Avery Laurel Sanger (born Pamela Sue Fitzwater), age 71, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, December 31, 2019, at Springfield Villa in Springfield, Missouri.

She was born November 24, 1948, in Beatrice, Nebraska, to Paul Morrell and Velma Betty Ann (Friederichs) Fitzwater. She graduated in 1967 from Lincoln Southeast High School. She would go on to achieve a BA in English with a minor in Journalism in 1984 and a MA in Guidance and Counseling in 1987, both from Southwest Missouri State University.

Avery had many jobs in her lifetime and all of them focused on helping other people. She was a therapist in an adolescent psychiatric unit, a therapist and manager for multiple impatient adolescent treatment facilities, and retired from Springfield Regional Center as a service coordinator for adults with developmental disabilities, where she ensured that adults with special needs had the resources necessary to live a meaningful life.

If Avery could be encapsulated in one term, it would be FREE SPIRIT. Her path to enlightenment led her in and out of multiple cities and spiritual practices, and through it all she maintained her love of family, animals of all kind, and nature. We imagine her now, free from pain, with her bare toes buried in the green grass standing under the most beautiful tree ever seen and surrounded by her beloved parents, sisters, and pets.

She is survived by her daughter, Anisa Dawn, and wife Billie Marsala; sister, Marlene Marie von Friedrichs-Fitzwater, and husband, Robert B. DeSaeger; her brother-in-law, Allen Brock; and four nephews. Avery was preceded in death by her mother and daddy and sisters, Sherry Kay Fitzwater and Jeannette “Jeanne” Yvonne Fitzwater Brock.

Her Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, January 4, 2020. Family, friends, and others whose lives Avery touched are invited to UNITY OF SPRINGFIELD, 2214 E. Seminole St., Springfield, Missouri, to reminisce, grieve, support each other, and celebrate her life. Family will receive friends starting at 1 p.m. and her service will begin at 2 p.m.