Centenarian Sara, a Boulder City treasure

At 100 years of age, Sara Denton is certainly one of Boulder City’s oldest residents. And if you’ve met her, you’ll likely agree that she’s one of its most cheerful residents as well. Sara loves to laugh and has always lived life with gusto and adventure.

Sara is this year’s Boulder City Hospital Foundation honoree. She’ll be recognized on May 10 at the foundation’s annual Heart of the Community Gala. That’s a highly fitting honor since the foundation also runs Art in the Park, an event that Sara co-founded over 50 years ago to save the old Boulder City Hospital.

Born Sara Pittard in Paducah, Kentucky over a century ago, she grew up with her parents and two older brothers on a farm with fruit orchards and farm animals, a childhood that she remembers as idyllic because they made their own fun. Her mother made her brothers do the outside chores, keeping Sara inside to help with crocheting, quilting, knitting, painting and decorating, so she wouldn’t marry a farmer and have to milk cows the rest of her life. Sara is still a down-to-earth farm girl at heart, but when you step into her gorgeous Boulder City home, it’s easy to see that she developed that flair for homemaking and decorating that her mother tried to teach her early on.

Another gift that her mother gave Sara is a love for reading. When her dad and brothers went to the city to sell farm produce on the weekends, Sara’s mom would take her to the library to check out a big stack of books for the week. They didn’t have electricity, so after dinner they’d sit around the table and read books or play board games by the light of kerosene lamps.

Sara was a cheerleader in high school, graduating in 1942 just after the United States joined World War II. Money was scarce, but she finally enrolled at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois when a family there offered her a nanny job in exchange for tuition, room and board. That didn’t last long, though, because the Air Force began taking over the campus to train cadets, and Sara quickly got recruited to go to Washington, D.C. to work for the Signal Corp as a Japanese Code decipherer. So her mom pinned $100 in her bra for this new adventure, and off she went by train to Union Station at age 20.

Upon arrival in the nation’s capital, another female Signal Corp recruitee named Aphrodite “Frieda” Cresand randomly picked Sara out of a long line to be her roommate, and they soon became fast friends and frequented places like Annapolis for social events. They eventually rented a second-floor apartment near the White House, and they would often see President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the alley below as assistants put him on the service elevator so nobody would see him in his wheelchair. Sara and her friends would wave and yell “Hi, Mr. President,” and FDR would tip his hat and wave right back.

The Signal Corp worked at an old girls’ school called Arlington Hall Station, which is where Sara eventually met her future husband and then first lieutenant Ralph Denton. Both she and Ralph were engaged to others when they met, but as their relationship quickly developed, Sara gave her ring back and Ralph broke off his engagement as well. Still, when Ralph asked her to marry him, Sara initially said, “No. I don’t want to be an Army wife.” Then a few weeks later, Ralph asked her to type a letter resigning his Army commission, so Sara finally consented and said, “yes.” Ralph initially didn’t understand what that meant, though, and as Sara puts it, he suddenly started acting like a free bird, out with the boys every night. So, Sara went home for Christmas, until Ralph begged her to come back, saying he was miserable without her.

Sara and Ralph were married in Washington, D.C. the following summer on July 29, 1949, commencing a life together that would prove to be one filled with a beautiful family and a wealth of adventure, public service, philanthropy, and community-building efforts. Ralph studied law and graduated in 1951, which led to life-long relationships with Nevada legal and political dignitaries, including the likes of Senators Alan Bible and Howard Cannon and Governor Grant Sawyer, all of whom Sara eventually campaigned for. During law school, Ralph also worked in Senator Patrick McCarran’s office, who consented to attend their wedding after Sara bravely invited him despite Ralph’s reluctance. Sara is a Democrat through and through, as you well know if you’ve ever been the fortunate recipient of one of her now famous annual Christmas cards.

After law school, the Dentons moved to Elko, Nevada where Ralph worked as assistant district attorney to Grant Sawyer. Sara was six months pregnant with their first child, Mark, when they made the move in the summer of 1951. Her OB/GYN told her to drive an hour, then stop for a half-hour on the cross-country trek. Or they could drive 100 miles, then stop for an hour, then call him when they got to Nevada. So, that’s what they did. Over those 2,300-plus miles, they’d stop every hour and play double sol for a half-hour by the side of the road. When they finally arrived safely and Sara called her doctor to tell him the news, he laughed and said, “Oh, I was only kidding!”

After four years in Elko, where Mark and second child Sally were born, Ralph and Sara, now pregnant with third child Scott, moved to Las Vegas in 1955, where Ralph continued practicing law. They lived near the Strip on Oakey Blvd., the last street before the desert at the time. Mark attended grade school at John S. Park Elementary and later at St. Anne’s Catholic school because the public schools were only half-day due to overcrowding and an inability to construct new schools fast enough. They moved to Boulder City in 1959, however, when Ralph secured a home in foreclosure that others were vying for but couldn’t figure out how to get.

Sara attributes much of her children’s success to the schools and caring teachers in Boulder City, including Mabel Mitchell, Gene Segerblom, and Jim Nelson, among others. It was also a small, close-knit community where children abounded and everything was close and mostly within walking distance, including schools, music lessons, and extracurricular activities. Now sixty-plus years later, Mark, Sally, and Scott are near the end of their own stellar careers, Mark as a respected Clark County district court judge, Sally as a well-recognized writer, and Scott as an accomplished doctor.

After the Dentons moved to Boulder City, they lost their youngest child, Jeffrey, when he was accidentally scalded. They loved the old Boulder City Hospital on Park Place where the doctors and staff cared so much for them. So, when that hospital was going under in 1964, Sara and three others co-founded the Art Festival (later named Art in the Park) to save it. The first year they held it inside Sara and Ralph’s home and raised about $2,500. Then it just kept growing and growing every year thereafter.

Centenarian Sara has lived a life full of service to her family and her community, including volunteering for such organizations and causes as the TRI-S club in Elko, the Junior League in Las Vegas, and the Child Welfare Board and Chautauqua in Boulder City. But in scope, none surpasses her visionary founding of Art in the Park, the thousands upon thousands of dollars in proceeds of which continue to keep our local Boulder City Hospital strong.

Please join me and the Hospital Foundation in honoring Sara Denton this year as one of Nevada’s finest and most beloved citizens. Consider contacting the foundation to contribute your time, auction items, or monetary support as well.

Here’s to you, Sara, a genuine Boulder City treasure! Thank you for everything you’ve done and continue to do to make our lives better.

*Author’s note: To learn more about Sara Denton’s life, read “An Interview with Sara P. Denton” by Claytee D. White, part of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project at UNLV, from which much of the material for this column was derived.