Doris Farmer Payne

Doris Janie Payne, widow of Coach Gordon E. “Boots” Payne died on January 13, 2014. This grand lady, born on March 7, 1915, was mother to five children: John F. Payne, M.D. (deceased 2009), Carole Davis, Mary Jeanne Madere, R.N. (deceased 2011), Patricia Wentzell (deceased 2006) and AlmaLee P. “Lisa” Guttshall, J.D. Mrs. Payne endured WW II while Boots was serving in the Navy in Hawaii, raising her children and volunteering at the USO. In 1949, she and Boots moved their family to Atlanta. Their Southwest home was always full of guests for Boots’s famous stew and barbecue. They entertained sports reporters, Hungarian immigrants, lonely priests and sports stars, including Ted Williams. Mrs. Payne waited until her youngest child was in school to begin her working career; she was the early model of the working mother. Coach Payne, on his way to his job at Marist, would drop her and 3 of the children to walk the 6 blocks to St. Anthony’s School, which they attended, and the Sears Store nearby, where Mrs. Payne worked in the credit department. She and Boots opened a florist shop shortly before his death in 1958. Mrs. Payne sold the shop and began working at St. Joseph High School in 1961. When the Archdiocease of Atlanta closed St. Joe’s, she worked at St. Pius X High School until her retirement in 1981. Mrs. Payne was re-christened “PaPayne” by her first grandchild, Gordon E. Davis when she tried to teach him about his grandfather who had died eight months before his birth. She would point to a picture of Coach Payne and say "Grandpa Payne.” Gordon decided for all future 16 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren that their grandmother was and would forever be “PaPayne.” She was the daughter of Oscar Leonard and Alma Prudence (nee Bearden) Farmer. She graduated from Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga, TN. A funeral mass will be celebrated on Saturday, the 17th of January at twelve o’clock, noon at St. Jude the Apostle Catholic Church, 7171 Glenridge Drive, NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30328. Interment will follow at Westview Cemetery. Friends are cordially invited to visit with the family Friday evening from six until eight o’clock with a Rosary being said at seven-thirty at H. M. Patterson & Son Arlington Chapel, 173 Allen Road, NE, Sandy Springs, GA 30328.