Diane Sanders Obituary

Diane Sanders passed away unexpectedly but peacefully on December 26, 2024 in Salt Lake City, Utah while visiting her son Dr. Karl Sanders and his family. Diane is survived by Karl, his wife Dr. Natalie Sanders, their daughter Ruby and son Travis, and Karl's son Sam Lawlor Sanders. Diane is also survived by her son Curtis Sanders of Aspen, Colorado and his wife Catherine, their daughter Lily Louise, and their son Edward, as well as Diane's nephew David Sanders of Kirkwood, Missouri, his wife Su and son John Alan, and Diane's niece Susan Bridwell of Fernandina Beach, Florida, and husband Craig, and daughters Karissa and Jenny. Diane was preceded in death by her parents, brother, and her husband, Dr. Jean Alan Sanders.

Diane was born May 11, 1936 in Wichita, Kansas. Diane was the daughter of S.T. ("Shack") Sandberg, the son of Swedish immigrants and originally of Denver, Colorado, and Florence Louise ("Tiss") Clarke of Centerville, Iowa. Tiss was one of five daughters of Joe Clarke, who was from a family of English immigrants, and who owned and operated a coalmine in Centerville. Starting in 1928, Shack worked at the Wichita Eagle until his retirement in 1973, when he and Tiss moved to Lawrence to be near Alan, Diane, and their young sons. Diane was the younger sister of Joseph Theodore Sandberg, her loving but sometimes diabolical older brother, and whose wife Sue became the sister that Diane had always longed for.

Although Shack and Tiss's move to Wichita in 1928 took them away from their respective close-knit families, Diane and Ted spent many vacations and holidays in Colorado and Iowa with their extended families. Diane remained close to both of her extended families all of her life, passing along her love and appreciation of family to both of her sons, and always spending Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with one of the extended families.

Growing up in depression and World War II-era Wichita made Diane humble, tough, and thrifty. The family's modest home at 418 South Hillside only had two bedrooms. When Diane and Ted became too old to share a bedroom, Shack and Tiss slept on a pull-out sofa bed in the living room each night so that Diane and Ted could each have their own bedrooms. During and shortly after the war, most luxuries, and some essentials, were rationed and could only be purchased with coupons saved up over many months. One of Diane's Christmas memories as a small girl was of Tiss saving sugar coupons for nearly all of 1946 so that she could make a sugary confection called "divinity". The divinity was to be the crown jewel of the holiday treats for the 1946 family Christmas get-together in Iowa. The coupons were saved up, the sugar was purchased, and the divinity was made. The family packed up and left Wichita for the long drive to Iowa. When the family stopped along the way and left their dog in the car, it provided the perfect opportunity for the perfect crime. The dog helped himself to an early Christmas present by eating the divinity. Although this episode of family lore was nearly unbearable for Tiss, the coup de grace came when after the family got back on the road and the dog vomited all of the divinity in Ted's lap, where it mostly remained for the remainder of the trip north.

However, the most lasting impact of all the hardship, saving and scrimping of Diane's early childhood was her pathological need as an adult to keep leftovers in a cryogenic state of suspended animation for years, and her inability to throw away free pens, wet naps, Kleenex, plastic bags, twisties and plastic containers.

As a young girl, Diane was an exceptional student, and although she did not have the means to attend the elite colleges that she dreamed of as a girl and could have attended, in 1954 she took the train from Wichita to Lawrence and moved into the Sellards Scholarship Hall at the University of Kansas (also, an elite college). Diane graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bacteriology in 1958 and a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Medical Technology in 1959 with an eye on a career in laboratory medicine or research. While attending KU, Diane was introduced to a first-year medical student named Alan Sanders. Diane and Alan were married in 1958, and after graduation, Diane and Alan moved to Kansas City so that Diane could help support Alan with work and Alan could complete medical school. Alan and Diane then moved on to Wichita where Alan completed his residency in 1965.

With the birth of Karl in 1962, Diane set aside her career ambitions and became a full-time mother, a role which she kept even after both her boys had moved on and had children of their own. When Diane and Alan settled in Lawrence in 1965, just two weeks the birth of second son Curtis, Diane finally established the happy, meaningful, and good life that she would live for the next 59 years, first at 2309 Princeton Drive and then at 2820 Tomahawk Drive. Both homes were happy and loving and had large flower and vegetable gardens. Gardening was always Diane's greatest pleasure. Diane and Alan joined Plymouth Congregational Church as soon as they moved to Lawrence, which soon became foundational to both of their lives.

