Born Elsie Rose Cory to British immigrants to Waukegan, Illinois in 1928, Elsie Sadler died on February 6, 2025 in La Quinta, California. She was staying with her daughter Peggy Buchanan after being evacuated from MonteCedro during the Eaton fire in early January.
After graduating from Monmouth College, Elsie and her husband, Robert Howard Buchanan (Buck) lived in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming before settling in San Marino, California in the late 1950s. They moved to South Pasadena in 1965.
Over the course of Elsie’s life, she participated in too many organizations to enumerate, including the Junior League, Young and Healthy; the Gooden Center; the Pasadena Symphony; the Sophie Miller foundation; the vestry at All Saints Pasadena; and Episcopal Home Communities.
In 2009, with Susan Long, she began the Pasadena Festival of Women Authors, which is still sold out annually.
She also acted in many national television commercials.
In 2011 she was named the Star News/Rose Magazine Woman of the Year.
In the mid 1970s, Elsie started working full-time at Huntington Memorial Hospital as volunteer coordinator, retiring some twenty years later as vice-president of development.
In 1983, she married John Marsh Sadler. Elsie grew close to John’s four children and to his grandchildren, and he to hers. She officiated at five family weddings.
Elsie leaves her grieving daughters, Peggy, Jenny and Emily Buchanan (Raymond Ritchie); her stepsons, Tom (Eila Skinner), John and David Sadler; and stepdaughter, Carolyn (Jamie Kyne); 15 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren; beloved nieces and nephews both in the USA and the UK; and many friends of assorted ages and all walks of life.
Her daughter, Rebeccah, and husband, John, predeceased her.
There will be a memorial service at All Saints Episcopal church in Pasadena on April 12, 2025 at 2pm.
All welcome.
Donations in her memory can be made to Young and Healthy (https://yhpasadena.org) or to All Saints (https://allsaints-pas.org/)