Gaston Kent Sanders

From the Sanders Family files of Legacy Keeper Donna Thompson.

Kent Sanders married Eunice Adeline Turner (b. 16 June 1898; d. 29 April, 2000) on 16 May 1920.  To keep the “wolf away from the door” during the Depression years, Kent and his brother, Prentice, posted (put up highway billboards) for a little extra money. During WWII, he worked on defense projects at Oak Ridge, TN for a while. Later, Kent worked for several years as an insurance salesman. Eunice, who earned an Associate Degree from Florence State Teachers College, taught school before she married. Afterwards, she devoted herself to her family and became a full-time homemaker and helper on the farm. After retirement, Kent and Eunice did some traveling with their daughters. Two of the trips they made were to Europe and Mexico. Kent died from complications of diabetes, which he developed late in life. Eunice spent the last few years of her life living with her daughters in Miami, FL. She died peacefully at their home just six weeks before her 102nd birthday. Kent and Eunice are buried in the Sanders Cemetery near Vernon, AL.         

Kent was first and foremost, a farmer. He was never more content than when puttering around the farm on his tractor. Always a cheerful, optimistic person, Kent loved his family. His and Eunice’s home was always a happy one, even in hard economic times, with children and animals all over the place, and when, as he used to say, “there wasn’t anything between them and the north wind except a barbed-wire fence.”