SUNDAY ANDERSON
President 1965-1967
By Beverly J. White
Sunday Florence Cardall Anderson was born on Sunday March 3, 1895 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the only one of Richard Cardall and Anna Peterson Cardall’s seven children born on that day. It only seemed right to name her Sunday. In 1987, it was said she fit the description of Sunday's child as "fair and wise and good and gay."
Sunday led the normal life of a child, going to school and attending church. After graduation from West High, she took extension courses in Arts and Crafts at the University of Utah. These followed her natural inclination and she used her skills and talents for the benefit of many organizations for she was deft with her hands and blessed with original ideas. She started her volunteer work at age 17, but it went back even further. “I became conscious of helping outside of the home when I was about 9 and my mother asked me to help an older neighbor scrub her front porch,” she once said.
She married Virgil E. Anderson on July 22, 1914, a locomotive engineer, in the same home she would share with him for the next 73 years. They were the parents of six children. One little daughter died in infancy. She was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holding positions in Primary, MIA and Sunday school. She was a Relief Society teacher and study group president in the second ward. For years she taught the blind and handicapped and was a volunteer for children.
The PTA was another organization which benefited from her services. While president of the Franklin PTA she was improve the school grounds by planting trees and shrubs.
Politics was one of her great loves. A Democrat, she was district chair and vice chair for 43 years in the same district. She was president of the Democratic Women’s Club, chair of her Senatorial District and Salt Lake County Vice-Chair for two years. She was also a lifelong member of the Sagebrush Club and twice president of the Jane Jefferson Democratic Club.
In 1950, Sunday was elected to the Utah House of Representatives. She served in that position from 1951 to 1953, where she was assigned to the Education, Labor, Public Health, Public Welfare, T.B. Sanatorium, and Traffic Safety Committees. She was also a member of the Utah Legislative Council, the Salt Lake Council of Women, the Conservation Council, and the Wasatch Literary Club. Friends would say,
"That whenever she sees a wrong that needs righting, she's the first to take action!"
She was the front runner for starting Senior Citizen Centers across the state of Utah working 14 years trying to find a home for senior citizens on Salt Lake City’s West side. She is described as being a "moving spirit" behind the establishment of that center. She said, "The whole project has been bogged down somewhere in red tape. When I've talked with county commissioners, they've assured me that eventually we'll get the center." When the center was finished at 9th south and 9th west in June 1978, it was named the "Sunday Anderson Center". A great tribute to a great lady.
On her 80th birthday, she was honored by a reception in the Gold room of the Capitol Building. Governor Calvin L. Rampton and former Governor Herbert B. Maw were among the hundreds who attended. It was an honor of which Sunday was justifiably proud. She was 84 years old when former Rep. Dan Marriott chose her to be a Washington intern. Four governors were present at her 85th birthday.
Sunday lived until 1987, passing away at age 92 and is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
Beverly J. White Post Script: "As the author, I must add my own addendum here. Sunday was a great organizer, traveler and friend. I appointed myself as President of the Sunday Anderson Fan Club. A position I have yet given up."
Adapted from the Sunday Anderson Biography by Beverly J White, supplemented with information from her obituary entitled Sunday C. Anderson, a Utah volunteer for 75 Years, dies at 92, March 1987, the Magna Times article entitled Senior Citizen aids Dan Mariott dated July 26, 1979 and the Desert News article entitled Senior Citizens Best Friend dated September 20, 1976.