April 3, 1936 – August 26, 2026
It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friend, Sara Handmaker Block.
Sara was the quintessential matriarch of her family, the glue that held generations together. Holidays, celebrations, and family gatherings centered around her home. She loved her family deeply, and her circle extended well beyond relatives. To Sara, friends often became family.
She was candid, funny, stubborn, strong-willed, independent, and completely unapologetic about who she was. She never minced words, and those who knew her rarely had to wonder what she was thinking because she was going to tell them. She was also extraordinarily generous, both with the people she loved and with those who simply needed her help.
Perhaps no story captures Sara quite as well as one involving Elvis Presley. When Elvis performed in Tucson, Sara managed to get a seat in the front row. As he bent down to give her one of his famous scarves, she leaned toward him and whispered, “I don’t care how fat you’re getting, there’s just more of you to love.”
That was Sara.
Sara was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the aftermath of the devastating 1936 Johnstown Flood. When she was five years old, her family moved to Tucson, the city that would remain her home for the rest of her life. She graduated from Tucson High School and attended the University of Colorado before returning home to care for her mother, who had cancer.
After returning to Tucson, Sara met her future husband, Charles Block, at a temple function. They would go on to share nearly 70 years together, with a few breaks along the way. Their marriage, family, and the generations that followed became the center of Sara’s life.
Sara was also a trailblazer professionally. She became the second woman real estate agent in Tucson and was the city’s top-producing real estate agent throughout the 1970s. Her career in real estate spanned more than 50 years, and she eventually owned her own agency with her son Michael and her dear friends Verna Van Loan and Joanne Hayden.
Of all her accomplishments, however, Sara took the greatest pride in her family. She especially cherished her eight grandchildren and eighteen great-grandchildren and took enormous pleasure in watching the family she and her husband created continue to grow.
After losing her husband last year, Sara faced the difficult task of learning to live without the man who had shared nearly seven decades of her life. Even then, she remained determined to live on her own terms and maintain her independence for as long as possible.
Sara is survived by her three children, Michael Block, Jodi Gallick, and Charles Block, Jr.; eight grandchildren; and eighteen great-grandchildren.
Her absence leaves an enormous hole in the family she spent a lifetime holding together. Holidays and celebrations will be different without her. But her humor, strength, generosity, traditions, and unmistakable personality will live on through the generations that follow her.
Sara was truly one of a kind. She could make people laugh, make them crazy, tell them exactly what she thought, and love them with everything she had.
She will be deeply missed and forever loved.
