Sara B. Peterson
June 8, 1929-Oct. 23, 2015
Former Homer resident Sara B. Peterson died Oct. 23, 2015, at Revere Court Memory Care Facility in Sacramento, Calif., of natural causes, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. She was 86 years old. She was born June 8, 1929, in North Braddock, Pa., and raised in Snow Shoe, Pa., the only girl with six brothers.
She moved to Alaska with her three young daughters. In 1966 she began her Alaska teaching career at St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands, where she started the first kindergarten program. She then taught at Glacier Valley School in Juneau where she participated in the Hootchinoo and Hotcakes Revue and initiated the Juneau Head Start Program.
She met her future husband, Jon M. Peterson, in Juneau as she was preparing to accept a fellowship at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, Calif. They were married in 1973, lived in Illinois for three years, then returned to California where she held a series of teaching and administrative positions in the Natomas, Williams, and Penryn school districts. During this time she earned a doctorate of education from the University of Pacific. In 1990 she returned to Alaska as principal of the Ann C. Stevens Elementary School at Adak, then was appointed Prinicpal of McNeil Canyon Elementary School in Homer. She retired in 1996.
In Homer she served on the board of directors of the Pratt Museum; with Connie Alderfer, started a book club; was a founding member of the Homer Unitarian Fellowship; with her husband operated Sara ‘N Jon’s Bed and Breakfast; wrote four children’s books; and sang Mozart’s Requiem as a member of Mark Robinson’s Kenai Community Choir in Carnegie Hall and St. Patrick’s Church in New York City and in the Rolling Requiem at the Homer High School gym.
In 2009 she was honored with an Alaska Legislative Resolution sponsored by Rep. Paul Seaton honoring her dedication to education in Alaska.
She is survived by husband, Jon Peterson, of Sacramento Calif.; daughters, Diane Roulston of Ann Arbor, Mich., Susan Roulston of Point Baker, and Sybil Lawson of Sacramento; grandchildren, Zeek Roulston of Port Protection, Timothy Jon Roulston of Ketchikan, Annika Lawson of Sacramento, Thomas Lawson of Sacramento, and Sara Elizabeth Juneau King of Ann Arbor; and sons-in-law Andrew King of Ann Arbor, Mike Mortell of Point Baker, and Douglas Lawson of Sacramento.
