Feb.25-- Sarah Elizabeth Tate died on Feb. 21, at age 96 after a short illness. Sarah was born Nov. 9, 1923, in Gray, Georgia, to a homemaker and a dairy farmer.
Sarah graduated from Jones County High School in 1940 and began working in downtown Macon as a bookkeeper. At a dance at nearby Camp Wheeler during World War II, she caught the eye of a handsome trumpet player, Henry Franklin Tate. Their courtship led to marriage in May of 1943. Sarah continued to work after Henry was shipped out, and later during his studies at the Wesleyan Conservatory of Music in Macon after the war, until their first child was born in 1947.
Henry’s career as a music teacher and band director took their family around Georgia, from Dublin to Jackson and finally Vidalia in 1963, where they settled for the next 35 years, until moving to Ailey, Georgia, in 1998. From 2007 to November 2019, when Sarah moved into a nursing home, she lived with her second oldest son, splitting her time between Ailey and Fernandina Beach, Florida.
Everywhere they lived, Sarah worked tirelessly and generously — sometimes for a paycheck, often as an accomplished seamstress, but mostly for her family, church and community in service and devotion. She put three meals a day on the table (she made the world’s best biscuits), served her church in the nursery and office, manned the Band Booster’s concession stand at ballgames, volunteered as a Pink Lady in the gift shop at the hospital, and processed donor intake forms for American Red Cross blood drives. Her home reflected her many talents, with furniture she reupholstered herself, curtains she sewed, blankets she crocheted, pictures she embroidered, houseplants that thrived, and crafts of all sorts. She loved to feed the birds and watch them splash around in the birdbath she placed in view of her kitchen sink and outdoor swing. As long as she was physically able, she was a very active grandma, prompting her to embroider a sampler reading, “I thought I had my life organized, then I became a grandmother.”
Sarah was preceded in death by her husband of 64 years, Henry Franklin Tate; her parents, John Anderson (“Buck”) and Sue Lea Green Smith; and a sister, Josie Lee Comer. She is survived by her four sons: John Franklin Tate (Julie) of Macon, James Anderson Tate (Carolyn Sylvester) of Ailey, Michael Henry Tate (Margaret) of Decatur, Georgia, and Robert Newton Tate (Shari) of Carnesville, Georgia; eight grandchildren: Jocelyn Rhea (Wind) Tracey of Lincolnville, Maine, Adriane Leigh (Isaac) Gonzalez of San Antonio, Texas, Chaney Tate (Jason) Waddell of Franklin, Tennessee, Marci Tate (Ryan) Davis of Atlanta, Georgia, Melissa Tate of Atlanta, Frank Tate of Macon, and twins Robert Matthew Tate and Brooke Delayne Tate of Carnesville; and five great-grandchildren, with one on the way. Sarah is also survived by a sister, Ellen Melton, of Knoxville, Tennessee, and several nieces and nephews.
The funeral service will be held Tuesday, February 25th, at 3:00 p.m. in the chapel of Ronald V. Funeral Home with Reverend David Blalock officiating. Burial will follow in Lakeview Memorial Gardens.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Save the Music Foundation, Attn: Julia Hare, P.O. Box 2096, New York, NY, 10108-2096 or by visiting their website at savethemusic.org
Ronald V. Hall Funeral Home of Vidalia is in charge of arrangements.
