Lee Olif ‘Toots’ Young

Posted on January 21, 2022

Lee Olif “Toots” Young, 83, passed away on Jan. 18, 2022, in Gainesville. She was born April 10, 1938, in Perry to Marvin Hendry Carlton and Mattie Mae Futch Carlton. Born at home on Woods Creek Road and a proudly self-proclaimed “Daughter of Taylor County,” Lee was a hard worker from early in life and started work on her family farm cropping tobacco, tending animals and raising a garden with her family, a passion she never lost. She worked in her early 20s as a phlebotomist at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville. She returned to Perry and, over the course of many years, worked as a telephone operator, a cook at the Skyland Restaurant and as a school bus driver for the Taylor County School District, retiring from that job after 31 years of service. She did part-time work cleaning county parks, including Steinhatchee Falls, Bradley Springs, Goose Pasture, Econfina River Landing, Hagen’s Cove and Blue Springs Lake near Keaton Beach. She loved doing this work because it got her outside and it was something she and her beloved husband, Buck, could do together. She loved her three children and her three grandchildren and enjoyed being a guiding hand in all of their lives. She was very generous, always willing to give food to anyone that she thought may be hungry, and she ended up working for many years as a volunteer for the Second Harvest Food program as well as the Community Food Bank at Jerkins, where she made many friends. Always quick with a Bible verse or wise adage, many people were the beneficiaries of her keen intellect. If she ever met a stranger, they weren’t strangers for long. She was known for speaking her mind, being “loud and proud.” Lee was preceded in death by: her husband of 49 years, Kansas Ferdinand “Buck” Young; her parents, Marvin and Mattie Mae Carlton; three brothers, Bill, Hoyt and Slick Carlton; and one sister, “Pinkie” Langford Lloyd. She is survived by: three children, April Davis and her husband, Mark, Quint Young and LeAda Sadler and her husband, Tony; one sister, Liz Gavilan of Jacksonville; and three grandchildren, Daniel “Boone” Johnson and his wife, Danielle, Joshua Johnson and Jessica and Erik Solberg; as well as a host of nieces, nephews and friends. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Jan. 22, at 11 a.m. at Westside Baptist Church with Pastor Tim McDonald and Jeremy Grey officiating. All arrangements are under the direction of Burns Funeral Home of Perry.