I would like to share a couple of short stories that Mrs. Betty Sanders shared with me about when her husband, Carl Sanders, was Governor of Georgia. Betty was so happy to become First Lady of Georgia and to be able to live in the Mansion really thrilled her after living in a small brick home in Augusta, Georgia. She came to visit the Mansion for the first time and met with (then) First Lady Betty Vandiver. There was no art hanging on the walls, no china displayed in cabinets or placed on the tables, and no silver utensils. Her dream of this mansion she was so thrilled to live in crumbled as she walked around the rooms and asked questions of Mrs. Vandiver. She told me she had never been so disappointed in all her life, “I could never entertain with this stuff,” she said. She took it upon herself to contact Dick Rich (yes that was his name) from Rich’s Department store and told him of the shape of the mansion, he said “Betty, you go down town and you get all you need from my store to help you entertain in that mansion.” She did just that, what a lucky lady to go to Rich’s and spend as much as you can to make a home for your family, it was quite a thrill I am sure. Then the best story she shared with me was when a man from the state of Florida came to kill her husband Carl. They were at a dance and the troopers rushed them out of the building to tell her that there was a man who wanted to kill the Governor. She panicked, he did not, he went upstairs to retire and she thought he had lost his mind. “Carl, there is a man coming here to kill you;” he replied “Betty, there is no way that man can get to me; the security will take care of this.” Two hours later Governor Sanders was sleeping and Mrs. Sanders was still awake, the phone rang in the Mansion, “he is on the grounds!” they said. Mrs. Sanders immediately went into a tail spin, she woke the Governor up and told him the news and told him to hide. Needless to say they captured the man and he was arrested. Governor and Mrs. Sanders are the reason we have our beautiful Mansion we know and love today on West Paces in Buckhead. Mrs. Sanders oversaw every minute detail of that Mansion and sadly never got to live there. Once she called me when Governor and Mrs. Perdue had the down stairs ballroom remodeled and she really grilled me inquiring as to what was going on over there. I told her there was a leak in the basement which required repairs to be made. Mrs. Sanders still looks after the Mansion from the road, her home now is only about a block away, and I absolutely loved when she would visit. Governor and Mrs. Sanders were great together, he will be missed by many and my thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Betty Sanders and the entire family of Governor Carl Sanders today. He worked with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson towards desegregation, and was the first popular elected Governor of Georgia, before then the counties were awarded points similar to the Electoral College. A man should be loyal to his country, his family, to his God and to his political party -- and dont you ever forget it.—Governor Carl Sanders at the Democratic State Convention in Macon, 1966
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 18:59:32 +0000
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