tad" Sanders

Elisabeth Anne “Tad” Lee Sanders passed away peacefully on December 17, at Sunrise Senior Living in Southwest Fort Worth.         

Elisabeth was born on March 3, 1933, in Gorman, Texas, in a hospital where her grandfather was a doctor.  Her early childhood was in West Texas where her father worked for an oil pipeline company at a remote oil pumping station.  It was there she began her lifelong love of horses when a neighbor gave her a small pony.  From that start, horses were never out of her life for long.  

When Elisabeth was 14, her father was transferred to Wink, Texas, where he became a Sunday School teacher.  That was where Elisabeth first met Carl Sanders, who Elisabeth married nine years later.  Each of them entered school at the Sophomore level that year and Elisabeth went on to become the Salutatorian when they graduated. Upon graduating from high school, Elisabeth earned a teaching certificate and majored in English literature at the University of Texas in Austin.  Her first teaching job was with eleventh grade students at Lutcher Stark High School in Orange, Texas.  

After her first year of teaching, Elisabeth and Carl married in the First Baptist Church in De Leon, Texas, where her parents now lived. Carl had joined the Air Force, went through pilot training and was stationed at Reese Air Force Base near Lubbock, Texas.  In Lubbock, Elisabeth immediately enrolled in graduate school at Texas Technological College, soon earning a master’s degree followed by being hired as an instructor in freshman English.  Interspersed with all this was the birth of their first child, Elissa, on the very date that she was scheduled to have her oral exam, defending her master’s Thesis before English department faculty.  When this exam was rescheduled and she met with the faculty board, they told her that her excuse for missing the earlier oral exam was the flimsiest they had ever heard. After three years in Lubbock, Carl and Elisabeth were transferred to Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, California, where they lived for almost five years.  While there, Elisabeth taught at Sacramento City College, American River Junior College and in public schools.  At American River Junior College, she was under the supervision of a Dean who would later, as the Dean of the English department at the University of Texas at Arlington, hire her to teach there. After almost five years in California, the Air Force transferred the family to Oslo, Norway, where once again, Elisabeth became immediately involved in academia.  She enrolled in graduate school and earned a degree at the University of Oslo, which led to other opportunities.  One of which was an invitation to meet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he was being presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.  This invitation occurred because Elisabeth taught an extension course for the University of Maryland and the local president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, enrolled in her class.  This student-teacher relationship resulted in her invitation to come and meet Dr. King after the Nobel presentation where Dr. King let her hold his Nobel Peace Prize.                

Other places where Elisabeth and her husband lived included Altus, Oklahoma, where she taught English at Western Oklahoma State Junior College for five years.  One of her assignments at Altus were teaching prisoners through one-way television.  One prisoner was a gifted American Indian artist who, in gratitude for Elisabeth’s interest in him and his fellow prisoners, painted and gave her two fine portraits, which she proudly displayed in her home.

After Carl’s retirement from the Air Force, they returned to Fort Worth were Elisabeth, again, began teaching at Fort Worth Country Day.  Upon accumulating twenty-one years of teaching at Country Day, Elisabeth stopped teaching and the two started making frequent trips to De Leon, Texas, where they had married, and began a rural life on weekends on a small farm where she had visited often as a young child.  Elisabeth loved the farm and in a labor of love, kept its grounds in neat and trim conditions, using her lawn mower and our tractor which she loved to drive. To Elisabeth’s way of thinking, A farm is incomplete without horses which were soon acquired horses.  

Elisabeth was actively involved with Fort Worth’s National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, borrowing a friend’s horse to ride in a parade on the day the cornerstone was laid.  After its grand opening, Elisabeth was a museum guide for several years. Notable recognition for Elisabeth included membership in Blue Stockings at the University of Texas, University of Texas graduate with Honors, and selection as Woman of the Year for the American Association of University Women while in Altus, Oklahoma. 

It must not go without mention that the highlight of her experiences was her teaching at Fort Worth Country Day where our three children, Elissa, John and Rebecca all went to school.  After leaving Fort Worth Country Day she was selected   by their alumni association as an Honorary Alumna. 

Elisabeth picked up the nickname of “Tad” by the age of two years. That name, Tad, came from the world-famous Tad Lucas, who was the reigning lady’s world champion trick rider at that time. “Tad” was what Elisabeth was called by her friends from that day until her passing away in the Sunrise Senior Living facility in southwest Fort Worth.

Elisabeth was an eternal optimist who loved life and her fellow beings; one who did not flinch at challenges as they came along and sported a can-do attitude.

Survivors include her husband of 69 years, Carl Sanders, and three children:  Elissa Sanders Eggleston; John Carl Sanders and wife, Gail; Rebecca Sanders Baker and husband, Greg; and grandchildren Michelle Sienna Eggleston and Kristen Elisabeth Eggleston.

Interment will be at the family grave site in the De Leon, Texas, cemetery on Monday, December 22 at 11:30 am. 

Arrangements are through Fort Worth Funerals and Cremations, 817-708-2121

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Elisabeth Anne "Tad" Sanders, please visit our floral store.