Hixie Sanders Anglea (1913-1996)

Portrait from the Tennessee General Assembly composite of 1951-52.

   Prominent Nashville, Tennessee resident Hixie Sanders Anglea was for many years a notable fixture in Tennessee's capital city, being a former Vice Mayor of that city, a two-term member of the State House of Representatives and a member of the Nashville City Council for over twenty years. One of five children born to Monroe Lee (1882-1952) and Nellie Hughes Anglea (1889-1962), Hixie Sanders Anglea was born in Lebanon, Tennessee on April 4, 1913.  He would graduate from the law department of Cumberland University in the class of 1935 and shortly thereafter launched a law practice in Nashville, partnering with Jordan Stokes III. Anglea married his first wife Sarah Katherine Todd McBroome on March 23, 1939. The couple would later have two daughters, Sandra Margaret (born 1941) and Sarah Todd (born 1943). Following his first wife's death in 1962 Anglea would remarry to Juanita Sue Broome Simmons (1924-1997), who survived him upon his death in 1996. 

   Prior to his entering Nashville political life, Anglea joined the International Order of Odd Fellows, of which he was a member for over fifty years. In 1941 he became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee and fourteen years later ascended to the post of Sovereign Grand Master of the World Independent Order of Odd Fellows, holding that post from 1955-56.

H. Sanders Anglea, from the 1933 Cumberland University "Phoenix".

   In November 1948 Anglea was elected to the Tennessee State House of Representatives, representing that state's 15th floterial district (comprising Davidson and Wilson county). Taking his seat at the start of the 1949-51 session, Anglea would serve on the following house committees: Corporations, Education and Common Schools, Immigration, Insurance and Loans, Judiciary, Pensions, Public Roads, Railroads, and Retrenchment. Anglea would also chair the Committee on Public Health and Sanitation during his first term. Reelected as a representative in 1950, Anglea's second term saw him sit on two new house committees, including Code Revision and Criminal Revision, and he continued service on the Judiciary Committee. 

   Before leaving the legislature Anglea had been elected as Vice Mayor of Nashville in 1951 and held that office until 1963. His time in public service wasn't just limited to Tennessee however, and in the early 1950s was selected by President Eisenhower to serve as Chairman of the Fraternal Organizations committee of the Presidential People-To-People program, developed in connection with the U.S. Information Agency. His service with this program continued until about 1958, and his time as chairman brought him into contact with another oddly named political figure, Genoa Sebastian Washington (a former Illinois state representative profiled here back in February), who served as the program's finance committee chairman. 

From Jet Magazine, August 28, 1958.

     After concluding his service with the People-to-People program Anglea would serve a brief stint as Public Defender for the city of Nashville in 1963 and in 1966 was elected as Metro councilman-at-large for the Nashville-Davidson County area, where he would remain until 1987. H. Sanders Anglea died in Nashville on November 26, 1996, aged 83. He was later interred at the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Nashville, and his memory and public service to that city continued on in the scholarship fund bearing his name, established shortly after his death.

Portrait from the Richland West End Neighborhood newsletter, 2014.