Darla Hedrick, Letters from Sadie

Darla Hedrick Quinn earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas and her executive Master of Business Administration degree from Washington University St. Louis, Missouri. In 2008, she retired as Executive Director and Project Manager at AT&T after thirty-one years. Quinn is a keen book reader and photographer. She enjoys traveling, hiking, and golfing. Quinn currently resides with her husband, Francis, and their toy schnauzers, Turner and Hooch, in San Antonio, Texas.

Quinn served as the primary caregiver for her mother for eleven and a half years while her mother was a resident at assisted living facilities in Parsons, Kansas, and San Antonio, Texas. In 2020, one month after entering isolation due to COVID, her mother died. Following that, Quinn came upon a collection of photographs and letters written by her grandmother to her mother’s family while at the Norton State Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Norton, Kansas. The author Quinn composed this collection along with a useful caregiver’s guide and created “Letters from Sadie.”

“Letters from Sadie: Letters Written by Sadie Claire (Marcum) Montgomery from the Norton, Kansas, Tuberculosis Sanatorium (1932–1933)” by Darla Hedrick Quinn is a true compelling story told through a collection of letters written in the depths of the Great Depression from 1932 to 1933. The book tells the story of Sadie, a wife and a mother and shares the feelings of faith, separation, fear, hope and love that she experienced while suffering from a debilitating illness. The memoir chronicles part of one woman’s life events by demonstrating a love for family and portraying opportunities for advocation for an ill or elderly family member requiring assistance. It also provides a historical glimpse into the lives of a poor farm family living in Southeast Kansas.