If Diane wasn't at home running the show, cooking the meals, and keeping her sons on the straight and narrow (no motorcycles, no unsupervised swimming in friends' pools, but a blind-spot for 3.2% beer), then she was either volunteering somewhere for somebody, or she was participating in one of her numerous clubs. Diane's volunteerism started with a 1970 UNICEF Halloween trick or treating outing (much to the irritation of her sons), and continued with such diverse activities and organizations as Audio Reader, Visiting Nurses, Sunday school teacher, Good Cheer, Cub Scouts den mother, Lawrence Arts Commission, PTA President, Kansas Medical Society Auxiliary President, Bert Nash Community Health Center, LMH Health, ""plant lady"" for Deerfield Elementary School, coordinating the Plymouth plant sale, Justice Matters, and beginning in 1976, a Meals on Wheels volunteer for over 40 years. Diane's usual delivery day was Thursday, which would naturally include making the rounds on Thanksgiving with Karl, Curtis and nephew David brought along for good measure.

Diane's club activities included Prairie Acres Garden Club, P.E.O., Ventura, numerous quilting groups, and the Dow Janes investment club which provided a pretty good ROI over the years and some fun trips to various annual shareholders' meetings, including a Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha.

Diane's friendly and outgoing nature were her most enduring attributes. If she had help with the housework, the ""cleaning lady"" very quickly became just another friend and part of the family. When she met a married Lebanese couple named Jacob and Armine at a garage sale, Diane brought both of them home so she could also give them a dinner table, chairs and some rugs. Alan eventually hired Armine to work at Lawrence Clinical Laboratory, and both couples remained good friends for years, even after Jacob and Armine moved far away from Lawrence.

Diane was a devoted mother to both her sons, and while she spoiled them, it was with love and attention. Diane never missed an opportunity to either remove an obstacle or metaphorically open a door for both boys, including lining up jobs, occasionally chewing out teachers, and acting as driver to music lessons, sports practices and anything else that came up. Her desire to help both boys was shameless, including successfully hitting up her neighbor John Kieffer for stage-front Bruce Springsteen tickets in 1981.

After both boys left home for college, Diane and Alan became hosts for numerous KU foreign exchange students. As hosts, Diane and Alan didn't simply take their host student out for a couple dinners; rather, the student became a de facto member of the family, to be included at Thanksgiving dinners, brought along on family vacations, and to be kept in touch with by handwritten letters, emails, phone calls and birthday cards. Until the end of her life, Diane remained friends with French foreign exchange student Delphine Clery, due in part to Diane's previously having assisted with the birth of Delphine's son Adam at LMH.

During the years after the boys left home, Diane and Alan also had many good years and excellent adventures, including numerous trips around the world with good friends, taking foreign language classes, taking religious studies classes, and many tandem bicycle trips, including a trip across Iowa for the RAGBRAI. As Diane and Alan began to see the world through the eyes of their grandchildren, they became increasingly interested in social issues, including global warming, social justice, religious freedom and most importantly to Diane, helping with Plymouth Congregational Church's adoption of its groundbreaking open and affirming policy of inclusion.

After Alan passed away in 2021, Diane was able to remain in her beloved home with the help of family, her neighbors Becky and John McClure, Cris and Murray Rennick, and her caregiver and companion Angela Signor. Without the love and friendship of these people, her family, and so many others, Diane would not have had the opportunity to continue to live her best life at home, which included gardening, birdwatching (and squirrel-shooting) from her kitchen table, practicing her mandolin, playing piano, visiting with friends, listening to John Denver, having a sip of Moscato now and then, and reading. A lot. Diane was a prolific maker of lists, one of which included an inventory of the more than one hundred books that she had read just since 2020. This eclectic list reflects Diane's intellectual curiosity, open-mindedness, and diverse tastes, and included the following, all of which are commended to the reader:.

My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand,
American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
West of the Pecos by Zane Grey
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived by Ralph Helfer
The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein

Mere words cannot do justice to an entire life. But hopefully for those who knew and were touched by Diane, these words can help them personally recall a funny event or conversation, or an act of kindness shared with Diane. For those who never had the pleasure of knowing Diane, hopefully these words at least give a small glimpse into her life and the impact that she had on all of the people whose lives were touched by her.

A celebration of Diane's life is scheduled for 2:00 P.M, Saturday, June 14, 2025 at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont Street, Lawrence, Kansas 66044. A reception with light refreshments will follow at 3:30 P.M. at Arterra Events Center, 2161 Quail Creek Drive, Lawrence, Kansas 66047.

Persons desiring to make gifts in Diane's memory are encouraged to consider the following:

Plymouth Plant Sale, with all proceeds to support Plymouth missions (https://www.plymouthlawrence.com/give-online)
Monarch Watch (https://monarchwatch.org/donate/)
National Audubon Society (https://www.audubon.org/)