Sally was born Sally Christine Rundquist on August 20, 1941 to Dorothy Elizabeth Anderson Rundquist and Ragnar Arthur Rundquist (who went by Rundy) in Chicago Illinois. Her sister Nancy arrived 7 years later. The family moved to Houston, Texas in 1955. She graduated from Bellaire High School in 1958 and then from the University of Texas at Austin in 1962 as Phi Beta Kappa and a Member of Mortarboard Honor Society. She was named an outstanding student in the UT Cactus Yearbook.

Two weeks after graduation, she married Wilton D. Wilton and moved to Tullahoma Tennessee where she taught High School French and Spanish. Their first son Jeff was born in 1965. They moved to the Greater Houston area in 1966, and their second son Brooke was born in 1967.

She divorced in 1972, and the family of three moved to Austin Texas in 1973 where she pursued her doctorate in Foreign Language Education. She earned her P.H.D. in 1977 and they moved back to Houston where she began a career teaching future educators in bilingual education at Houston Babtist University. She taught there for 30 years until retiring. By that time, she was heading the department and had brought in millions of dollars in grants to the university and had funded many scholarships.

She met Howard Philips on New Year’s Eve 1980 and they were married in 1984. They stayed together until he passed in 2018.

She was a single parent long before that was widely accepted, and a pioneer of bilingual education.

She is survived by her sons Jeff and Brooke, her grandchildren Scott and Patricia, her sister Nancy, brother in law David, nephew Alex, and several nieces and nephews and their families.

She was delightful to all who knew her and she will be greatly missed.

A celebration of Sally’s life will be held on Saturday, May 9th, 2026, at 2 PM, at Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church, 1900 Bering Drive, Houston TX 77057.