Sarah Blair Sadler

Sarah Blair Sadler was an adventurer, a traveler, a sailor and a seeker. She lived a life filled with laughter, love, curiosity and a deep appreciation of inner beauty and human possibility. Throughout her life - as a mother, therapist, friend and partner - she inspired many to live and love more deeply, to find peace within themselves and the world. She was born Sarah Blair Smethurst in Washington DC on July 13, 1938, to Raymond Stevens Smethurst Sr. and Louise Roe Smethurst. She had an older brother named Steve, a younger brother Bobby and a younger sister Sue. Both of her parents were attorneys and dinners at Lowell Street featured ideas, politics and passionate debate. As a kid, she played with friends in the neighborhood, was on the field hockey team, had a dog named Freckles and spent summers at an old dairy farmhouse in Rehoboth Beach. She was a whip-smart, 16 year old senior at Mt. Vernon Seminary in 1954 when her friend Donna set her up on a blind date over Thanksgiving break with a W&L freshman from New Orleans named Ken. That was that. She enrolled at Hollins College and graduated in 3 years so she could fulfill a promise to her Mom to finish college before she married. They wed in 1958 and began a life-long dance, a conversation, a love story - filled with travel and many shared adventures. The first was in Nice, France where Ken was stationed in the Navy. She became fluent in French, drove a stick-shift Deaux Chevaux to meet up with the ship and not long after gave birth to the first of their five children in 1960. They moved to Mississippi, then New Orleans. Ken began a career with Northwestern Mutual Life and they both became involved in politics, leading the effort to rebuild a two-party system in the south. Along the way, kids came along and they moved the family to a 72-acre farm near Abita Springs, Louisiana. They raised Quarter Horses - 39 head at the peak - and Sarah pursued her interest in human possibility, becoming a therapist and opening her own practice. Then - after a charter vacation in the British Virgin Islands - they decided to change everything. So they sold it all and moved aboard a 51-foot sailboat named “Audacious.” Over 18 months, starting in the Chesapeake, they sailed throughout the Caribbean with three kids, two dogs and a cat, going as far south as Grenada. Sailing - or rather cruising - gently going where you were called - became a lifelong, shared passion that fit her spirit. After settling in Easton and then Oxford and starting a consulting business together, the call of her lifelong passion - exploring human possibility and inspiring others - led her to found an alternative learning center, Psyche’s Well. Soon Psyche’s Well became Evergreen Cove which Sarah led for more than a decade as it grew to be a hub of the community, a place of personal and spiritual exploration which touched many lives. It was also one of the only places in the area offering the “edgy” (at the time) practice of Yoga. As children married and grandchildren arrived, life adventures continued - travel to Bali, to India, to Europe. The call of the sea remained strong, so they bought a catamaran, named it “Skedaddle,” cruised the Chesapeake and spent several blissful summers sailing through Maine. The breeze, the quiet, the lapping water, the magic of life on the water fed her soul. So it was fitting that in late June 2026, two weeks before she died, Sarah and Ken returned to her beloved Rehoboth and together spent hours watching and listening to the gentle, rolling ocean. Sarah, Mom, Meemaw … was our butterfly. She was beautiful, she rarely traveled in a straight line, but she was strong and able to go great distances. She will be missed by her family - her kids Chris, Gordon, Steven, Doug, Wendy, their spouses, her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well as her many circles of friends and all those she touched. And of course, by a boy named Ken. A drop-in celebration of Sarah Sadler’s life will be held at Evergreen Cove on October 17th 3-7PM. In lieu of flowers or any other offering, please donate to Evergreen Cove 770 Port Street, Easton, MD, 21601.

Sarah Blair Sadler

July 13, 1938 - July 11, 2026