Louis Leroy Sadler

Our wonderful father, Louis Leroy Sadler, finally shook off his worn out 94 year old body and rose to join the love of his life, Gladus M Sadler who passed on in 2010. He pressed on because he didn’t want to leave” his girls” but life wasn’t the same after that. He left behind three daughters whom he continued to tell how to drive and where to turn until very recently. He grew up in poverty in the Great Depression with an absent father and a mother who tried her best but there never was enough to go around. He had experience in shooting rabbits for supper and scrounging food. He did manage to finish high school in McCune, Kansas. This life taught him several valuable lessons which he passed on to his daughters such as how to manage money and not think we’re better than the less fortunate.

Like many of his era, the advent of World War II enabled him to have a chance to achieve his potential. In January 1942 they put him on a troop train in Kansas and three days later he found himself in Miami Florida for basic training where the locals were complaining about the 60 degree cold spell. He later applied for and was accepted as a pilot candidate in the Army Air Corp. He was sent to Knoxville, TN, for some college courses. Upon return he came down with tonsillitis which put him in the hospital and caused a delay in training. This seemed like a bad thing at the time but was one of those turning points we don’t see until later. He placed a long distance call to a girl he had met in Knoxville and talked overtime. The Southern Bell operator came on and told him to deposit x amount of money. He started flirting with the operator who tried to maintain her professionalism. She finally felt sorry for the guy stuck in the hospital and gave him the break room phone number. They talked for 3 weeks before she ever agreed to meet him. That Southern Bell operator was of course our mother. They married the next year in Harlingen, Texas, on January 20, 1945, where he was receiving training on the B-24. At the completion of that training, he was due to be shipped out to the Asian theater but fortunately for us, the war ended in August.

Dad stayed on in the service for another year in Walla Walla, Washington. After that he tried to stay in flying by taking whatever pilot jobs he could find. Our favorite story is when he was hired to fly a “Bamboo Bomber” to Rio de Janeiro while the company owner and another pilot flew a second plane. Dad managed to land where he was supposed to but the other pilot got lost and landed on a beach somewhere. After the men reconnected the owner said he was going to have to destroy the plane if it couldn’t be removed. Dad looked over the hard-packed beach and walked off the distance between the tree line and the water. He said “I think I can fly this thing off”, and so he did. He received a $200 bonus for his effort. Eventually though, the flying jobs ran out and he took a job as a Greyhound bus driver for several years, moving the family to Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

He was recalled as an instructor pilot at Vance AFB, in Enid, in the Korean War. It was in Enid in the summer of 1954 when neither homes nor offices had air conditioning. Dad would come home in the evening and after supper lay outside in the dark on his army cot to cool off. Sometimes his 4 year old daughter was allowed to join him. Then began the Legend of the Broken Moon. When the moon was at half or a quarter he would point out to Janis that the moon was broken. However, he would assure her that soon he would have a night mission where he would fly up and fix the moon. Sure enough a couple weeks later they went outside and he showed her the moon. Sure enough it was full and round. Dad managed to perpetuate this myth through 4 girls' childhoods. We never caught on.

After that he found an instructor job at Malden AFB, in Missouri for 3 years. Sensing that base would close he applied for and was accepted in the new civil service position of “air reserve technician” at Tinker AFB. He started out flying the C-119 “Boxcars” dropping paratroopers during active duty. Those planes were later phased out and replaced by the C-124 Globemaster, a big 4-engine giant nicknamed “Old Shakey”. So while the older daughters grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Enid and Dexter, MO, the last daughter was born in Midwest City where the Sadlers lived since 1959.

While we were growing up, our father was unreasonably strict in our opinion. We had to do things like wash our faces and brush our hair and teeth each morning before we came to the table. We had to learn bike safety, obey curfews, be respectful of our elders, do our homework and stuff like that. And the answer to “why” was always “because I said so”. There was no pitting one parent against the other, either. Somehow in spite of this all his daughters turned out well. All went to college and all had careers that surprisingly had something to do with airplanes. Amazingly once we were grown, he mellowed out and became known for his sense of humor. One time he even donned Mother’s wig, raccoon coat and red lipstick to go play a trick on his best friend, a neighbor 2 doors down. His hobbies were boating and fishing and he water-skied up to age 81. He, along with mother, enjoyed their church life at Country Estates Baptist church where he liked being on the money counting committee. He usually made the coffee and brought the donuts.

