Martha Lee Boots, 96, of Crawfordsville passed away Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, at Franciscan Health Crawfordsville.
She was born June 5, 1927, at Rushville, to the late Harold I. Stewart Sr. and Sylvia L. Lakin.
Martha Lee graduated from Crawfordsville High School in 1945. Some of her favorite classes were art and gym. She often spoke fondly throughout her life of her high school art teacher who inspired her love of oil painting. She gave away some paintings as gifts and many still hang in her home and office.
After high school she worked at a greenhouse and later at Indiana Bell Telephone Co.
Martha Lee married R. Max Boots on Dec. 19, 1948, in the same house that he was born in on the family farm near Bowers. They started out farming and later moved to town. Max was an auctioneer and then they both were later involved in real estate.
Martha Lee received her Indiana Real Estate Brokers License in 1960 and worked for Acme-Shuey, Hauck Real Estate for nearly 60 years. She was a member of the Sigma Zeta Chapter of the Pi Omicron National Sorority, American Legion Auxiliary, Eastern Star, Elks Auxiliary, Indiana Hospital Auxiliary Association and the Art League.
Martha Lee enjoyed, ice skating, boating, water skiing and traveling with Max. Most of all, though, she loved to spend her free time at the cottage on Lake Freeman, where her friends called her Marty. Throughout her life she enjoyed tending to her flowerbeds around the house and many indoor plants as well. After she put her paintbrushes away for good, she got very involved in knitting and sewing, being as much a perfectionist with that as she was with painting.
She also had a lifelong love of and compassion for animals. She would often tell stories of her pet rabbit Snowball, which was given to her by a magician after he pulled it from his hat at the old Strand Theatre; riding horses at her girlfriend Billy’s house; and of the family dog Bo, a German Shepherd who Max had to wrestle for the morning paper. She cared for the family pets as well as any others that would find their way to the house, once nursing a cat back to health by giving it fluids with an eyedropper.
Most of all though Martha Lee loved her family; she is survived by brother Harold Stewart and his children, Janis and Jim and their extended family; sister Mary Janis’s children, John, Gary, Sherry, Monte and their extended families; Max’s twin “older” sister (by 3 minutes) Maxine Webster and her children Marcia, Dale and Nina and their extended families; and Martha Lee’s son Rob and grandson Nick.
Martha Lee was preceded in death by her parents; sister Mary Janis Cooksey; and Martha Lee’s husband Max. Mom and Dad, or Mr. B as she liked to call him, should be off on their next journey together by now.
She was deeply loved and will be missed dearly. As such as she loved her flowers, in lieu of flowers, a donation in her memory to the Animal Welfare League is requested.
Visitation will be from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 31 at Burkhart Funeral Home, 201 W. Wabash Ave., Crawfordsville. Service will begin at 2 p.m. Burial will follow at Oak Hill Cemetery Grant Avenue.
