Sarah Barbee Hanner

Sarah Barbee Hanner, died peacefully at home on August 14, 2020. She was 91 and had enjoyed a lifelong and distinguished career in North Carolina state government, serving in the administrations of two governors and one lieutenant governor, as well as in a policy and advisory capacity for the North Carolina Supreme Court and the state General Assembly.

Born Sarah Gatling Barbee on June 28,1929 in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the daughter of Claudius Barclay Barbee, Jr. and Sarah Gatling Barbee. She was also a descendant of Christopher Barbee II (1761-1792), who was a major land donor for the founding of the University of North Carolina. Other prominent ancestors included Benjamin Figures Moore (1801-1878), a North Carolina state Attorney General who practiced extensively before the U.S. Supreme Court; and Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903), an inventor and medical doctor best known for creating the first successful machine gun.

Having lost both parents by age 14, Sarah went to live with her aunt Katie Barbee Hart in Tarboro, North Carolina. She was graduated from St. Mary’s School in Raleigh, North Carolina, and from the University of North Carolina, where she was also a member of the Chi Omega sorority.

Of a generation where working women were not the norm, Sarah became a dedicated career woman whose communication and interpersonal skills were sought after by the state’s most senior political figures, including, successively, North Carolina Governor Dan K. Moore, Lieutenant Governor James C. “Jimmy” Green, and Governor James G. Martin, for whom she served as Director of Citizen Affairs, retiring thereafter.

A passionate gardener with a photographic memory, she could reel off the Latin botanical names of plants with a facility matched only by that with which she grew them. A crack bridge player and crossword-jigsaw-sudoku puzzler, she skillfully wielded cards and clues into her ninetieth year. She was an avid reader and also loved to travel. On a few occasions she memorably accompanied her aunt Louis Gatling White to England to visit her aunt’s dear friend and fellow horse enthusiast, the late Henry “Porchey” Herbert, 7th Earl of Carnarvon and Queen Elizabeth’s longtime racing manager. The Carnarvon family home where they visited was and is Highclere Castle, now known to many as the fictional Downton Abbey.

Sarah did not have children but was a devoted mother to a succession of dogs and the occasional cat. The dogs, consistently small but mightily vocal, were invariably commanded by Sarah to “put a sock in it,” which they invariably ignored. In the human realm, however, she did not suffer fools. Sarah was known and loved for her wicked sense of humor, given to sarcasm but never unkind. Near the end of her life, when a friend tenderly took Sarah’s hand to assure her she was praying for her, Sarah drawled, “It’ll take more than that.”

Sarah is survived by first cousin Irene Banning Gatling, niece Sarah Barbee Scott, nephews Claude Barclay Barbee IV and Arthur S. Barbee, and various cousins. Her brother, Claude Barclay Barbee III, and her former husband, John C. Hanner preceded her in death. A goddaughter, Frances Schultz Dittmer, and her sister Duvall Schultz Fuqua, were also as family to her.

In Sarah’s memory the family asks for donations to Saving Grace Animals for Adoption, 13400 Old Creedmoor Road, Wake Forest NC, 27587, www.savinggracenc.org, or to a charity of choice.

A memorial in Sarah’s honor will take place at a later date.

Arrangements by Brown-Wynne, 300 Saint Mary's Street, Raleigh.