Luna Ransbotham

Luna Virginia Burch Ransbotham, affectionately known as Polly, died Monday October 5, 2015. Born in Flippen, Georgia, in 1922, she moved with her family to Atlanta when she was 4 years old. She attended Joel Chandler Harris Elementary School, Joe Brown Junior High, Atlanta Girls High, and the University of Georgia in Athens and Atlanta. In her early 20s, as her three brothers and her boyfriend (later husband) were off at war, she shocked her family by walking into a U.S. Army recruitment center in downtown Atlanta and joining the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. With basic training in Daytona Beach and duty stations in California and Hawaii, her military experience proved a highlight of her life, enabling her to meet and gain lifelong friends from across the country and to acquire her Pollyanna nickname. After the war, she returned to Atlanta, where she married Robert Edwin Eddie Ransbotham, also of Atlanta, and rejoined Fulton Federal Savings and Loan, where she worked as a secretary-eventually to the vice president. Her banking experience also sparked a brief but successful venture into building and selling homes. When her children were young, she returned to college to get a teaching certificate and became a teacher in Atlanta Public Schools, a career to which she was devoted. She taught at E.L. Connally Elementary, Ben Hill Elementary, and Walter F. George High School, where she was named teacher of the year in 1979. After retiring from teaching, she began working as a secretary at Scottish Rite Children's Hospital near her Sandy Springs home. In her work and life interactions, she easily gathered friends and continually sought to expand her knowledge on a myriad of topics. An ardent Democrat and champion of the underdog, she retained a kind and caring spirit throughout her life, always choosing to see the good in people. Predeceased by her husband, she is survived by her children, Steve and Mary Ransbotham (Atlanta), Robin Moseley (Avondale Estates), and Mark and Kim Ransbotham (Gainesville); six loving grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; a sister, Jenny Wells (Roswell); and many devoted nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held on Friday, October 16, at 11:30 a.m. at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton Georgia. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Habitat for Humanity.


Funeral Home:
A.S. Turner
2773 N. Decatur Road
Decatur, GA
30033