Cora Sanders was born in Helena, Montana in 1872 to Junius G. Sanders and Alfaretta Rumley Sanders. As a child, she went by Cora Belle Sanders, but as an adult, she changed her middle name to Edgerton. Her father’s family was prominent in Montana politics (her uncle Wilbur Fisk Sanders and great-uncle Sidney Edgerton both served as governors), and her father was a Civil War and Spanish-American War veteran, who worked as a merchant, an army paymaster, and a federal marshal at various points in his life. Cora was one of 6 female graduates in the Helena High School class of 1891, and did further study in Germany from 1891-1893. She worked as a school teacher in various small towns in Montana, and moved to Butte around 1898, where she was in the same social circles as William Andrews Clark, Jr. and his brother C.W. Clark. In 1910, Sanders moved to Los Angeles with the Clarks as the governess to William Andrews Clark, III, and after Tertius was sent to boarding school on the east coast, it appears Cora continued to work for and travel with the Clarks as a secretary. In the 1920s, Cora took on increasing responsibility as an assistant librarian for Clark’s collection. Her niece, Adelyn Sutphen, also worked at the library, and her sister Ellen Sanders Sutphen worked as a secretary to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. After William Andrews Clark, Jr.’s death, Sanders remained the curator of the Clark Library until 1943. She died in 1964 in Long Beach, California.