Sandra Marie McLean

Our beloved Sandra went to Heaven in peace on Saturday, June 6, 2020, after having been lovingly nursed by her husband and son, and with her daughter and dog by her side.

Sandi Weidemier was a Sonoma Girl, brought up on the Stevenson Turkey Farm on 5th Street East and attending grammar school in the Community Center. As a girl, she loved to play tennis and the piano, and wrote for the Sonoma High paper, The Dragon’s Tale.

She attended the University of the Pacific with an interest in journalism, but having fallen in love young, left to marry Robert McLean, the minister’s son she met in church. Two children followed, numerous animals, and a lovely rural life in a midcentury home across from her mother’s Victorian farmhouse, where Sandi and her family later lived.

Sandi was the consummate mother: assisting with Cub Scouts, leading Girl Scouts, volunteering with Little League, baking as Room Mother, and helping students learn to read at Prestwood and Altimira. She had a special feeling for children and the elderly, nursing many of her older relatives for decades and later, volunteering with Meals on Wheels.

Early on, she was the cool young mother with the flame red hair and the freckled perfect nose. Sandi savored Red Rose tea and hot buttered toast, shopping and going out to lunch, visiting the coast and nurseries, watching British TV and having the occasional margarita, Fourth of July, Vintage Festival, and New Year’s Eve festivities with the Buttrum/Jennings clan, and caring for her great-nephews, Colin and Kurtis, and great-niece, Alex.

An amazing cook and baker, she created delicious daily and holiday dinners and baked goods. We miss her garlic mayonnaise, Trader Vic’s chicken, macaroni salad, Thanksgiving Fudge, Toll House Cookies, Chocolate Rhapsody Cake, and countless other delicacies.

Sandi was a master at her hobbies. She sewed brilliantly, making most of her and her daughter’s clothes for decades. Her homes expressed her style and training from her mother, Marjorie Stevenson. She read voraciously and her gardens were bowers of color and beauty.  Some of her favorite plants were roses, chrysanthemums, camellias, fuchsias, begonias, hydrangeas, lilacs, gerberas, geraniums, nasturtiums, daffodils, and pinks. She was a 100% faithful Giants baseball fan and we know she is glorying in them and in the election of Joe Biden.

Sandra McLean joins in Heaven her grandparents R.G. and Martha Weidemier, biological father Pete Weidemier, parents Marjorie and C.W. Stevenson, brothers Peter and Ronnie Weidemier, unborn grandchildren Owen and Cordelia McLean Lyons, nephew J.G. Sisk, close friends Catherine Buttrum and Ed and Erma Milkie, numerous other family members and friends, and a lifetime of beloved animals, particularly her Norwegian forest cat, Chloe, and the loyal dog who saw her to Heaven, Max.

She is survived by her husband Robert McLean, son Gordon McLean, daughter Leslie McLean, and son-in-law Michael Lyons, as well as brother Craig Stevenson, and his wife Carol, sister-in-law Janet Edwards and her husband Fred, cousin Gordon Sisk and his wife Virginia, and cousin Shirley Gooch.

She is remembered with love by many younger members of her family: Jen, Nick, Dawn, Bret, Colin, Kurtis, Alex, Amber, Aaron, Hudson, Thomas, Michael, Oliver, Richard, David, Jane, John, Chris, Serene, Shaynah, Deven, Kalani, Eliyahu, Thauna, Radha, Sacha, and Rachel.

Sandi cherished her friends and neighbors, including Rich, Vicki, Ernie, Peg, Susie, and Johnnie. Her precious best friend since kindergarten, Susanne Jennings nee Buttrum, meant the world to her.

We will all be together in the years to come. Blessings forever on our beloved Sandi.

Her family wishes to thank her nurse, Jan, and Hospice of Petaluma’s nurse, Carolyn, and gentle health care worker, Kaori. Thanks too to Duggan’s of Sonoma. Two small services were held at a local cemetery last summer. Donations in Sandra’s memory may be made to F.I.S.H., Meals on Wheels, and Forgotten Felines.

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