Article archive / December 1, 2015
Originally published: . Volume 6, No. 12. Source pages: 10, 11, 12.
[Editor’s Note: I had the honor of meeting Dr. Addison Sandel the way I meet most psychologists these days, through the Times. She wrote in to thank us for bringing her the news and during our brief back and forth, some of the fascinating story of this Emeritus psychologist’s life began to emerge. Sharp as a tack, Dr. Sandel just celebrated her 89th birthday. I asked if she would allow me to interview her for our “Close-Up” feature, and share some photos, and she graciously agreed.]
Dr. Addison Sandel, who currently resides in Natchitoches, Louisiana, was born October 9, 1926, in the little town of Sandel, just south of Many on highway 171. Born Ella Addison Sandel, she goes by “Addie.”
“… we lived in a very rural area that had once been a thriving little village,” she told a reporter for an oral history program a few years ago. “In fact,” she said, “it’s still on the map and it’s named Sandel, for my father.”
Sandel started as a sawmill town, branched from the railroad. But by the time Addie was born not much of the town remained, she explained. “… we still had the post office where my father was postmaster and we had a store and a service station,” she said. “And the church was also still standing.”
Like most children of that time, Addie and her four sisters worked in whatever ways they could. Each sister took on the post office duties “… as soon as we could see over the counter to make change and sell stamps,” Addie said. “So we got somewhat of an education that way I guess.”
Addie started out in first grade when she was age four. Perhaps not so strangely we’ll find, little Addie could already read by that time. “Now, don’t ask me how I learned to read,” she said, “I don’t know, but my mother thought anybody that could read should be in school.”
She claims to have been a poor student. “I did have one claim to fame,” Addie said. “I was known as having read everything in the school library,” she said. “It didn't matter either the subject matter or the difficulty. I remember reading Wuthering Heights and Lorna Doone in the 5th grade. But, I liked reading history and books about science and art or anything else just as well.”
Addie graduated from high school at 16 and attempted to enlist in the Army. It was 1943 and the middle of World War II. “Of course, I told them I was 18,” she said, “but the recruiting officer didn’t buy it. Apparently, I didn’t even look 16 because he told me to come back in about four years.”
Failing to talk her way into the Army, Addie enrolled in business school. But, having learned from her father –– “Don’t let school get in the way of your education” –– she felt that she had learned enough after only a few months and applied for a job at Fort Polk (called Camp Polk at that time) and was hired on the spot.
“This time I didn’t lie about my age,” Addie said. “But they hired me immediately because they needed typists so desperately. And mostly because I could type 80 words a minute on a manual typewriter.”
Addie remembers her exact salary. “It was thirteen-o-two-thirty-four annually – $1,302.34 a year,” she said. Addie worked in the Quartermaster’s Office and soon, because of her work ethic and effectiveness, she was given supervisory responsibilities and placed in charge of the typing pool. She was also given Officer Clothing Sales, which included accounting for money–hundreds of dollars daily. Addie was still only 17.
In 1943, the country was consumed with the war efforts and so it was not long before Addie decided to transfer to the Quartermaster General’s office in Washington D.C. She became a “Government Girl,” the name given to the over one million young women who went to Washington and took over the government jobs that had been vacated by men deployed overseas, jobs that had previously been reserved exclusively for men.
In D.C. Addie found she had more experience in quartermaster duties than other young women and more than many of the officers. “I remember that when they took me to my boss, the man who was going to supervise me, he was so happy to see me. I thought he was going to kiss me.” They were all happy to have someone who knew the procedures and routines, Addie explained. When she typed a letter without mistakes she thought they would go down on their knees, Addie said.
For a young woman from the rural South, Washington, D.C., offered a variety of new experiences. Addie rode the streetcars, attended the President’s birthday gala at the Capitol Theater, saw actors Allan Ladd and Gale Storm, played softball on the women’s league, watched newsreels about the war, paddled a canoe down the Potomac, and along with others, cheered Roosevelt. She stated that until years later, she knew nothing of the wild parties that were said to be occurring in D.C. at the time.
And she worked– even moonlighted. She was still only 17, and allowed to work only eight of the nine-hour workday, and so had time after her day job. Having seen a fur coat in a shop window, Addie decided she had to have it and took a second job as “soda jerk” in a drugstore. She worked the second job and eventually, paid the astounding price of $167 for the coat.
Addie worked in D.C. until both the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific were over. “I stayed until after the surrender …” she said. “I was there for the celebrations and all the excitement. It was really exciting to be there …” she said.
Then she returned to Fort Polk and went to work for the American Red Cross, and then took a position as secretary to the Post Exchange and General Manager. Shortly after that she was promoted to secretary to General Kreber, the Commanding General of Camp Polk, still with barely a high school education.
This was a fun time in her life. “As a single female in a prestigious position on an army post full of lonely men,” Addie wrote, “I often found myself at the center of attention.” On two occasions, without her knowledge, she was even entered into the Post beauty contest, with one contest being sponsored by Ralph Edward’s Truth or Consequences Radio Program and Republic Pictures.
“I did not know they were taking my picture to enter into a beauty contest until I saw the Post newspaper,” Addie said. “Thank goodness, I didn't win! Mary Ruth won and she was sent to Hollywood to make a movie with Forrest Tucker and Rod Cameron. I would have been terrified! Acting is one of the few things I never tried,” Addie said.
The experiences may have been a little odd at times. Once, when Addie was sent on an assignment to Ft. Hood, Texas, she was “unceremoniously banished” back to Fort Polk, she explained. A statement was made that she was “a distraction to junior officers and even the Deputy Commanding General [ ..] has become affected.” This was all news to Addie, who noted that she was dating only one junior officer at the time. She never learned who the others were that had become so “distracted.”
After a year with General Kreber, Addie decided to visit her sister who lived in Bogota, Colombia. On the flight down, she was seated by an executive for the Madigan-Hyland Corporation that was building a railroad through the jungle. When he learned she was a secretary, he hired her before the plane landed. Since she was on a tourist visa, the company managed somehow to get her a worker's permit and she remained with the company for a year. She spent that year being flown around to construction sites in the jungle in a two-seater Cessna and experiencing many cultural events as an unchaperoned "bella Americana.”
After returning from Colombia, Addie married Captain August “Gus” Baxter and became a military wife, mother of two boys, and a dedicated supporter of her husband and family. Gus served in Saudi Arabia, Washington D.C., Germany (where the family accompanied him), came back to Kansas, then was sent to Vietnam, and after he retired as a Lt. Col., accepted a job in Thailand.
Addie always worked. When she and Gus first married, he was ordered to the Army Language School to study Arabic. She was employed in the Slovenian language department at the school to type the textbooks being developed for the students studying Slovene. She could type as fast in Slovene as in English although, at first, she had no idea of the meaning. Six months later, she still couldn't understand the spoken word, she said, but could read it so well her boss tried to get her promoted to a translator. “Personnel wouldn't buy it”, Addie said, but she earned a Commendation from the school commandant. The only time Addie was without a job was in Germany. “At the time, there were no jobs with the Army for dependent wives,” she said. “So for the first time in my adult life, I was out of a job. I did manage to do some part-time work teaching ball room dancing for a German dance studio and substitute as a typing teacher for some classes on post.”
“Since I wasn't obligated to a full-time job, I was expected to participate in all the activities of the officer's wives,” Addie said. She recalls dancing a hula at a luau for the commanding general of the U.S. troops in Europe and presenting him with a lei flown in from Hawaii. And she was presented with a Fasching medal, the only American woman ever having received one at that time, for entertaining the crowd with an impromptu Cha Cha danced with the Augsburg Prince of Fasching.
But, Addie said, “This was when I found out that having a college degree had some social significance, in addition to finding out that there really were things I did not know about, in the arts, particularly, and I became curious to learn more.”
After Germany, Gus was assigned to the Kansas National Guard, and Addie decided to enroll at Wichita State. But after one semester, Gus was sent to Vietnam and Addie decided to take the boys to live in Natchitoches to be near her parents for more stability. She entered Northwestern State University, and in 1970, Addie graduated 3rd in her class with a major in psychology. In 1971 she applied to Louisiana State University in New Orleans for graduate school and was accepted.
“However, I probably would never have followed up on satisfying my curiosity,” Addie said, “except for my other reason for the decision to enter college.”
Addie’s older son had been having trouble in school since kindergarten and while never a behavior problem, his inclination to be inattentive was a problem. One of his teachers asked Addie to have him evaluated, “because she thought he was retarded,” Addie said. “I didn't think so as the pediatricians had always told me he was very advanced for his age, but I had him evaluated anyway.”
The psychologist’s evaluation placed the youngster at the 99.9th percentile, saying to Addie, “There is no place for him in public school because the teachers would always be trying to get him to act like the other children.”
Addie decided to have her younger son tested and he also scored at the 99.9th percentile. “You think you have problems with that one [the older son], just wait until this one hits the school system!” the psychologist told Addie. “I asked him where I could get some guidance on raising kids who were so much brighter than either me or their father,” Addie explained, “but he wasn't very helpful. That's when I really started thinking about college.”
While juggling school, part-time jobs, a military husband’s career, and caring for the boys, the marriage faltered and eventually ended after Addie went away to graduate school. She had underestimated Gus’ ability to withstand the demands of her absences, she said, even though she had weathered his so often.
But Addie went on to obtain her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1979, completing her internship at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in New Orleans. And so at the age of 53, Addie became Dr. Addison Sandel, and a person who wanted to know everything she could about the gifted and talented who were not reaching their potential.
She began her career in psychology serving as psychologist at the Mental Health Center in Shreveport. Between 1980 and 1998 she worked in various positions providing evaluations, including Pupil Appraisal Services for multiple parishes in north Louisiana.
Dr. Sandel served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at Northwestern State University and as Director of Gifted Education and Supervising School Psychologist for ten parish school systems in the northern part of the state.
In the late 80s, Dr. Sandel was the consulting/supervising psychologist to the Association for Gifted and Talented Students in New Orleans and to the school boards for Sabine, DeSoto, Red River, LaSalle, Grant, and Washington parishes.
She published regularly in the Gifted/Talented Digest, and co-authored a program designed for gifted youngsters. She presented at the Louisiana Psychological Association, at the National Council for Exceptional Children, at the Louisiana Special Education Conference, and at the Gifted and Talented Institute of Texas. She earned the Leadership Award from the Association of Gifted and Talented Students in 1987 and the Professional Advocacy Award in 1991 from the Advocacy Center for the Elderly and Disabled for her work on behalf of children with disabilities.
Dr. Sandel presented her work internationally. In 1985 she presented "Accelerated laboratory for pupils of high ability (ALPHA),” at the Sixth World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, in Hamburg, Germany.
In 1991 she presented at the World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, at The Hague in the Netherlands, on “Modeling the social competency of gifted children.”
She also presented “Toward a theory of creativity,” with co-authors, at the World Conference in the Netherlands. And in 1993 she presented her work at the World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, Canada, on “Symptom patterns of attention-deficit disorder in underachieving gifted children.”
But years working to move things along took its toll. “I was also on the Board of the National Association for Gifted Children for years before I gave up,” Addie said. “I guess you could say the main reason I got out was because of the heartbreak involved.”
“I had fought so long and so hard for the rights of gifted kids, had so many battles with school people, and felt there had been very little or any improvement. In fact, in many cases things seemed worse,” she said. “The state kept reducing funding and the schools kept watering down the programs to the point where most did not begin to resemble what they really needed. Maybe things have improved since I left,” she said. “I certainly hope so.”
Dr. Sandel worked in private practice at her clinic, RiverNorth Psychological Services, in Leesville, Louisiana, until 1993 when she returned to Fort Polk where she served as psychologist for the Department of Psychiatry, Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital before retiring from Federal Civil Service in 1998. During these five years she received eight Exceptional Performance awards.
Currently, she contracts with the Louisiana Rehabilitation Services for Leesville, Alexandria, and Natchitoches offices, and also with Central Louisiana Intertribal Vocational Rehabilitation Programs for Vernon and Sabine parishes. (She is of Choctaw Indian ancestry.) She also currently contracts with the Disability Determination services to provide evaluations for those in Sabine, Natchitoches, DeSoto, Winn and Vernon parishes.
“… It is hard to believe I'm in my 90th year and still working for the State part time!” she said.
After getting to know her, even just a little, it is not hard to believe at all.
It easy to see how Dr. Addision Sandel could be doing most anything she sets her mind to – at four, at 17, or at 105.
Addison Sandel in Washington D.C. during the war years. She was a “Government Girl” and took one of the jobs vacated by men deployed overseas. She was 17 when she first started with the Quartermasters Office in Washington. A photo of Addie that wound up in the Fort Polk (called Camp Polk at that time) newspaper. “I did not know they were taking my picture to enter into a beauty contest until I saw the Post newspaper,” Addie said. She was entered into the Camp Beauty Contest twice without her knowledge. “Thank goodness I didn’t win,” she said. Addie and Gus wearing robes that were gifts from one of the two Saudi Princes, either Faisal or Khalid. Gus worked with both. Dr. Sandel at her final international presentation: “Symptom Patterns of Attention-deficit Disorder in Underachieving Gifted Children.” She presented at the Tenth World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, help in Toronto, Canada, August 1993. Dr. Sandel at age 65 when working on Gifted and Talented issues for the psychology community.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.