We lost a shining light in her 95th year on earth. Sarah Manly Bodemuller Barnett passed peacefully into heaven and back into the loving arms of her husband, Earl S. Barnett III.

Sarah was born on August 20, 1929, to Henry Rudolph Bodemuller and Esther Manly Kendrick Bodemuller in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Sarah  grew up in Lafayette where her favorite childhood memories were playing outside with her brother Charles, her dog Ranger, climbing trees, picking her mom’s flowers, watching her father hybridize and plant camelias.

She attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, for one year, then graduated in 1950  with a degree in English from University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL), (now named University of Louisiana at Lafayette). She was a proud member of Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority. After graduation she worked in accounting for Abdallas Department store and then for Callery and Hurt, an oil & gas company in Lafayette, running  the teletype machine and managing  a book of maps of all known oil fields.

During college, a neighbor and family friend, Mercedes Childs Barnett, kept saying, “You need to meet my grandson, Earl.” Sarah finally did. Being too young for WW2, Earl joined the Merchant Marines at 18. She waited, and he returned to Lafayette, to “Sally”, and attended USL.

May 27, 1952, was a glorious day: Earl graduated, was commissioned via ROTC in the US Air Force, and Earl and Sally were married. Thus began their lifetime partnership.

During her life she was a supportive wife of her husband’s career. She quickly stepped into the Air Force lifestyle as a young mother, raising and traveling with four energetic children on a great adventure  around the world. The family grew as they lived in Fukuoka and Tachikawa, Japan;  Honolulu, Hawaii; Sacramento, CA; Wichita, KS; Plattsburgh, NY; Norman, OK; Lafayette, Tampa, FL; Tucson, AZ; Goldsboro, NC; Okinawa, San Antonio,  and Houston. Sarah was proud to say they moved 33 times during their life in the Air Force.

Sally was an excellent Colonel’s wife and partner in all aspects of officer’s lives, including managing the Officer’s Wives Club as the Base Commander’s wife at Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa. After 30 years in the Air Force, they moved to Houston, and  Earl began another 30-year career in commercial real estate. Sally was his accountant and incomparable executive assistant . They were members of Webster Presbyterian and Clear Lake Presbyterian Church.

Sally was an incredibly talented seamstress, designing, making and repairing her own and her children’s clothing, reupholstering sofas and chairs, sewing bean bag chairs and mattress covers.  She loved flowers, especially her red amaryllis. She loved any color, “as long as it was red.”  She was an excellent cook, and friends constantly requested the recipe for her English apple pie. She was also famous for her homemade fig jam, orange-flavored sugared pecans, and white fruit cakes.

She cherished her Lafayette family home, designed by her father and built in 1921. She and her children lived there during Earl’s tour of duty in Vietnam. She continued to manage renovation of the Bodemuller home over the years.

Sarah came from an extensive line of inventors, scholars, and history makers on her both her father’s and her mother’s sides.

Her father, “Bode,” was an engineer who designed power plants in Mexico and was the general manager  in a southeast regional power company. Her Bodemuller grandfather learned the printing business and started the Bodemuller the Printer company, which is still in operation in Opelousas. Her Bodemuller great grandfather emigrated from Baden-Baden, Germany in 1852 to Opelousas, Louisiana.

Her mother, Esther, was an English professor at USL. Esther’s 5^th great grandfather settled in Maryland in 1650. The Manly ancestors included a governor of North Carolina, a President of the University of Alabama, a Baptist preacher who helped start Furman University. The next generations of Sarah’s family included Basil Maxwell Manly, an economist in Washington, DC,  John Matthews Manly, a University of Chicago professor, Chaucer scholar, and WW2 cryptographer, and Charles Matthews Manly, designer of the first gasoline engine for Samuel Pierpoint Langley’s Aerodrome, which was intended to be the first flying machine, but lost the competition to the Wright brothers.  A model of the aerodrome is on display at the National Air & Space Museum,  Washington, D.C., and the engine is on display in the Smithsonian. Esther’s sister, Ann, was married to Oscar Chapman, Secretary of the Interior under President Harry Truman.

As a  “hand’s on”  mother, Sarah placed a high value on education and passed that love on to her children. She took immense pride in her four children, instilling honor, grace, good humor, and a strong moral compass in each.

Storytelling was a major family entertainment. There are many stories about the family’s adventures. The children learned about the ocean while experiencing the forceful waves in Hawaii, the freezing cold while  ice skating and sledding in Plattsburgh, NY. They also learned about the advancements in future technology while at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City, as well as family history,  while visiting Sarah’s Uncle, Charles Manly Kendrick, who lived in NYC and maintained his grandfather’s engine patents.

Adventures included dressing the children alike, to better spot them while traveling,  realizing a litter of kittens had come along for a cross-country trip in the car, and backtracking  after a quick gas station/bathroom stop after realizing one child was missing.

Sarah was resourceful, smart, easy-going, warm-hearted, faithful, and determined. She was a crossword puzzle queen. She remained Intellectually engaged, and handled the family and corporate tax returns until her early 90’s.

Sarah had a talent for analyzing mechanical problems, a gift she inherited from her engineer father, Bode. For example, she figured out how to repair a problem with her Toyota station wagon which her son, a mechanical engineer, couldn’t solve.

She will be remembered as an intelligent, strong woman, loving wife and mother and outstanding human being who left an indelible imprint on the hearts of those she touched.

Preceded in death by her parents, her brother Charles, her husband of 64 years, Earl, and her beloved daughter, Linda Katherine (Kathy) Traylor. Sarah is survived by her sons, Blair Richardson (Frances Brockington), Douglas Elliott (Elizabeth Lu), and Charles Randolph (Marla Helm); by her grandchildren Steven Traylor, Theresa Massad, Christina McSpadden, Shea Barnett, Amber Traub (Justin), Spencer Barnett, Alexandra Barnett, Jessica Barnett,  (and Alexandra’s and Jessica’s Mother, Karen Thomas); and by three great grandchildren, Robert Massad, Matthew Massad, and Sadie McSpadden; and by her nephew Randy Barnett (Mary Beth), niece Lisa Herrera (Michael), niece Kim Woodward, and six great nieces and nephews, Courtland Barnett, Ainsley Ranton (Carter), Kinsey Barnett, Vanessa Gomez, Ben Herrera and Rex Herrera.

Our deepest gratitude to Brittney Stephenson, a trusted friend, a caregiver extraordinaire, who is exceptionally kind, loving, attentive, and kept Sarah laughing every  day.

Many thanks to her caregivers and nurses from Bayou Pines Care Center, Resolutions Hospice, and over the years at The Park at Bay Area, and Morada Sr. Living, and  to her doctors Mary Mercado, David Hamer, Kathryn A. Zidek, and Kathi McCree.

Friends are invited to join the family as they celebrate her life. We will share cherished memories, and reflections, and celebrate her precious spirit, grateful for the many years she brightened our lives. The farewell will be at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church, 1511 El Dorado Blvd., Houston, 77062 on Friday, January 31, 2025, at 10:00 am, with the Rev. Katrina Pennington presiding. Burial will be at 1:00 pm in the Houston National Veterans Cemetery, beside Colonel Earl S. Barnett III.