Sandra Anne Satterwhite

When Sandra’s name first appeared in “Who’s Who of American Women,” in the early 90s, she had already accomplished more in a few decades than many of us fit into an entire lifetime. Born in August of 1946 to Laura and Robert Johnston in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sandra was the first of six siblings—Barbara, Debbie, Marie, Rob and David. After graduating from Fontbonne Academy as a National Merit Scholar and an active member of clubs and societies, she received a scholarship to Boston University. Life took her in a different direction, though, and she married Francis G. Satterwhite in 1964. Though she divorced some years later, she cherished the two children from her marriage, her son, Greg, and her daughter, Lisa, who would eventually make Sandra a grandmother with the arrival of baby Alexandra Brittany Satterwhite. As a highly independent woman and a fierce supporter of women’s rights, Sandra took the business world by storm, working in newspaper journalism, advertising sales, and publishing. She honed her skills with Dale Carnegie training, winning the coveted “Human Relations Award,” given to the student who “did the most for the class,” in terms of contributing to the learning experience and supporting her fellow students. That is simply who she was.

In the 80s, Sandra was an account manager for Washington Dossier magazine, and was then tapped for the post of associate publisher at Museum and Arts Washington magazine. Not content to work for others, she founded the Satterwhite Group, an advertising agency, after landing plum contracts to fill the phone company’s yellow pages. Very few people could say ‘no’ to Sandra when they met her in person—genuine, enthusiastic, professional, and pretty brilliant. A few years later, her deeply spiritual nature led her to become the director of the foundation created by Elisabeth Kübler Ross (world renowned author of On Death and Dying).

The experience prompted her to honor and nurture her profound love of the written word, and pursue her own spiritual calling. She decided to focus all her efforts on authors and books, and created The Satterwhite Agency to represent writers and their creations. This new endeavor took her fully into the world of authors like James Twyman (whose book Emissaries of Light she sold to Warner Books), and she became acquainted with spiritual teachers such as Neale Donald Walsch, Gregg Braden, Doreen Virtue, and many others. She delighted them as she delighted so many others who were blessed to know her. Though being a literary agent for spiritual books was her specialty, she also represented one author of mystery fiction, her beloved friend and companion, Lauren Maddison.

When Sandra moved to California, she combined her spiritual consciousness with a desire to help people. Her father had owned funeral homes in Massachusetts and served the community as a deeply respected funeral director. Sandra worked first at Westminster Memorial Park, and eventually moved to Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, where she served as a family service counselor until her retirement in 2014. Her files were filled with warm and glowing thank you notes from “her’ families, grateful that she had served them with such love and respect and sensitivity.

Woven through all these endeavors was her own personal and profound spiritual journey. She devoured hundreds of books, studied with teachers like Jean Houston, trained as a Unity Church chaplain, and eventually joined the faculty of the Institute for Spiritual Development at Unity Church. In recent years, she gave presentations based on her pilgrimages through France and England following the history and legends of Mary Magdalene, who represented so powerfully for her the spirit of the Divine Feminine. She loved all things French, and dreamed of making her home there one day. On her desk is a sign that says “It’s always the right time to be in Paris.” During her last trip to France in 2017, she was thrilled to journey again to Chartres Cathedral and walk the labyrinth there laid out on the floor.

There are quite literally hundreds, or thousands, of people who know her name, and remember her with deep and abiding fondness because she suddenly appeared in their lives as a bright, shining light, ready with a smile, filled with compassion and wisdom, possessed of an incredibly sharp wit, an unfailing sense of humor, an unerring desire to see justice done, an encyclopedic memory for events, books, and people, and most of all, they remember her as LOVE appearing on their horizon. Sandra embodied and lived the kind of unconditional love that is loyal, trustworthy, and infinitely kind. She avoided judgments, never gossiped, and kept to the highest standard of the Golden Rule.

We… her family, her friends, the members of her church, The Heartlight Community (of which she was Board President), her social media pals (especially the ladies of French Kiss Life), mourn her passing with wrenched and tattered hearts, but also with a deep sense of gratitude that this extraordinary being has passed through our lives and left such a legacy. She was a gift to us from the universe, one we can keep, even though her shining soul has moved on to her next great adventure.