{"id":15951,"date":"2012-08-03T11:38:35","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T15:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=15951"},"modified":"2012-08-03T11:38:35","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T15:38:35","slug":"former-educator-and-first-lady-dies-suddenly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=15951","title":{"rendered":"Former Educator And First Lady Dies Suddenly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Ms. Altamese Saunders <\/strong>passed away on July 26<sup>th<\/sup>, two days after attending a concert with her family in Clearwater. She was 83.<\/p>\n<p>Her daughter, <strong>Karen Saunders<\/strong>, said her mother\u2019s death came as a shock to the entire family, because her doctor had just given her a \u201cclean bill of health\u201d on July 19<sup>th<\/sup> during a visit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was already planning her 84<sup>th<\/sup> birthday in October, because she knew it was a big event the entire family looked forward to,\u201d said <strong>Karen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Affectionately called <strong>\u201cGramms\u201d<\/strong> by family members, <strong>Ms. Saunders<\/strong> was a lifelong resident of Tampa. She was educated in the Hillsborough County School System, first at Helping Hand Day Nursery, then at Harlem Academy, where her mother was a classroom teacher, and her grandmother, <strong>Christine A. Meacham<\/strong> (the elementary school was named in her honor), was principal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Saunders<\/strong> was Salutatorian of the Middleton High School Class of 1946, and she always looked forward to meeting with some of her classmates, such as <strong>Alice Wade, Peggy Jo Jones, Harry Morris, James Hammond<\/strong>, and <strong>Ernest Calhoun<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Saunders<\/strong> received her B. A. degree in English Education from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1950. While at FAMC, she was initiated into the Beta Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She was a stalwart Diamond Life member of the Sorority with 64 years of continuous service.<\/p>\n<p>Upon returning to Tampa, <strong>Ms. Saunders<\/strong> taught in Plant City, and received tenure at what was then College Hill (now J.W. Lockhart) Elementary. She retired form Robert E. Lee Elementary with 38 years of service.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Saunders<\/strong> married <strong>Jasper Saunders<\/strong> in 1952, and the couple remained husband and wife for 53-1\/2 years. <strong>Rev. Saunders<\/strong> passed away in 2005.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Saunders<\/strong> is the mother of 3 daughters and one son, and has 6 grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ms. Altamese Saunders passed away on July 26th, two days after attending a concert with her family in Clearwater. She was 83. Her daughter, Karen Saunders, said her mother\u2019s death came as a shock to the entire family, because her doctor had just given her a \u201cclean bill of health\u201d on July 19th during a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}