Sandra Pedlar McNamara

Sandra Pedlar McNamara passed away at home on March 24, 2024, after a rich life of 90 years. Born January 20, 1934, in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Genevieve Cline Pedlar and Russell Vincent Pedlar, her life was marked by adventure, style, and a deep love for New York Times crossword puzzles.

Her early years were spent in Texas, Los Angeles, and the Mojave Desert. At San Fernando High School, Sandra was a Prom Queen, a four-letter athlete, and a fashion model. In 1952, she went to University of California at Santa Barbara where she studied psychology and met the man who would become her husband of fifty-three years, James Ardle McNamara (19322010). Jim’s diplomatic career brought them to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, with several tours in Washington, DC.

Eventually, they ended up in Stamford, Connecticut, where she lived the last decades of her life. No matter where she lived, Sandra enjoyed nothing more than treating her family to delicious meals, gardening, and reading mysteries. Her sense of style and fashion was legendary, and matched by a quick and incisive mind. She routinely read three newspapers every day and had a steel-trap memory until the end.

She was an extraordinary spirit who will be very much missed by those she leaves behind: her son Stephen P. McNamara and his wife Kathleen of Fairfield, Connecticut, her daughter Kate McNamara and her husband Tomás Montgomery of Chevy Chase, MD, and her grandchildren Brendan, Hugh, and Genevieve McNamara, and Theodore and Henry Montgomery.