Sandra Schaffer

Sandra Schaffer, known affectionately by many as Sandela Warrior Princess, died on July 18, 2022, three months shy of her 65th birthday. She was a woman with a big personality, a big body and big feelings.

Sandy loved sparkles, fireworks, thunderstorms, reading, Shakespeare in the Park, pets, origami, swimming, crocheting, camping, science fiction, the beach, and so many other things. But most of all, Sandy loved people, from babies on up. She brought her special brand of joy, support and humor to the lives of many, and although she had no children of her own, Sandy helped raise at least a dozen - as the head of a daycare center, as a professional nanny, and as a very close "aunty" to the children of her friends.

Sandy hated racism and all forms of discrimination and injustice. Starting as a child, she went to more protest demonstrations than anyone could count. Eventually, she decided to fight directly for her own equality, getting involved in fat activism and fat-positive fitness. As always, she threw herself passionately into the fray, speaking out, organizing and giving media interviews. Activist Marilyn Wann eulogized her as "a Fat National Treasure and indomitable freedom fighter."

Sandy grew up in New York's Rochedale Village, the second of four kids in a radical working-class Jewish family that had just emerged from hiding during the McCarthy Red Scare. The family later moved to Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where they were greeted with overt anti-Semitism.

As a young woman, Sandy joined the Young Workers Liberation League. She worked for the United Farm Workers in California for a time in the 1970s. After a stint in college, she worked as a waitress in several New Jersey diners. But she always considered herself a New Yorker and moved to a 5th-floor walk-up in Washington Heights, which she called "Upstate Manhattan." Her brother was her roommate for many years. In the 1980s, she went to work for the Daily World, the Communist Party newspaper, and ended up founding and running a daycare for party workers' families.

After leaving the party, she continued to be an activist and to care for children as a nanny. Later, she made her living calculating complicated pay schedules as a clerk for American Federation of Musicians Local 802, which represents Broadway and late-night TV musicians, among others. By night, she worked out and later became a certified aerobics instructor at Rochelle Rice's body-positive In Fitness & In Health, becoming a mainstay in the fun-loving community of fat women who gathered for IFIH classes and retreats.

While continuing to work full-time, Sandy cared for her mother through her latter years and final illness, which took a toll on her own health. She was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and survived a stroke over the next period of her life while living with a friend. She then found love and moved in with Woody, a Navy veteran and retiree, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where they enjoyed time in the nearby base swimming pool before his death.

In the aftermath of that loss, Sandy found herself needing housing and support in accessing medical care, eventually moving at Marilyn Wann's invitation to Southern California. Her kidneys, like her mother's, had failed, and Sandy began dialysis treatments. Says Wann of that time: "I needed company and backup while being a round-the-clock caregiver. When covid happened, we were not as isolated as we would have been and we kept each other safe."

Sandy's final challenge began with a diagnosis of endometrial cancer. As was her way, she fought with everything she had, never losing her sense of humor and love of people. She is survived by her brother, Robert Schaffer, and lives in the hearts of her many friends and the children she helped raise.