Remembering her today on her 105th birthday, here’s another side of our mom.

In an interview with her longtime neighbor Alice Colby, she reflected on a memory from the Shanghai-American School, the boarding school that she and her two sisters attended for high school, far from their family’s home near Fuzhou, China:

“My sister, Frances, got the cup for “All-Around Girl” in the senior class, meaning they were good at sports and their grades and extracurricular activities and things. And so she got the prize, and four years later, I got the prize, and the next year, my younger sister got the prize. So there was something about the way our parents raised us that we wanted to be interested in sports. You know, I was a good hockey player and stuff. And Fran and Betty were really good tennis players and Betty was a good basketball player, but in any case, we all got the cup. And then when I went to Yenching University, the next year, they awarded me a little cup also as being the all-around freshman girl.When you’re shy and you’re not sure of yourself, when you get that… [it’s] confirmation that you’re OK.”

We never saw her play field hockey, but she was by far the best swimmer in the family. On our childhood family trips to one lake or another, she was the one who would strike out across the lake and back. She also absolutely loved serene canoeing on a lake or stream. She kept swimming into her retirement, adjusting her strokes when her shoulder started acting up. 

What undoubtedly kept her in shape to live almost to 105 was that she walked everywhere. When we were in elementary school, she  toted what we called her “big black bag,” which is where the children’s books would go that she chose and lugged home for us from almost every NY Public Library branch that she’d pass.  Until around age 90,  she walked all over and climbed the stairs of the subway when she had to go downtown. But what’s more, whenever we were walking somewhere as a group, she and whoever she was talking to would invariably be far ahead of the pack because, even in her eighties, her normal pace was so fast.

In her last years, she had to use a wheelchair rather than walking. Eventually, physical activity became too difficult, and she didn’t push it. But she always enjoyed a game of balloon volleyball. Even in her bed last year, she’d get a gleam in her eye and a smile on her face as she tried to volley the balloon, with one of us or an aide, for as long as possible without the balloon hitting the ground

Sandy was a loving mother and grandmother, smart and active in the world. Nutey and I got to know her through Paul who was the best gift that she could have given us.

Joe

My mom enjoyed telling the story of how the change in her identity from "Ethel Beach" to "Sandy Beach" happened. Her wonderful longtime neighbor Alice Colby interviewed Sandy for a graduate school project in 2010 and captured the story as follows:

"I had had my first year of college in Beijing…and when I came home, my older sister, Frances, was counselor at a camp up in New Hampshire and we were sitting on a rock at sunset looking out over the lake and I was saying, I wanted so much to have a nickname, I never did like the name, Ethel. And Fran said, “Oh, [when] you go to Oberlin, you just tell them that your name is Robin, or Bobbie, or something,” and I said, “No, you can’t do that, you have to be given nicknames by someone else.” And so anyhow, I got to Oberlin and sitting at the house matron’s table at lunch one day—this was a little, elderly lady with silvery white hair done up in a bun on her top with pince-nez and she says, “Girls, last night, I had a lovely idea about a nickname for Ethel. Didn’t I, George?” and she poked her husband and he said, “Yes.” So she said, “In the middle of the night, I thought, we should call her, Sandy Beach. Do you get it, girls? Sandy Beach.” And I was so embarrassed, ‘cause I never felt good about being the center of attention. Anyhow, I was also elated and everybody thought it was a great idea. And so I use the name all the time, you know, in my work. It felt more accepted, somehow, having a nickname."