Lou L. Craig

Lou L. Craig died December 28, 2023. Born Eva Lou Lester on Feb. 26, 1932, in Rome, GA., to parents Hazen and Gladys Lester, she was the younger sister of Russell, who predeceased her in 2020.

Known as Lulu, she attended Shorter College, first studying music, then changing to visual arts. At age 19, she married Robert "Van" Murray, from Mississippi, who was working in Rome as an engineer at a local radio station. While he was studying in Atlanta at Georgia Tech as an electrical engineer, they welcomed their first child, Anne Elisabeth "Lisa" Murray in 1957.

In Melbourne, Florida, where Van moved to work for Radiation, Inc. (later Harris Corporation), Lou gave birth to Jeffrey "Jef" Patrick Murray in 1960 and Robert Steven "Steve" Murray in 1962. The young family lived for a year in Eritrea, but in 1966, in Florida, Van died of complications from cancer. Lou moved with her three children to Nashville for a year, where she earned a master's degree in visual arts at Vanderbilt University.

After marrying schoolteacher Garnet Craig, the family relocated in Lou's hometown, Rome, for a year before buying a home deep in the woods at the foot of the mountains in Armuchee, Ga.

Because the house was so isolated, Lou enjoyed not only swimming in the buff in the old, stone swimming pool, but also occasionally mowed the lawn naked. She liked an even tan, and nobody could see her - except for daughter Lisa, the nurse who lived with her for many years in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Lou was not a nudist, but she always wanted to feel free. That explains her childhood stories about dancing beside a bee hive and getting badly stung, and also almost trampled while teasing a bull in its pasture. Freedom also drove her to divorce her second husband and return to dating some of her old childhood sweethearts.

Lou taught for many years in the Rome public school system, specializing in visual arts as well as working with emotionally challenged students. She always quipped that everything she knew about her students' special needs, she learned first-hand from her own children. It was a joke, but it was also true: Lisa, Jef and Steve were all strong-willed and distinct characters, molded by her love and strong influences.

"Everyone in the special education administrative offices loved Lou," says teaching colleague Bill Schoepski. "She was always brightly attired with large earrings and very high heels. You knew when Lou was in the building. You would hear the clickety-clack of those heels and loud laughter. I loved that laugh!"

Lou is predeceased by Lisa, who died at her side, aged 53, in in 2010, and Jef, who left us, aged 55, in 2015. She is survived by son Steve, his husband Scott Titshaw, and daughter-in-law Lorraine Viscardi Murray. For the last 11 years of her life, Lou suffered from the very disease she most dreaded, dementia. She was wonderfully cared for by the staff of A.G. Rhodes-Wesley Woods. In memory of Lou, please consider donating to Rhodes or to an institution researching cures for dementia in all its forms.