Elizabeth “Bet” Sanders Smith, of Saratoga Springs, passed away on January 7 at the age of 107.
According to her obituary, she was born in Syracuse on June 26, 1916, and graduated from Central High School. She attended Syracuse University.
On Oct. 27, 1941, she married Walter Snowden Smith in Salt Lake City, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot, who would lose his leg at Pearl Harbor. Sanders Smith went to San Francisco to be help him recover for two years at Letterman General Hospital.
(Former syracuse.com | Post Standard columnist Sean Kirst wrote of the couple’s wartime experiences in 2011.)
At the same time, she earned her pilot’s license, a “true rarity for a woman in the 1940s” her obituary said.
After World War II, she raised her family in Manlius, including three children, and was active in the Syracuse community. She was president of the city’s Junior League.
Sanders Smith always understood the importance physical fitness and loved horseback riding, tennis, and alpine skiing. She was a founding member of the Cazenovia Ski Club and kayaked into her 90s.
She later moved to Victor, N.Y. and then Cape Cod. In 1972, she established “The Wildfowlers,” a wildfowl arts and antique gallery and became an accomplished artist.
“Bet truly was a miraculous woman,” her obituary said.
“To know Bet was to love Bet. She had a smile and a kind word for everyone. A naturally engaging person, she took a genuinely keen interest in those that crossed her path over her amazingly long life.”
In lieu of flowers, contributions are encouraged in Bet’s name to the Alzheimer’s Association of Northeastern New York.
Arrangements are under the direction of the Glenville Funeral Home, 9 Glenridge Road, Glenville. Online condolences www.glenvillefuneralhome.com.