Suzanne Lesley Paul

Graveside services for Suzanne Lesley Paul will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 29, 2020 at Magnolia Cemetery with Dr. Tom Sikes officiating.  Robert Barham Family Funeral Home is honored to be entrusted with arrangements.

Suzanne Lesley Paul passed away Sunday, December 20, 2020, at Tidewell Hospice House in Bradenton, Florida. She was born in Houston, Texas, on August 10, 1933, to Josiah Leroy Paul and Ruby Lesley Girten Paul.

After the death of her maternal grandfather, Charles Girten, she moved back to Meridian, Mississippi, with her mother and grandmother, Pearl Lee Rubush Girten. After graduating from Meridian High School in 1951, she attended Belhaven College, where she studied Bible, English, and Speech. In 1952, she was crowned Mississippi’s Miss Hospitality and traveled extensively promoting her state. In the early 1960’s, Ms. Paul served as Trinity Presbyterian Church’s Director of Children’s Education, followed by teaching English and Speech at Meridian High School. In 1967, she received a grant to study English at Tulane University where she earned a master’s degree. While studying at Tulane, she also taught English at St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Metairie, Louisiana. Upon her return to Meridian in 1971, she taught English at Lamar High School. Ten years later she moved to Bradenton, Florida, where she became the administrator of Adult Education in the Manatee County School System.

Ms. Paul had deep family roots in Meridian. Her maternal grandmother’s father, Charles M. Rubush, was a “Yankee” contractor who returned to Mississippi in 1868 after serving in the Civil War in the Indiana Infantry. He signed a contract with Marks Rothenberg Company to design and build a block of five story buildings and Opera House (now the MUS Riley Center). Rubush, who trained as a brick mason, built many local churches as well as the Lauderdale County Courthouse. He married a local woman, Martha Ann (Mattie) Wedgeworth and they raised a large family in Meridian.

Ms. Paul is preceded in death by her parents and her daughter, Lee Carter Brown. She leaves behind a daughter, Lesley Peterson Bolton (Bruce) of Darien, Connecticut, and Lesley’s children, John Nelson Bolton of New York, New York, and Lee Carter Litty (Leo) of Paris, France. She also leaves her daughter Lee Carter Brown’s son, Preston Whitaker Brown (Elizabeth) of Florence Alabama.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Tidewell Hospice at www.givetotidewell.org or call 1-855-Tidewell (855-843-3935).