Speaking of Mom, she knew how to make her husband feel appreciated. From an early age she taught us to run for the front door to greet dad immediately on hearing the key turn. We all raced to get the “first kiss”. It didn’t matter how old we got or who was visiting. We threw down whatever we were doing, jumped up and raced to the front door, sliding around corners, arms flailing for balance, yelling “first kiss! First kiss!”. Friends were in disbelief.

It was on a family trip to Europe in 1988 that the oldest daughter made a serious mistake. On a monument outside the Palace of Versailles she read "Louis le Roi". "Dad," come look! This is what your name means in French! Louis, the King!" Well, from then on, but especially the last 5 years, whenever we daughters tried to get him to do something we wanted him to do for his health or safety that he didn't want to do, he'd always say "I don't have to! I'm the Dad, I'm the Boss and I'm still the KING!"

Sadly, one of his daughters, Bonnie Sue Sadler was killed in a freak accident in her 21st year while away at college. It was the first time we ever saw our father cry. Our comfort was Jesus and we know he is already united with his beloved Bonnie. Louis is preceded in death by his parents; wife, Gladus Sadler; daughter, Bonnie Sadler; and 9 siblings. Survivors include his daughters, Janis Baldwin, Nancy Daubert, and Kathy McDonald; grandchildren, Just Mears, Amberly Thompson, Christine Taylor, Raquel Daubert, Fiona McDonald, and Alex McDonald; and numerous great-grandchildren, nieces, and nephews who will miss him dearly. A funeral service will be held Monday, March 27, 2017 at Country Estates Baptist Church with interment to follow at Arlington Memory Gardens.

Arrangements under the direction of Bill Eisenhour Funeral Home, Oklahoma City, OK. (scroll for more)

Dad wrote his own obituary but we could not find it before the funeral. Nancy finally found it misfiled in an unrelated folder. So this is Dad's 2 cents worth:

Louis L. Sadler passed away at his home in Midwest City, OK on August 29, 2022 at the age of 100. Roy, or as he was later know as Lou, was born on August 29, 1922, in McCune, KS, to his parents, Carl B and Bertha M Sadler. He completed the first 3 grades of school at McCune, grade 4 through 10 at Parsons, KS, and grades 11 & 12 at McCune. He graduated from the 12th grade in the class of 1940. After working for the Fram Corp in Ann Arbor, MI, for 2 years, Lou entered the US Army at Ft Leavenworth, KS in January 1943. After serving at several bases, including Army Air Corp pilot training in Stuttgard, AR he graduated on December 23, 1944 with the class of 44-J. During Primary Flight Training at Decatur, AL, in early 1944, Lou met the love of his life, Miss Gladus M. Wiggins and they were married January 20, 1945, on Harlingen Army Air Field, TX, while he was undergoing B-24 co-pilot training. He completed his WW-II service in Walla Walla, WA, where he was undergoing combat crew training in the B-24. The war ended in August, 1945, and he was unable to participate in the Pacific campaign.

After the war, Lou & Gladus moved to Coffeyville, KS, where Lou earned his CAA (now FAA) Flight Instructor Certificate so he could instruct students on the GI Bill. In November, 1947, Lou decided to leave flying for a while and he accepted a job as a Greyhound bus driver in Tulsa, OK. In may 1951, he was recalled into the USAF at Vance AFB, OK, for 2 years for the Korean war. He returned to Greyhound but after a near head-on collision with an 18 wheeler near Sayre, OK, on old 2-land US 66, Lou decided bus driving was too dangerous and he returned to flying.

Lou & Gladus and their 2 girls moved to SE Missouri where Lou instructed in the Air Force Contract School at Malden, MO. Three years later, in 1959, the family moved to Midwest City where Lou began his career as an Air Reserve Technician in the Air Force Reserve. During the next 13 years, he flew the C-119 Boxcar and the C-124 Globemaster II. He flew the "124" for 11 years and accumulated over 6000 hours on flights to Vietnam and other world wide spots. In 1972, Lou transferred to the FAA and was based at both Wiley Post Airport and the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center. He retired from the Air Force Reserve on August 29, 1982 and from the FAA on Jan 3, 1984.

Since then they have spent many days travelling to visit friends and relatives. They especially enjoyed visiting their daughter and son-in-law in Byron, GA, and daughter & son-in-law in Houston and Merritt Island, FL. Many happy hours were spent on the beautiful Oklahoma lakes with their daughter and son-in-law in Oklahoma. Lou accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior while living in Dexter, MO, in the same service that his daughter, Janis, did. He has been a faithful member of Country Estates Baptist Church in Midwest City since 1959.

(The remainder is the list of survivors which is in the published obituary. We wish Dad had been able to live to be 100 in a healthy body but we are so thankful to have had him as long as we did!)