While not a veteran, Lucy Booth has strong connections to the Cold War.
Lucy Gibson Booth was born on March 25, 1886, here in Kennesaw. Her parents, Isham and Mattie Fowler Gibson, are buried nearby. Her future husband, Eugene Theodore Booth, was born eight years before in Cobb County. He lived in the nearby Benson community and was a schoolteacher in Kennesaw as early as 1902. The two were married in 1907. Eugene would continue to serve as a schoolteacher for the rest of his career while also becoming a Baptist preacher. He would preach at Noonday Baptist Church until 1926.
Though both Booths were from the Kennesaw area, and would eventually choose to be buried here, the Booths are better remembered for their time in Woodstock. They moved there in the late 1920s, and E. T. Booth became the pastor of Woodstock Baptist Church and principal of Woodstock’s school. In 1937, he became superintendent of Cherokee County’s school system. According to Find a Grave, he taught at various points Latin, English, Spelling, History, Algebra, Geometry, Physiology, and Geography. One of E. T. Booth Sr.’s students was a young Woodstock native named Dean Rusk. Rusk would go on to serve as Secretary of State under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and helped to shape US Foreign Policy during the Cold War.
The Booths would have four children, including E. T. Booth Jr. This son became a nuclear physicist and laser expert. Booth was part of the team that created the first successful nuclear fission reaction in the United States, and during World War II he worked on the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bomb.
Rev. E. T. Booth passed away on May 5, 1972, at the age of 94. Lucy Booth celebrated her 100th birthday in 1986 and passed away in 1988. Today, there is a middle school in Cherokee County named after her husband.