Jean Paxton Oliver Sartor was an artist in Shreveport, Louisiana, who was instrumental in the founding of the R.S. Barnwell Memorial Garden and Arts Center. A frequent exhibitor in the International Society of Experimental Artists, Sartor was also a member of the ShreveportVisual ArtsHall of Fame. Prior to her death, she was recognized as a founding member of the Hoover Water Color Society and had a solo retrospective exhibit displayed at the Meadows Museum of Art at the United Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport.
Sartor painted and gardened on that she shared her husband. She was a chairwoman of the Holiday in Dixie Cotillion and a member of the Junior League and the Silver Rose Society. She received numerous refereed awards for her work. During World War II, while her husband was in the Army, she was employed at an ammunition plant as an artillery shell inspector. After their marriage in 1940, she moved with him to his native Shreveport. In the early days of the Barnwell Center, horticulturists and artists fought for dominance. As one with an interest in both fields, Sartor nevertheless took a strong stand for the artists. Among the horticulturists was Kay Tuggle Kline, founder of the former Posey Mart, which operated in Shreveport until 1976. At the age of fifteen, Kline was the youngest licensed florist in the state. In an interview with society columnist Margaret Martin of The Shreveport Times, Sartor's daughter, Elisabeth "Ibby" Harden, of Port Royal, South Carolina, described her mother as "eccentric." The artist also maintained a rock garden in which she divided the "good" snakes from the "bad" snakes, and she refused to allow the killing of a "good" snake. She allowed her children to keep "unusual pets, turtles, alligators, a monkey, horned toads, guinea pigs, and mice as well as cats and dogs." But she would not permit an opossum that son, Alton Oliver Sartor, once hid in the basement. The creature damaged the air conditioning insulation in the home. The Sartors also had another daughter, Jean Sartor Hillman of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and two sons, Dr. Ryan Balfour Sartor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Dr. Alton Oliver Sartor of New Orleans. The Sartors died five years apart. Services for Jean Sartor were held on July 31, 2007, the day before her 89th birthday, at Noel Memorial United Methodist Church. The couple is interred at Forest Park East Cemetery on St. Vincent's Avenue in Shreveport.