Sara Denton was born November 12, 1924 in Paducah, Kentucky into a family of readers and thinkers. When the opportunity arose, at 18 years of age, to move to Washington, D.C. to work in the Signal Corps, she seized the opportunity. From the vantage point of her apartment, she could see the Secret Service assisting Franklin D. Roosevelt into his limousine at the back door of the White House. His polio was hidden from the public but this diversion allowed Sara and her friends to greet and be greeted by their hero.