Saralyn B. Lundy Resident of Walnut Creek, CA Feb. 1, 1940 – March 14, 2019 Saralyn B. Lundy died on Thursday, March 14 from complications from Alzheimer’s disease. She was surrounded by her family and we are grateful for that.
Saralyn was born and raised Atlanta. She never lost her Southern accent no matter how far from the south she moved. She loved her time at the University of Georgia in Athens.
She was captain of the school’s university drill team and active in her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega. Saralyn graduated early with a degree in zoology. Her first ambition was to be a marine biologist until she found out she would have to scuba dive.
End of that plan. She then worked in a hospital lab for a year and hated that. She liked to be around people – not stuck behind a microscope.
A chance encounter at a holiday party with a sorority sister led her to the U.S. Communicable Disease Center, which is located in Atlanta. CDC had a job in the mycology (fungus) section. Unsure what that meant, Saralyn went home and looked up the definition of mycology, but she was a quick study and got the job.
For seven years, she traveled the country teaching seminars for doctors and health technicians. During that time she met her husband, Walker Lundy, before a party. She actually thought he was the gas man coming to fix something before the party started.
As he tells it, Saralyn was a 9. 5 and he was at best a 4. She gave him a chance and they hit it off – going out the next 13 nights in a row.
A year later, they became engaged and seven months after that were married in Atlanta. This past September marked 51 years of marriage. Her husband’s job as a journalist had them moving around a lot, living in Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte, NC, Tallahassee, FL, Fort Worth, Texas, Little Rock, AR, St. Paul, MN and Philadelphia.
They lived in Palo Alto, CA for a year when her husband attended a journalism fellowship at Stanford University. Everywhere they moved, Saralyn “bloomed where she was planted”. She made each place a loving home for her two children.
Her family was the center of her life. In Arlington, Texas in 1988, she was asked to become president of the PTA of a high school of more then 2,000 students. She proposed and led a project to sponsor an all-night after-graduation party to keep the seniors safe and sober.
The PTA raised $25,000 and the event was an astonishing success. She did the same thing three years later after they moved to Little Rock. Both annual parties are still going strong thirty years later.
She and husband retired in 2003 and built their dream home on a lake north of Charlotte. In 2018, they decided to move to Walnut Creek to be near their grandson, their daughter and son-in-law, who live in Richmond, CA. While she loved her children, the true joys of her life were her two grandchildren, Lily, 9 of Houston, TX, a championship basketball player and reader, and Ben, 6, who loves animals and is the family goofball.
Saralyn’s interests through her life were her children, cooking, especially Southern cooking, gardening, travel and exercise, especially swimming. She walked in Red Square and Tiananmen Square and snorkeled in the Galapagos and traveled to 20 other countries on five continents. Her favorite ship was the Queen Mary and she made several Atlantic crossings.
She saw a World Series and a Super Bowl. She met a president and Elizabeth Taylor. And she got Hillary Clinton to serve at a high school Teacher Appreciation Lunch.
Saralyn is survived by her husband, Walker Lundy, her children, Dan Lundy (Anni) of Houston, TX, and Sarah (Ryan) Cecile of Richmond, CA and grandchildren, Lily Lundy, of Houston and Ben Cecile, of Richmond. Family and friends are invited to the funeral service on Thursday, March 21, at 11 a.m. at Arlington Memorial Park at 201 Mt. Vernon Highway in Sandy Springs, GA.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations for research to Cure Alzheimer’s Fund at curealz.org/ or any other Alzheimer’s research organization of your choice. Donations may be made to: Cure Alzheimer’s Fund 34 Washington Street, Suite 200, Wellesley Hills MA 02481 Tel: 1-781-237-3800 Web: www.
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