Rachel Bailey

News Obituary Article

ATLANTA: Rachel Bailey, West End resident

By KAY POWELL

Rachel Bailey lived in the same West End house for 74 years with never any intention of moving.

"I hope the Lord lets me stay there until I go to Westview," Miss Bailey, referring to Atlanta's historic cemetery, told a holiday gathering of neighbors.

The Lord did.

Miss Bailey, 83, died of pneumonia Thursday at Crawford Long Hospital.

The funeral is at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Anthony's Catholic Church with burial in Westview Cemetery. H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill, is in charge of arrangements.

In 1931, Miss Bailey's family came to Atlanta from Memphis, rejected a Peachtree Road address and moved into an apartment in West End so their only child could live in a neighborhood with other children.

"The real estate agent said, 'Oh, you have to live on Peachtree Road.' There were no children in the area, and all the houses were behind gates," she said in a Dec. 17 Journal-Constitution article.

In 1934, Miss Bailey moved with her parents into the two bedroom house she called home for the next 74 years.

She was comfortable in the West End house with its pocket doors, claw-foot tub and no shower. She never considered modernizing it, said Toni Shoemaker of Alpharetta, her friend since third grade.

"She was real traditional thinking," Ms. Shoemaker said.

When they were younger, they played tennis at Piedmont Park. As they grew older, it was Miss Bailey who was always talking Ms. Shoemaker into doing one thing or another, she said.

"She looked so pretty," Ms. Shoemaker said. "She always wore barrettes in her hair. She was just pretty, always so pretty and dressed pretty."

Miss Bailey was a trade specialist with the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration until she retired in the late 1990s.

"She never drove a car, but she got around more than I did," Ms. Shoemaker said. "She was very independent, very intelligent. I've never known her to be bored."

Miss Bailey was a loving and caring person, she said. She survived a hip replacement, breast cancer, being hit by a car, diabetes and several heart attacks.

"She never worried about anything. I couldn't imagine her always so happy and smiling," Ms. Shoemaker said.

Miss Bailey's kindness, spiritual life and varied interests kept them friends since they were 8, she noted.

Miss Bailey attended Mass daily at St. Anthony's Catholic Church --- near enough to cast a shadow on her house. She compiled the church school's history and wrote the story of the sanctuary's stained-glass windows and their donors, said Genevieve Lewis of Atlanta, a fellow parishioner and friend since 1974.

As part of the church's outreach mission, Miss Bailey shopped for patients in the care of the Sisters of Charity and delivered goods to them.

While she found West End Mall convenient, Miss Bailey came to miss the A&P, Piggly Wiggly and Gordon Theater, she said in a 1987 Journal-Constitution article. There are no immediate survivors.

© 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution