Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Fain, Sarah Lee Odend'hal July 19, 1962
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Robert Woolfitt http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008401 August 6, 2025, 2:57 pm

Virginian-Pilot July 20, 1962
SAN MARINO, Calif. - Mrs. Sarah Lee Odend'hal Fain, first woman to serve in the 
Virginia General Assembly, died Thursday at 4 p.m. in a San Marino hospital 
after a one-year illness.
A native of Norfolk, she was a daughter of Edward Henry and Mrs. Elizabeth 
Gordon Odend'hal and the wife of Army Col. Walter Colquitt Fain, retired, a San 
Marino architect.
She lived in San Marino for 25 years.
She was a graduate of Hemmingway High School in Norfolk and the University of 
Virginia. She taught in the Norfolk Public Schools prior to entering political 
life.
She was a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly from Norfolk for four terms 
from 1924 to 1928.
During Mrs. Fain's campaigns, she spoke all over Norfolk from soap boxes and 
wagons.
In an interview in The Virginian-Pilot in 1951, Mrs. Fain said that her friends 
urged her to run, but that one of them remarked with more candor than tact that 
"you weren't all we wanted, but you were all we could get."
The friend, the interview continued, "later ate those words after Mrs. Fain hung 
up a superb record in the General Assembly."
In the same interview, Mrs. Fain said it was difficult to convince people back 
in 1923 that a woman "could come out of the kitchen," but once she got to the 
General Assembly, "the men were polite and helpful."
After moving to California, she remained active in Democratic circles.
She was a former member of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Norfolk, and after 
removing to San Marino, she was active in the Episcopal Church.
She was a member of Daughters of the American Revolution and United Daughters of 
the Confederacy.
Besides her husband, she is survived by a sister, Mrs. Doris Odend'hal Brown of 
Arcadia, Calif.; a brother, E. H. Odend'hal Jr. of Charlottesville and several 
nieces and nephews.
A funeral service will be conducted Monday in All Saints Episcopal Church, 
Pasadena, Calif.

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