Any time Sandy Snarski read a sad story in the newspaper, it was difficult for her to sleep that night. Her husband would sometimes tear out the tales of tragedy before she had a chance to see them.

So it makes sense that she would respond to an unusual plea in The Milwaukee Journal in December 1969 from the Lauerman family. They needed lots of breast milk for a baby boy, Michael, who couldn't thrive because he was unable to digest anything else.

Dozens of women came forward, but Sandy was the superstar of lactation. She fed Michael directly from her own breasts almost every day for more than a year, which helped save the boy's life and forged a lasting friendship between the two families.

"The phrase 'Got milk?' takes on a whole new meaning when I think of Sandy Snarski. I prefer to use the phrase 'Got kindness?' when I think of this classy and selfless person," said Tina Parr, Michael's sister.

She contacted the newspaper this week to say that Sandy had died.

"I just want her remembered for all she's done," said Tina, a schoolteacher who lives in West Allis.

Michael was fine until he was about 6 months old. One day his mother, Pat Lauerman, read an article in Family Circle magazine about milk allergy. She contacted an Illinois doctor quoted in the article. He found that Michael had a cow's milk allergy and digestive tract deficiency, and he told her to feed the baby nothing but breast milk.

Pat was pregnant again and not producing as much milk. So her husband at the time, Michael Sr., wrote to Mrs. Griggs - that's Ione Quinby Griggs, the advice columnist in the Journal's late, great Green Sheet section.

Mrs. Griggs spread the news, and the Lauermans' phone started ringing. They would drive around and pick up frozen breast milk from total strangers, once even stopping at a tavern to make the connection. They needed about 42 ounces a day.

Sandy volunteered to help. She had a baby at home whom she was breast feeding, but she had excess production to share. She would come from Greenfield to the Lauerman home near 52nd St. and Forest Home Ave., or sometimes the baby would be brought to her.

By age 3, Michael grew out of his condition and could eat a regular diet. Sandy was part of the family by then.

Mrs. Griggs kept in touch with the Lauermans and wrote several updates on the boy in her column, the last time in 1981.

"The adequate supply of breast milk from area mothers saved his life, according to the doctor," she shared with readers. "The baby of years ago, now 12, is a healthy, good-looking, bright and talented boy, 5-feet-9-inches tall. He is musical and plays the organ in his church."

His story turns sad. In the early 1990s, Michael was stabbed multiple times by a robber and suffered years of pain. He died of an accidental overdose of morphine in 1995. He was 25.

Sandy was a friend to him throughout the ordeal, and she was there to comfort Pat when he died. She again was a rock for Pat when her younger son, Gregory, took his own life in 1996, and when Pat battled cancer and lost a leg to diabetes in recent years.

"She was always the sister I didn't have. She was a bosom buddy, literally," Pat said. "There's not enough people like her in this world, I can tell you that."

Pat, who still lives on Milwaukee's south side, repaid Sandy's kindness by serving as a nanny for Sandy's grandchildren for six years.

Sandy was diagnosed with cancer in May. She died last Thursday at age 72. During a memorial service Tuesday at Boerner Botanical Gardens, she was remembered as the heart of the family and a wonderful mother and grandmother. For Sandy, heaven on earth was a hot summer day and a backyard pool full of kids. That's what her son, Ken Schaufelberger, told the overflow crowd.

"She was the most positive lady I ever met," Ken, a surgeon living in Neenah, told me. "She made friends with everybody because she always put everybody else in front of herself."

And, 40 years ago, that included a sick little boy and his family.

Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or e-mail at jstingl@journalsentinel.com