Sandra Faye Gilbert Vollmer, 73, died peacefully in her home in Andrews, North Carolina on September 11, 2019.

 

She was preceded in death by her father, John Thomas Gilbert and nephew Richard Buckley Jacques.

 

Surviving relatives included her mother, Margaret Evadna Maxine Donovan Gilbert, her brothers Paul Gilbert (and wife Hallie) and John Gilbert, her sister Mary Jane Gilbert Jacques (and husband Richard Jacques), husband James Vollmer, children Matthew Vollmer (and wife Kelly Pender) and Carrie Jane Vollmer Brass (and husband Jesse), and grandchildren Elijah Vollmer, Lily Jane Brass, and Isaiah Brass.

 

Sandra delighted in her roles as daughter, sister, cousin, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend. She loved the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Swiss Alps, The Sound of Music, songbirds, wildflowers, Perry Mason, Café Francais International coffees, hiking, and chocolate. She baked bread, canned strawberry jam and applesauce, baked desserts, tended gardens, sewed clothes, painted pictures, and was rarely without her camera, with which she documented the idiosyncratic spectacles of family life. A relentlessly joyful presence in the life of everyone who had the pleasure of knowing her, Sandra never met a stranger and gifted friends and foes alike with laughter, kindness, cookies, cakes, pies, cupcakes, brownies, and a seemingly endless supply of snappy comebacks.

 

She worked as a hygienist, a dental office manager, and homemaker, while volunteering for the Murphy Adventist Christian School’s fruit program, orchestrating the delivery of Indian River citrus for nearly two decades to countless members of her community.

 

A lifelong member of the Seventh-day Adventist church, she served for over forty years as the pianist for her local congregation.

 

Please join us in celebrating her life on September 21, 2019 at the First Baptist Church of Andrews, North Carolina, with a visitation at 2:00 p.m., and a memorial service at 3:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation: https://www.alzinfo.org/donate/donation_form/or Parkinson https://www.apdaparkinson.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/.