Sandra L. Fox

Sandra L. Fox, 73, of Highlands Ranch, formerly of Columbine, passed away peacefully, Thursday, October 18, 2007. A memorial service will be held, Wednesday, October 24, at 10:00 AM at Horan & McConaty Funeral Home, 3101 South Wadsworth Boulevard, Lakewood, Colorado 80227. Burial will follow at 11:30 AM at Fort Logan National Cemetery in staging area ""B"". Family request memorials to be made to Denver Indian Health and Family Services at 1633 Filmore Sreet Suite GL1, Denver, Colorado 80206. You are invited to sign a guestbook at horanfuneral.com. Sandie was born in Goodland, Kansas on a beautiful spring day, April 11, 1934. She was the first child of Lewis and Sarah Clark; Sarah whose mother had migrated to Goodland from a tobacco farm in Kentucky and Lewie whose parents had migrated from a wheat farm in nearby Nebraska. Another member, Annette, was added to the family a couple of years later. Sandie attended school in Goodland where she did early duty as a high school mascot and later was a member of the band. She was an active member of many clubs and participated in many extracurricular activities. Even at that early age she loved horses and spent many conniving days getting to ride with her many farm friends around Goodland. When she graduated from Sherman County High School in 1952, she attended a business school in Omaha, Nebraska. After completion of her courses there, she found a job in Washington, D.C. working for the Navy Bureau of Ships. This was the proverbially small town Kansas girl arriving in the big city. She did fine here for a few months until she suffered a mild concussion playing softball for the Bureau of Ships' team, known as the BuShips. She returned to Goodland and then went to Denver and started working for a bank in downtown Denver, which is now the Broker Restaurant on 17th St.. This is where she met the guy who was to become her life mate. She met Norm on a blind date at the Santa Anita Lounge across from Centennial Racetrack (now long gone). Norm had been transferred to Lowry AFB from Stephenville, Newfoundland and had never been west of Pennsylvania. Norm was raised on a dairy farm in upstate New York and was a red neck hillbilly thru and thru. They often joked about the fact that Sandie, a jazz lover from the word go, had married a country music lover from upstate New York. However it was almost one of those 'love at first sight' things, even though Norm got a speeding ticket going thru Cherry Hills that first night, after dancing the night away and heading up East Colfax to Jerry's Pizza. After a long and involved courtship of 5 weeks and 6 days, Norm & Sandie were married in Perryville, MD on November 15, 1954. Perryville is near Bainbridge where Annette and her husband were stationed at the time. Sandie and the GI Bill proceeded to help Norm thru school. By that time he had realized there was a lot easier ways to make a living than being a slave to milking cows twice a day and getting up way before dawn, so he studied electrical engineering at Colorado University. In 1957, Sandie got pregnant with their first son and Norm had to get a better job than his part time job at a hardware store. Glenn L. Martin Co. (later Martin Marietta) was just starting operations in Denver so Norm applied and was a live body to fill a Junior Draftsman job at the princely sum of 1.82/hr. He had intended to work the summer and go back to school full time in the fall of 1957, but found the job so interesting he decided to attend college part time and work in the Aerospace industry full time. This decision, in 1957, set the course for Sandie's interesting and full life for the next 50 years. During the ensuing years Sandie had 4 children, all boys. A tragic accident in 1962 took the life of Mitchell, an infant son. The other 3 boys went thru the usual boyhood trials and tribulations and Sandie steered them on a course that got them thru that growing up stage and turned them into upstanding adults. Sandie worked intermittently during the boyhood years of her sons, breaking into the guy world in a humorous manner. When the older boys were little more than babies the family decided to try camping. Sandie had never really camped as a girl, but was intrigued as she always was by a chance at new adventures. We had a big old umbrella tent that took an hour to assemble and the usual camping equipment sparsely gathered for a first trip. We went to Maroon Bells campground near Aspen on Memorial Day weekend to set up camp and all went well until about 7:00 PM when the snow started falling. It was a wet heavy snow and large globs kept plopping on the tent all night. Sandie cooked dinner in the tent that evening with 2 babies and a chagrined husband hanging around. The following morning we broke camp and hauled back to Denver with a soaking wet tent and two very tired people. I thought that was the end of our camping careers, but Sandie, trooper that she was, decided this was a non-experience and it could only get better. We went out and bought a tent trailer shortly after that and spent 40 glorious years camping and exploring western history in pop up trailers and a four-wheel drive vehicle. Sandie learned to love the weekends and vacations camping and looked forward to each new adventure. In 1972 Norm & the family transferred to Cape Canaveral to support the Viking and Voyager launch programs. They moved to Satellite Beach where the two oldest boys graduated from high school. During this time Sandie got the urge to go back to school at 42 years old. She graduated with an Associate Degree in 1976. In the meantime Norm got transferred TDY to California to work on the Space Shuttle Program. Sandie ended up graduating and doing her internship at a psychiatric facility in California. She, like the lady she was, took it all in stride and made it happen. We moved back to Denver in 1979 and she decided to pursue her bachelor's degree at Metro State College. This turned out to be a major influence on the rest of her life. While at Metro, she did an internship at a place called Eagle Lodge. It was a live- in facility for American Indians who were in drug and alcohol treatment. She became so passionately concerned with the Indians drug and alcohol problems that she decided to make that her mission in life. After she graduated from Metro, she stayed and worked at Eagle Lodge for the next 20 years, helping them rehabilitate their Indian clientele and further, starting an extensive outpatient program which was an innovative program at the time. She loved her work at Eagle Lodge and made innumerable friends, both clients and staff members. Many talented Indian artists passed thru the program. They always knew Sandie was interested in their art and would purchase a painting with enthusiasm. It prompted me one time to jokingly tell her that it was a good thing I had a good job so I could support her job. She loved the Indian lore and spirituality, sweat lodges, ceremonies and customs and could really communicate with her clients. She improved the lives of many, many Indians throughout her career and has kept in contact with many of her successes and even some that failed. All who crossed her path loved her. Sandie and Norm retired in 1993 and took up traveling. First it was in the old tent trailer and later a big fifth wheel RV and diesel truck. They traveled all over the continental U.S., most of the Canadian provinces (including the maritime provinces) and northern Mexico and experienced hundreds of exciting adventures, all of which Sandie loved to recite and relive over and over. In 2006, Sandie's health had deteriorated after 2 knee replacements and a lung condition that finally put her on Oxygen full time. That slowed her down a little, but did not stop her determination to lead a full life, which she did right up to the end. In June we moved to a retirement community that is full of active and interested seniors. She mmediately got involved in art, water aerobics, and a myriad of other activities, not the least of which was the Ladies' Wednesday Night Poker Club. She was very active and involved right up to the time when the terrible disease took her life. It can never take away the spirit and enthusiasm she left behind for her many friends and family. Sandie left us and went her spiritual way at 5:30 AM on June 18th, 2007 and she is oh so sorely missed. She is survived by her husband Norman H. Fox, Jr.; her three sons Rick and Aurora Fox, Randy Fox, and Russel and Meghan Fox; four grandchildren; and sister Annette Ball.