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After 100 years, one makes a difference in a community.

On Saturday, June 21, LaGrange resident Willie Henry Lee, Sr. will celebrate his 100th birthday. Lee plans to celebrate the significant milestone this weekend with family flying in from across the country.

Lee is the sole surviving child of the late Earnest and Pearl Sumlin of Dayton, Ohio, though he grew up in Georgia and was reared by his aunt, Maude Lee, in West Point.

Lee graduated from the former Tenth Street High School in West Point, Georgia. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy. After being injured, Lee received the Purple Heart and left the armed forces to attend Fort Valley State University, earning a bachelor’s degree. He later continued his education at Morris Brown College and Atlanta University.

A lifelong Christian, Lee accepted Christ at an early age and joined Keeney Memorial United Methodist Church in West Point. When he moved to LaGrange, Lee became a member of Warren Temple United Methodist Church and later Bethlehem Baptist Church in West Point, pastored by the late W.T. Edmondson, a fellow funeral director, colleague and former mayor of LaGrange, whom he worked with for several years.
Lee began his teaching career in 1955 at Union Consolidated School at the age of 25. He later taught Mathematics, Driver’s Education, and served as a girls’ basketball coach at Ethel Kight and later at Troup High School, where he retired from education.

Following his 35-year teaching career, Lee pursued his dream of working in the funeral service business. Having grown up watching his aunt and cousins build their successful business, Lee’s Funeral Home in West Point, Lee became a funeral director working at Lee’s Funeral Home, Delaney & Lee Funeral Home, in LaGrange, Edmondson and Lee Funeral Home, in Franklin, Georgia, McDougal Funeral Home, in Butler, Georgia, Lakes Dunson and Robertson Funeral Home, and Anderson-Marshall Funeral Home, Manchester, Georgia.

Lee served in the funeral home business for over 50 years, earning accolades for his community involvement, including Georgia Funeral Service Practitioners Association (GFSPA) Mortician of the Year honors.

Lee also worked with the nonprofit, 100 Black Men, where he helped many young men get their GEDs.

William and his wife Julia have been married for 36 years. He has five children, sons Willie Henry Lee, Jr., and Trevis Cameron, and three daughters, Debra Brent, Claudia Watkins and Monique Davidson.

Lee said he has seen a lot in his 100 years, going off to the Navy, teaching for decades, and then continuing a long second career in the funeral business. Growing up in West Point was wonderful, too, he said.

Hitting 100 years is quite the milestone. He and his family plan to celebrate the remarkable birthday at the marina in LaGrange.

“I didn’t think I’d make it,” Lee said, but he did, and made a difference to quite a lot of people over those 100 years.