Carol Sanford set up roots here in 1968, paving the way for three generations
Published in the Oct. 1-14, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Robert Airoldi
Photo by Robert Airoldi
Carol Sanford in the backyard of her southwest Morgan Hill home. Sanford visits the Senior Center two to three times a week.
There’s something plainly special about Carol Sanford that’s not hard to pinpoint. She’s the loving grandmother and the doting mother who volunteers at her church, loves cooking and gardening and enjoys visiting with others at the Morgan Hill Senior Center.
Sanford, who will turn 80 later this month, settled in Morgan Hill in 1968 when it was teeming with orchards and fields with no traffic nor freeway and set down roots. Here her three children were born. She now has nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Though she divorced 41 years ago and never remarried, she raised her children and has stayed active.
In 1976, when her children where grown and in school, she went to work as a record technician in the Gilroy Police Department where she typed reports, handled paperwork and took fingerprints.
“It was exciting to know what was going on in town,” said Sanford, who retired 22 years later.
Sanford attends Crossroads Christian Church and volunteers for the food program the last Tuesday of the month and the second Saturday of the month.
“I enjoy helping out when I can,” she said. “It keeps me busy.”
She visits the senior center two to three times a week, depending on what’s for lunch.
“I go by the menu,” she said. “They have an excellent menu with well-balanced meals.”
She also said she admires the fact they have so much to offer for needy seniors, including the $3 lunch that will be waived if someone cannot pay.
“I like the camaraderie,” she said. “I visit and talk to people. It’s enjoyable.”
Sanford recalls attending the center when it was at the Friendly Inn and several women told her the center “gave them a reason to get up and get dressed.”
The new center is great for seniors, she said. It’s larger, with more space, large windows.
“It’s atmosphere is really nice,” she said. “They did a nice job.”
Sanford said she keeps up with her children and their families via social media which she checks regularly in the morning and the afternoon.
“Thank goodness for Facebook,” she said. “It allows me to keep up with my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s lives and see their pictures.”
Her oldest daughter Trisha, 51, lives in Maui and has four children; Harris, 47, lives in Gilroy, and he and his wife Elizabeth have one child; and Susie and her husband Greg Sellers, 46, lives in Morgan Hill and they have four children.
Though she doesn’t do as much gardening as she once did, she enjoys it on occasion. But when she lived in a home with a larger lot, she was always tinkering in the yard and was a member of the Morgan Hill Flower Lover’s Club and served on its board.
In 1973 she entered and Sunset Magazine photo contest. One of her pictures was featured on the cover.
“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” she said. “It’s therapeutic crouching down and gardening, pulling weeds.”
Right now she’s reading “Philomena” by Martin Sixsmith. She reads mostly mysteries, and a few years ago started checking out audio books.
“I love our library,” she said.
Some of her other pleasures are watching figure skating for the sheer beauty and football because she has “this real thing for Andrew Luck” (quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts). She started watching him when he was at Stanford. “I like the way he plays and I understand he’s a super guy,” she said.
She became a football fan when she met her soon-to-be husband Bill Sanford, who was a star at an El Paso, Texas, high school and college and a teammate of Hall of Fame wide receiver Don Maynard who went on to played for the New York Giants and New York Jets.
