Laura Elaine Lucas Booker

Laura Elaine Lucas Booker February 25, 1925-May 8, 2020 Laura Elaine Lucas was born on February 25, 1925 on a farm in Bay Springs, Florida, a rural area northeast of Pensacola, Florida. While sleeping, she passed away peacefully on May 8, 2020 at age 95. Elaine was the first female child of Robert Lee Lucas and Laura Etta Barks Lucas. She was the fourth of eight children. In time, she would have four brothers and three sisters, five of whom preceded her in death. Elaine grew up materially poor in Bay Springs during the Great Depression and knew both happiness and want. At an early age, she was sent “down the road” to live with her grandmother (Miss Maggie) where Elaine lived until she met Troy Booker at a church camp meeting, where he fell in love with her the first time he heard her play the piano. They were equally matched in their love of music and their deep faith in God. They were married on December 20, 1942. Elaine was a very gifted and loving child. She attended school in Walnut Hill, Florida where she graduated as valedictorian of her high school class. She earned many academic awards, was chosen to teach and tutor students in lower grades, and her original essay was featured in the Pensacola News Journal after she won first prize in a statewide contest for young writers. She was an accomplished pianist and vocalist, playing and singing for churches and social occasions. After high school, Elaine moved to Pensacola, taking an apartment with several girls. Prior to her marriage, she worked as executive secretary to the Commanding Officer, Naval Air Station, Pensacola. After marriage, she was a devoted wife and a mother to two children, Troy and Emily. Her marriage and her family were her passion and her devotion. In Longview, Texas, while her husband earned his engineering degree, and to help with school costs, Elaine first worked in the LeTourneau College library and then worked as executive secretary to Mr. R.G. LeTourneau, builder of the largest earth-moving equipment in the world. Elaine had a lifelong love of flowers and the outdoors. She spent many long hours laboring in her yard, lovingly caring for the many flowering plants she gathered around her. As a member of the Pensacola Garden Club, she won many competitive honors in flower arranging. She won the highest award for creative flower arranging, the Tri-Color Award, and was featured in Florida state gardening and flower arranging publications. She went on to open a florist business in Pensacola, “Elaine’s Elegance in Flowers,” specializing in weddings and holiday home decorating. Her specialty was designing grand arrangements suitable for banquets and very large spaces. She decorated many high-visibility homes in Pensacola and donated her musical and decorating talents to her home church, First Baptist, Pensacola, where she was a faithful and active member for 60 years. She was a very successful florist, retiring only due to age and health concerns. An avid entertainer, Elaine loved to decorate her home, inside and out, for each season and holiday. Her home decorations were spectacular, winning awards from the community and accolades from all who saw them, including a feature article in the holiday decorating section of the local paper. Concurrent with her florist business, Elaine took up ceramic and porcelain painting. She created wonderfully beautiful paintings of scenes from her childhood memories. Fine-detail portraits of incredible beauty and whimsical rural and floral scenes were all fired under-glaze from her own kiln. She was a kind and loving mother to her two adoring children; a loving, devoted, and supportive wife to an equally-devoted and loving husband. She cherished her role as Grandma to four grandchildren and “GG” to her ten great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. To them, she was a patient, playful, and wise role model. She was a superb Southern cook, preparing innumerable delicious meals for family and friends. Looking back over her 95-year life, she was a very loving, forthright, and Godly woman who acted upon her many skills, abilities, talents, and interests to better herself, her family, and the world around her. She was an amazing woman, full of energy, enthusiasm, and talent. She is greatly missed. Proverbs 31: 25-28 best summarize her life: She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. Elaine was preceded in death by her husband of 62 years, Troy Marion Booker, her second husband of six years, Mr. Paul Levan, five of her eight siblings, and her eldest great-grandson, Troy Michael Booker. She is survived by her son, Troy L. (Donna) Booker, Pensacola, FL; her daughter, Emily (Wes) Painter, Chattanooga, TN; four grandchildren: Lane (Candy) Booker, Jacksonville, FL; Laura (Scott) Kirk, Chattanooga, TN; Kara (Roy Mauldin) Greene, Cantonment, FL; Kristin (Douglas) Ross, Chattanooga, TN; nine great-grandchildren: Haley (Ethan) Hardin, Cantonment, FL; Ashley Booker, Jacksonville, FL; Brenna Saxon, Connor Saxon, and Ethan Saxon, Chattanooga, TN; Colin McCracken and John Kirk, Chattanooga, TN; Ryan Greene and Taylor Greene, Cantonment, FL; and great-great-granddaughters Isabelle Elaine Booker and Emma Marie Hardin; two sisters, Yvonne Obren, Pensacola, FL; Ellen Settle, Molino, FL; one brother, Phil Lucas, Bay Springs, FL; and sister-in-law Charlotte Lucas, Cantonment, FL. Funeral services will be Friday, May 15, 2020 at 2:00 P.M. at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North with Dr. Ross Lankford and Dr. Dave Snyder officiating. The family will receive friends from 1:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. on Friday, May 15, 2020 at the funeral home. Interment will follow at Bayview Memorial Park. Pallbearers will be her great grandsons. Honorary bearers will be Ronald Greene, Roy Mauldin, JP Minchew, and Gerald Taylor.

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Laura Elaine Lucas Booker

February 25, 1925 - May 8, 2020