FONT OF FAYETTE COUNTY HISTORY

The funeral for Elizabeth Redwine Ramsey, affectionately known as “Miss Boo,” was held Monday afternoon at the Fayetteville First United Methodist Church. Her family has been a mainstay of the church for over a century and a half.

The oldest of four girls born to Charles Davenport and Clifford Burks Redwine, she was born on September 28,1911. When she was 14 years old, their mother died and she served as their mother-figure as well as oldest sister.

She was graduated from Fayette County High School in 1929 and attended Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, and Georgia State College for women in Milledgeville. After graduation, she taught sixth grade for 12 years at Campbell of Fairburn High School. She served as a teacher here for 12 years, from 1932 to 1944. In 1945 she ran for the position of Fayette County School Superintendent and served for four years. She has been the only woman to serve in that position.

Because it was during the years of World War II, finding teachers was not easy. When one teacher had to leave halfway through the school year, she had to teach for the remainder of that school year, as well as tend to superintendent duties.

She was credited with updating textbooks, finding the cheapest source for school supplies and supervising a school curriculum so that the same subjects were taught in all schools. She would visit each school at least once every two months to see that the teachers were on the job and to check on the attendance.

She also served as hostess for her father throughout his senatorial years in the Georgia Legislature and as he served as State Revenue Commissioner.

She was a longtime board member of the Redwine Brothers Company and the Farmers and Merchants Bank, chairman of the Board of Children and Family Services and was named “Woman of the Year” in the early 1970s by the Fayette County Business Woman’s Association. At the first Fayette County High School Distinguished Alumni banquet in 2000, she was the first woman chosen for this honor.

She remained in the home she was born and reared in until her father died in 1955. She then married the late Samuel Walter Ramsey, living in East Point for two years, and they then returned to her home place. He died in 2002.

She was also preceded in death by her sister, Josephine Redwine Carmichael.

She is survived by sisters Henrietta Redwine Dennis, Fayetteville and Jane Redwine Dickerson, McDonough.

Interment was at Westminster Memorial Gardens, Peachtree City with the Carl J. Mowell & Son Funeral Home in charge.

Memorial donations may be made to the Fayetteville First United Methodist Church, 175 E. Lanier Avenue, Fayetteville, GA 30214.

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