Lee Wysong
Mrs. Lee Harvey Wysong, formerly of Atlanta and now living in Tunnel Hill, Ga., celebrated her 102nd birthday with family and friends at her home at 346 Summer Road on Saturday.
Mrs. Wysong has five children, 19 grandchildren and 32 great grandchildren. Her son, Charles Wysong, lives in Chattanooga.
Born in New Orleans in 1913, she has seen a host of major life-changing events.
The automobile, air travel and space travel have all occurred in her lifetime. During the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1917 she and her brother and sister would count the daily passing funerals.
When she was five years old her family moved to Atlanta. She learned to drive when she was 11. When she was 16 and being the only available driver, she drove her family on a 3,500-mile cross-country vacation.
Lee graduated from Sacred Heart High School and business school in Atlanta.
Mrs. Wysong was alive for both World Wars. Her husband, the late Charles F. Wysong, was an associate professor of Ceramic Engineering at Georgia Tech where he taught for 24 years until his death in 1964. At the outbreak of WW II he enlisted and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. During the war he was granted a United States patent for inventing a computer that dramatically increased the accuracy naval guns on ships.
After WW II her husband, in addition to teaching at Georgia Tech, founded Southern Porcelain, Inc. a ceramic manufacturing business in Marietta, Ga. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Wysong ran the Southern Porcelain for 40 years.
Lee is a member of Daughters of the American Revolution and an early member of the John Birch Society. As a member of Eagle Forum, she served as the head of the Georgia effort which successfully defeated the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.