Wanda Sanborn

Wanda Szymborski Sanborn 11/12/1923-4/13/2018 Wanda Sanborn used to joke that that someday shed write a memoir titled, "I Joined The Navy To See The World And Here I Am In Kansas. Despite living to 94, she never quite got around to it. But had she done so, it might have begun at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Pensacola, FL, where N. Keith Sanborn, Kansas flight navigator-in-training, spotted a dark-haired beauty in a black bathing suit at the officers pool. Instantly smitten, he told himself: "Thats the girl Im going to marry. Wanda Katherine Szymborski, a W.A.V.E. control-tower operator from New York, initially had other ideas. "I insisted; she resisted,recalled Keith, retired judge of Kansass 18th Judicial District. "She was beautiful and sophisticated, and I was overmatched from the beginning. Eventually, his persistence overcame her resistance. They married on base on July 19, 1946, then transferred to Barbers Point Naval Air Station on Oahu, Hawaii. At the end of Keiths stint, they headed home to Kansas, where he attended Washburn Law School in Topeka before starting a practice in Wichita. Said the judge: "The rest is a wonderful, loving history. It was one wonder after another with her. She was very exciting for a plain country boy. Frankly, she made my life complete, and I owe her everything. "She was the girl of my dreams. Born to Polish immigrants Zygmund and Katherine Szymborski on Nov. 12, 1923, in Syracuse, N.Y., Wanda Sanborn died at home in Wichita on April 13. A longtime member of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, she was well known for teaching a generation of local kids how to swim, in the familys backyard pool on Reed Drive, supporting the arts, and helping Anthropology graduate students navigate Wichita State University, where she earned a bachelors degree in English. In 1998, her husband placed a paver in her honor at Wichita State Universitys Plaza of Heroines. He lists as her achievements: "U.S. Navy W.A.V.E. control tower operator, wife, mother, Campfire Girls leader, den mother, block mother, P.T.A. president, art lover, sculptor, student, civic worker, swimming teacher, Magna Cum Laude graduate of Wichita University (1967), and journalist. She deferred completing her degree to raise four children and help her husband pursue his career. She then worked to help our children through college and graduate school. "At this University, she was a graduate assistant, student health worker, and administrative assistant successively to the heads of the Departments of English, Anthropology, Liberal Arts, as well as Radiation Safety, the Watkins Lecture Series, the Science Olympiad, and a psychology journal. "Wanda Sanborn served the Wichita Art Museum as a City Board Treasurer and volunteer docent. She has been a board member of the Wichita Bar Auxiliary and has worked on the Save Our Sculptures project. She ran a swimming program and helped teach 5,000 children to swim. Wanda was an official Kansas delegate to the National Womens Year Conference (in 1972). "She is a quiet leader and a competent helper. Her kind, thoughtful, generous acts have helped her family and many others. Among those many others: Kurt Wimmer, daughter Wendy Sanborn Dougans lifelong friend, now a Washington, D.C., lawyer, who learned to swim in the Sanborn pool and later gave lessons there. "The pool was clearly her domain, Kurt said. "But that wasnt what made her so extraordinary. She treated everybody with such respect. She was the first grownup outside of the family who asked my opinion, and thats also why was she was so successful in getting scared kids to swim. "She was on everyones level and didnt make anyone feel bad. She found a way to reach them where they were. I cant imagine that very many kids left not knowing how to swim. An early supporter of feminist causes, Wanda Sanborn considered meeting feminist-movement "founding mothers Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug in 1972, "a highlight of her life, said daughter Deborah Sanborn Quinlan, a retired San Diego teacher, the oldest of four Sanborn children. Wendy, the youngest, remembers attending the conference with her mother, who told her that as a woman "I could do anything I wanted to. Wanda believed strongly in diversity and equality, her children said. "Back in the late 1970s and early 80, Mom accepted my LGB friends when some of their own family members didnt even know of their orientation, said Wendy, a Hollywood, CA, presentation specialist. "I was so proud of her for that, and it meant the world to me and to my friends. Wanda campaigned tirelessly for her husband, a Democrat wh