Edward Donald Rountree

Edward Donald Rountree August 29, 1930 – September 23, 2009 Edward Donald Rountree, age 79, of Savannah, Georgia, died September 23, 2009. Mr. Rountree was born in Swainsboro, Georgia, lived in rural South Georgia as a child, and moved to Savannah at the age of fifteen. He graduated from Savannah High School in 1948 as one of the top ten students in his class. Don Rountree was an accomplished artist. Mostly self-taught, he studied at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences in Savannah and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He was a longtime member of the Telfair Museum of Art, serving, beginning in the 1950's, on fund-raising committees for its renovation and restoration, and supporting its mission for over forty years. He was a member of the Savannah Arts Association and a founding member of Gallery 209, a local artists' cooperative, where he served as President for four terms, and where his kiln-fired glass, copper and silver enamelwork, paintings, woodworking, and photographs were on regular display. His paintings and photography often reflected his interest in local history, including historic railroad scenes, downtown Savannah, and Bonaventure Cemetery. His photographs are displayed at the Bonaventure Cemetery Museum, where he served on the Board of Directors of the Bonaventure Historical Society and as a volunteer docent. His paintings comprise diverse media including oil, acrylic, pastel, and watercolor in portraiture, still lifes, abstracts, and landscapes. His photographs of the segregated South are part of the permanent collections of the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum and the King-Tisdell Cottage, both located in downtown Savannah. His photographs of mid-century Savannah are included on the cover of and in the pages of the well-received Sites and Sounds of Savannah Jazz, by Dr. Julius "Boo" Hornstein. A selection of his photographs of nature was screened in the Johnny Mercer Theater, accompanying a Savannah Symphony performance of Vivaldi's concerto, Four Seasons. His work has been commissioned nationally, and he has been a featured artist in galleries across the South and in regional and national publications. He also wrote poetry, often inspired by his love of the railroad and the changes the industry saw in the last century. Mr. Rountree is the author of Tenacity in Adversity: a History of the Rountree Family 1550 – 1993 (1993). Using primary and secondary sources, he traced his family's genealogy in a direct line to Yorkshire, England, 1550, and indirectly to County Surrey, 1301. Tenacity in Adversity is housed at the Georgia Historical Society and in libraries across the country. Don Rountree was an active, charter member of Clayton P. Miller Memorial United Methodist Church (now Miller Inner City United Methodist Church), where he served as treasurer and on the Board of Trustees. He was a longtime Sunday school teacher of the high school class and a member of the Methodist Men. He was instrumental in leading the fund-raising efforts for a new sanctuary, for which he designed the interior and hand built the sanctuary cross. Mr. Rountree was employed by the Seaboard Coastline Railroad (now CSX) as a train dispatcher for forty-two years, serving from 1948 to 1990. He was president of the national Train Dispatcher's Union, where he negotiated the safest contract in the Union's history, providing required periods of rest between shifts, among other safety features of benefit to passengers. He was the subject of an extensive interview in Lines South, the official publication of the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line Railroads Historical Society, Inc., in 2001. He was the youngest train dispatcher ever hired by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, having passed the exhaustive examination at the age of twenty-one years. Mr. Rountree was preceded in death by his wife of thirty-one years, Dorothy Ann Small Rountree; his father, Hugh Jordan Rountree; his mother, Mary Alma White Rountree; and his brothers; Hugh Jordan Rountree, Jr.; James Robert Rountree; Walton White Rountree; John Nolan Rountree; and Theodore Franklin Rountree. Mr. Rountree is survived by his wife of twenty years, Betty Sue Gomo Rountree; six children, two stepdaughters, their spouses, and children: Jacqueline Susan Rountree Chapman, Ronald Henry Chapman, and their daughter, Amy Rose, of Savannah, GA; Sally Ann Rountree Klein, Thomas Edward Klein, of Savannah, GA, and their daughter and son-in-law, Karen Elizabeth Klein Allgood and John Franklin Allgood, of Clarkston, GA; Douglas Brian Rountree, Reiko Kondo Rountree, and their children, Edward Yuichi, Austin Shuichi, and Shelby Kenichi, of Concord, CA; Carol Lynn Rountree Fulcher, John Clifton Fulcher, Jr., and their children, Lexsie Ann, Lindsey Marie, and John Clifton, III, of Savannah, GA; Leslie Leigh Rountree, David Alan Schneider, and their children, Grace Helene and Henry David, of Carrboro, NC; David Ashley Rountree and his children, Katie Alma and Travis Donald, of Tallahassee, FL; Wendy Jo Gomo Naismith, Charles Ashley Naismith, of Brooklet, GA; and Sandra Ann Gomo, of Savannah, GA; and a large, extended family. Visitation will be on Friday, September 25 at 1:00 PM at Fox and Weeks Funeral Home, 7200 Hodgson Memorial Drive, Savannah, GA. Services will be held immediately following at 2:00 PM at Fox and Weeks Hodgson Chapel. Interment will be at Greenwich Cemetery following the service. Memorial gifts may be sent to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation at www.pdf.org. or 1359 Broadway, Suite 1509, New York, NY 10018.