Remembered by many as a woman with a radiant smile and inspirational qualities, Wandarah Anderson, associate professor of social work at Sacramento State, died from cancer on Oct. 6. She was 43.

A funeral was held for Anderson Friday afternoon at the Green Valley Mortuary in Cameron Park. Family and friends wept as her children read poems and letters and her husband sang, “You Are So Beautiful.”

“She gave me a reason to wake up every morning and smile,” Joseph Anderson said at Friday’s service. “She was my soul partner, my lover and my best friend. I never knew anyone who could love as much as she.”

Nearly 200 friends, family, co-workers and students attended the funeral to honor the life and accomplishments of Anderson.

Robin Kennedy, professor of social work and friend of Anderson, spoke at the service about her memories of Anderson.

“I used to tease her about how everyone thought she was so mean and tough, except for those of us who really knew her,” Kennedy said. “Then seeing her courage and tenacity as she fought and died showed just how tough she really was.”

In April 2008, doctors diagnosed Anderson with soft-tissue sarcoma, a rare type of cancer that accounts for less than 1 percent of all new cancer cases each year. After taking a semester off from teaching and enduring multiple surgeries and chemotherapy treatments, a CT scan in June this year had good results.

“Although my oncologist is not ready to say free of disease at this time, all evidence points to that conclusion,” Anderson wrote in an entry on her Care Page, an online journal for medical patients to share with friends and family.

In her last entry on Aug. 14, Anderson wrote that the cancer had returned to her abdomen. She had planned on returning to teach at Sac State this semester.

“She was greatly loved and respected by all,” said Teiahsha Bankhead, graduate coordinator of the social work division. “She had a very kind balance, and a gentle spirit. She was youthful and had a lot of vitality but was also very serious and dedicated.”

She was highly regarded by faculty, staff and students as an innovator and a team builder, whose focus was on the students and on impacting change.

“Wandarah was a great person and one of my favorite professors. She was very challenging, but she was very inspiring. She was amazing,” said Nataliya Nanchik, a Sac State alumna with a bachelor’s degree in social work. “I didn’t even know she had cancer. She didn’t really tell students that she was sick.”

Anderson was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Dec. 22, 1965. She received a master’s degree in social work from Norfolk State University in 1988. In 2004, she earned her doctorate in social work from the University of Utah.

In 2001, she began at Sac State as a lecturer in social work. Two years later, she took a position as an associate professor. Anderson was a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Council on Social Work Education. She also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Child Welfare.

Anderson moved to Sacramento with her family when her husband, Joseph Anderson, was appointed department chair of the social work division. Bankhead said she was hired a few years later and established herself as much more than the wife of a prominent professor, but a critical thinking intellectual and a fantastic professor.

In spite of her many struggles, Anderson remained positive and was always smiling, said her colleague Krishna Guadalupe, professor of social work.

On March 16, Anderson wrote on her Care Page in an entry titled “Drop of Water” about one of her joyous days of recovery, a day when her bedroom was not a “sick hospital surrogate.”

In the entry, she described the discovery of a drop of water on an eyelash, her first hair growth since her hair loss from chemotherapy.

“I am bewitched by this fresh green mint drop of sustenance on a newly formed hair,” she wrote. “The drop surrendered to gravity. Trillions of pale blue pearls slope down the shower door and they shout, ‘glorious, glorious driblet ? how you shine us through. Today was one hair, tomorrow they’ll be two.”

Guadalupe said his former colleague and friend was an outstanding human being whose team building skills were strong and attitude was simple yet profound.

“It is hard to describe in words the type of human being that she was,” Guadalupe said. “She was the kind of person who walks the talk. She was a great role model and will be very missed.”

Anderson is survived by her husband and her three children, Bailey, 22; and twins Sean and Caitlin, 20. She is also survived by her mother, Margaret Wagner; stepfather, Timothy Wagner; and two brothers, Charles Gregory and Timothy Wagner Jr. Her love for her friends and family was strong, and she wrote about it often in her Care Page.

“I feel very grateful to have so many friends and family surrounding me with love and support,” she wrote. “Somehow, before I got sick, I didn’t realize how much I took all of that for granted. Now it’s like this momentous gift that I carry with me everywhere I go.”

Once her cancer returned this year, friends and family teamed together to create Wandarah’s Light, a donation site to help fund treatment for Anderson’s sarcoma that was not funded by her insurance.

After Anderson lost her 18-month battle, her family expressed their wish for donations to be made in her honor to the American Cancer Society.

“She was taken from us too soon, but she made a more lasting impression than many of us will make in a lifetime,” her husband said. “As we always said when we parted, I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

Brittany Bottini can be reached at [email protected].