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Obituary

She set her own path, then others followed

At over 30, with a family, Sarah Bailey went to college. She became a teacher. And she helped found a women's shelter.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published February 10, 2006

SARAH ALICE BAILEY, 1922-2006

SOUTHERN PINES - When they were young, Sarah Bailey's children never understood what an extraordinary woman their mother was.

She had lived in China during World War II and smuggled messages between American military personnel. She started college when she was in her 30s and graduated first in her class. She helped found Tampa's first shelter for battered women. Years before the civil rights movement, she taught students in Tampa's segregated public schools to cherish people of all races.

"I grew up in a different world than everyone else," said her daughter Lisa Tanzarello. "I didn't know it was unusual for a woman with children to go to college and have a career. I didn't experience racism the way other people experienced it. She was so far ahead of her time."

Mrs. Bailey, who lived in Tampa for about 50 years, died of natural causes Jan. 10 in Lancaster, Ohio, where she spent the last few years of her life. She was 83.

Even in her youth, Mrs. Bailey seemed destined for an unconventional life. She was born in Mississippi, the granddaughter of a concert violinist who had ridden with Pancho Villa.

She was still a teenager when she met and married a military man named Roy Bailey. He was more than twice her age.

"I've been reading their love letters, and I can tell you that every one of us would want to have a love story like theirs," Tanzarello said. "The letters are all quite proper, although at the time I'm sure they were pretty racy."

Col. Bailey was stationed in China, where the couple lived for most of World War II and started to raise a family. When the communists took over the area, Mrs. Bailey would sometimes hide top-secret messages in her children's diapers and deliver them to military personnel.

After the war, the family relocated to Tampa, where Col. Bailey was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base. His main job was to oversee racial integration of military bases around the country. They lived on base for a while, then moved to a home off Kennedy Boulevard, where they lived most of their lives.

In the 1950s, when she was over 30, Mrs. Bailey told her husband she wanted to go to college. It was not something that wives and mothers did in those days.

"My dad was all freaked out," Tanzarello said. "But he was really proud at the same time."

She enrolled at the University of Tampa and earned a degree in education. She taught at a school on the base, then at Dickenson Elementary and finally at Egypt Lake Elementary, where she worked from 1961 until her retirement in 1990.

"I think she taught every grade," her daughter said. "But she really loved the third and fourth grade. She said that was where she could really have an impact."

In the 1970s, Mrs. Bailey helped found The Spring and bought a house on Davis Islands that became Tampa's first privately owned shelter for battered women. The Spring had use of the house, but it was deeded to Mrs. Bailey and her daughter.

Mrs. Bailey never received much recognition for her work and never wanted it.

"I would bring her to all these Spring dinners and nobody knew who she was," Tanzarello said. "Then I introduced her and everyone got excited. But I introduced her for myself, because I was proud of my mother. She didn't care if she never got any recognition.

"She was a different kind of woman."

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Bailey is survived by two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Her husband, son Morgan and one grandson preceded her in death.

[Last modified February 9, 2006, 09:10:11]