Sarah's life celebration will be at the Antlers High School auditorium on Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 2:00 PM. Casual dress is preferred. Everyone who would like to share in this celebration is invited. 

Sarah's Song

Sarah loved birds, the outdoors, road trips, grandkids, Christmas stockings, reading, adventure, the St. Louis Cardinals, Europe, the California coast, Oregon, Santa Fe, dessert, kissing, memories, helping others, movies, dancing (Jim never learned), men, music, walking, and LIFE.

Sarah Ellen Mitchell was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma but grew up mostly in Anadarko, Oklahoma where she graduated from high school in 1967. Sarah says that she was a quiet child who loved to read and retreat to a fantasy world with her imaginary friend, Twinkie Jo. As a young teenager, Sarah felt unattractive and less than her peers. By the time she graduated, she had become a pretty, vivacious young woman.

Sarah began college in the fall of 1967 at Oklahoma Christian College in Oklahoma City.  Within a short time, she met Jim and their lives were changed forever. Within two weeks, they fell madly in love, decided to get married and for Sarah to postpone her education. They married March 23, 1968, and the next seven years brought Jimmy, Mary, Sally, and Laura into their lives.

Sarah wanted nothing more than to be a full-time wife and mother, and in that role, she excelled. She had an unlimited capacity to nurture, teach, guide, and shape her children. This love-work of Sarah’s life lasted for about twenty years, in which time she also became a second “mom” to so many of her children’s friends.

When Sally and Laura were in junior high, Sarah decided to resume her education, and in 1994 she graduated from SOSU with a Masters in Counseling. After working for a period of time for others, Sarah started her own company that provided mental health services. This company assisted thousands of individuals and families to better their lives.

In 2008, the business sold and Sarah retired to a life of travel and grandmothering her five grandchildren, Hannah, Silas, Malia, Elijah, and AJ. She considered her role of Dibby (grandmother) her most important one. For the next nine years, these children were her joys. In 2009, Sarah was joined by an unwanted visitor who stayed with her the rest of her life, an anaplastic astrocytoma. For the next eight years, radiation and chemo became part of her life.

Those years of Sarah’s life were remarkable. Even as she lost physical and mental abilities, she remained positive, never showing anger or frustration. She was resolute in enjoying and being grateful for what abilities remained, not focused on what she had lost. After losing nearly all communication between her brain and body, Sarah acquiesced to death with her family around her.