Sarah Trice, Caseworker, 79

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Sarah Trice, died of cancer, Monday, March 28, 2005, in her Chicago,
Illinios, home, at the age of 79.

With her peaceful spirit and unflappable nature, Sarah L. Trice
attracted people with troubles as they sought her advice or counsel.

Throughout her long career as a caseworker and regional director with
the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, those turning
to her often were colleagues.

"I would call her the social worker's social worker," said her son,
David. "People gravitated to her ... she just had a very calming
influence."

After earning a bachelor's degree from Lincoln University of Missouri
in 1947, Mrs. Trice began her career as a family social worker in her
hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and started graduate studies at St.
Louis University.

But charmed by Chicago, where she had family, she moved to the city in
1952 and became a caseworker with the children's division of Cook
County in its foster care program. During those years she also studied
for her master's degree at the University of Chicago's School of Social
Service Administration. She earned her degree in 1970.

In the mid-1960s, she left the department for a few years to stay home
with her children. In about 1965, she joined the fledgling Illinois
Department of Children and Family Services, which began to address
problems of child abuse and neglect. She became a staff development
supervisor for the Cook County, Illinois, area.

"We were on the cutting edge of child-abuse law," said Vera Pitts, who
joined the department as a caseworker in 1968 and later became an
administrator. "Child protective services became the core of the child
welfare program. Sarah was the person who developed, trained the
workers. She was very much a consummate social worker, touching the
lives of many people in the work world and the clients that we served.

"She was a wonderful leader with a warm, generous spirit."

Later when the state created different district offices to serve its
expanding clientele, Mrs. Trice became the administrator of the
district covering west Cook County and later became a regional
director. She retired in 1987.

Mrs. Trice was born Sarah Skinner, the only child of Scott and Maomi
Skinner. She was a toddler when her mother died, and she moved in with
aunts and uncles who helped raise her as her father traveled the
country to earn money to send back home.

She met her husband, James, through a mutual friend. Over dates and
dinners, they fell in love and they got married in 1960 on her
birthday, Aug. 18, 1960.

One of her greatest pleasures was forming friendships and cultivating
close relationships, said her son.

Another was the news.

"My mom liked reading newspapers, watching television news shows and
talking about the news," her son said. "She often read and clipped news
on anything that she thought was inspirational about African-Americans
that were doing things that she wanted other people to know about.

"She liked to gather that information into little photo albums and
memory books that she would give different family members or keep for
herself." Among the clippings she gathered were the Chicago Tribune
columns of her daughter-in-law, Dawn Turner Trice.

Other survivors include her husband; two others sons, Wayne and James;
a step-daughter, Erma Jean Carter; seven grandchildren; and two
great-grandchildren.

Chicago Tribune