Sarah J. Fishburne

Sarah Fishburne

Sarah J. Fishburne, age 97 and eight months, passed away peacefully from natural causes in Brunswick, Georgia, April 18, 2024. It did not come as a surprise to her that she was a nonagenarian, her parents had lived into their nineties. As her mother might've said, "Sarah got the goody out of every moment." We, the family, think that anyone who met her would agree.

She was born August 13, 1926 in Winter Park, Florida, to Lamar and Silla (Avra) Jones. They eloped from Georgia because Silla's father thought Lamar was a city slicker. However, they returned a year later with baby Sarah. There on the family farm in Credilles Mill (a small farming community in Fort Gaines, Georgia) she grew up during the great depression and World War II.

While attending business college in Atlanta Sarah met her own city slicker and future husband, Lucius Garrard Fishburne. As an Army wife, she raised her girls, Carol and Vicki, in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Baumholder, Germany. Out of the Army in 1958 they resided in Jacksonville, FL, where she was a consummate legal secretary taking dictation at the speed of light. Later she became the District Secretary for the State of Florida Div. of Forestry. On one memorable occasion she donned the bulky, Smokey Bear suit at a fire prevention event, loving every moment. She reveled in the arts and took her girls to Boston Pops concerts, plays and ballets. She played music of all genres, and every Saturday she danced and sang with her girls between mopping and vacuuming. She was an astute reader, slogging through Solzhenitsyn and Faulkner's entire body of work. But Alice Munro was her favorite. She once gave an impromptu recitation at a neighbor's cookout of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T. S. Eliot. Needless to say they were a bit astonished. She gamely tried to do the twist and failed, but she loved to jitterbug.

In her later years Sarah was a self-taught wildflower expert, a lover of cemeteries, family historian, and a published author. She penned a memoir, "Mary and me: Sisters on a Farm in Fort Gaines, Georgia."

She was also fond of old family sayings and dropped them into everyday conversation. For example, if she was offered a second helping she would demure, "I've had a sufficiency, any more would be pittypat." When it was time to call it a day she might say, "The show is over, the monkey is dead. Let's go home and go to bed." The family will do their best to keep the sayings going. She loved us all, mightily, and we returned it.

Sarah is survived by her daughters Carol Wood and Vicki Jones of Glynn County, Georgia; grandchildren, James Murphy (Kristen), Josh Jones, Garrett Jones, Ashley Jones (Russell Owens); great-grandchildren, Iris Rose Velez, Lucius Rhoten Owens, and Teagan Faye Jones; beloved siblings, her sister Willie Lamar Spangenburg of Toms River, NJ, and brother Fred Jones and his wife, Gloria, of Columbus, GA; and nieces and nephews, Joe, Ed, Laura, Karen, Amy, Tracy, Jeff, and Rachel.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Lucius G. Fishburne; her parents, Lamar and Silla Jones; her sister and brother-in-law Mary Ruth and George Mills, Pawleys Island, SC, brother-in-law, Al Spangenberg, Toms River, NJ; and two loving sons-in-law, Craig Jones and Robert Wood, both of Glynn County, GA.

Sarah will be laid to rest in her childhood church cemetery, New Lowell United Methodist Church, Fort Gaines, GA. In lieu of flowers a donation is gently suggested to: New Lowell United Methodist Church, Fort Gaines, GA.

Family-placed obituary

The Brunswick News, April 23, 2024