Virginia Flack Sanders

Born in Oklahoma City to Dr. William Dicken and Bertha Smith Dicken, Virginia became a seasoned traveler before she was 10, as her parents moved through Colorado, Arizona and California to find a climate healthier for her father's asthma. They finally settled in Monrovia, in the foothills of the Sierra Madres, and remained there until Dr. Dicken's death in 1924.

When her mother decided to return to Oklahoma City the next summer, 14-year-old Virginia got a drivers' license, and drove the family in their little Chandler automobile back across the desert. Much later, recalling the journey, she described leading a line of cars across a muddy river where the bridge had washed out I said 'if anybody can do it, I can.'

That can-do attitude only got stronger as Virginia grew through high school in Oklahoma City, a year at Miss Mason's School in New York. a year in the drama department of Northwestern University, and then finishing her Fine Arts degree in 1933 at Oklahoma University where she met the first great love of her life, Walter Flack, on a blind date set up by an Alpha Phi sorority sister. She married Walter and they moved to Tulsa, where their daughter Martha was born. During this time of the Depression, Virginia became a radio personality reading the Sunday comics. With her natural wit and cheerful charm she lifted the spirits with the multiple voices of funny paper characters.

In 1937, the Slick Oil Company moved the little family to San Antonio, where they settled down for good. They bought their first home here. Walter opened his own accounting firm, and sons Dicken and David were born.

While raising her young family, Virginia also found creative artistic outlets in San Antonio. In a time before television became a widespread entertainment, she shared her lifetime love of drama, speech and literature by writing and performing one-woman shows drawn from popular books and musical theater for many San Antonio audiences. Over the years she performed more than 30 book and play reviews often in costumes reflecting the main characters.

In 1949, Virginia and Walter joined a small group of friends from First Baptist Church to found a new church they called Trinity Baptist Church. Meeting first in a tiny school house, then in a little building on Broadway, they found a larger property on Mulberry where the present church stands.

Virginia taught Sunday School for 20 years and Walter served on the Board of Deacons and the Financial Committee until his death in 1975. The dedicated couple were married 43 glorious years. That same year, a Time Magazine story called Trinity Baptist the fastest growing church in America.

While the church and her family were Virginia's heart and joy, her creative energy found even more outlets. She took up oil painting, producing many beautiful portraits and landscapes, played the organ, read ceaselessly and still found time to devote to her beloved children, grandchildren and countless friends. One of those friends, Tug Sanders, became her second husband in 1977. They shared 20 years together, filled with church activities, travel, and shared friends and family. Tug passed away in 1997.

Virginia's deep faith in God sustained her when her son Dicken, plagued by serious health problems all his life, died in 2001. She was always a vital part of the lives of her other children, as well both David Flack, who still lives in San Antonio with his wife, Diane, and Martha Buchanan, who lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Jose Pepe Lucero. Virginia took great joy in her grandchildren, Brittan Buchanan and Lia Lucero and their families, and her four precious great-grandchildren, Bennett and Bridget Buchanan and Virginia and Cecilia Smith.

Even in her 90's, Virginia remained a creative, committed contributor to the most important things in her life family, friends and faith, and she was blessed with the health and energy to enjoy them to the fullest. This year she made more new friends at The Forum at Lincoln Heights where she earned a reputation as a crack bridge player and a witty companion. Her intense interest in current events and the well-being of our world was constant and determined. When her health took a turn for the worse in recent weeks, she cast her last vote in a presidential election by absentee ballot from her hospital room for Barack Obama.

For 97 years, Virginia Flack Sanders shared her joy and appreciation of life with all who knew her. She will be sorely missed and she will never be forgotten. Her example of a generous life well lived will continue to enrich the minds and spirits of all who knew her. She bequeaths to us unconditional love and caring the hallmark of her lifetime.