It was 1992, and Daphne Lee Brown was living in California when her dad, Thomas Lee Sr., called to tell he had just bought a Columbus funeral home at the age of 49.
“You bought a what?” she responded. “When I realized he wasn’t joking I said, ‘Well, there’s one thing I know for sure: I’m never going to work at a funeral home.’”
Brown was back in Columbus working in the funeral home by the next year.
Lee Sr., a lifelong Columbus native, standout high school football player, pioneering police officer, master salesman, business owner and economic development leader died at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle on Tuesday, his 82nd birthday.
As his daughter can attest, he had the gift of persuasion.
“Everything he did seemed to just come natural to him,” said long-time friend Leroy Brooks, who serves as Lowndes County supervisor for District 5.
One of those things that just came natural was football, where Lee was a standout and team captain at R.E. Hunt High School.
George Irby met Lee at Hunt when Irby was a seventh-grader and Lee was an eighth-grader.
“Back then, once you got to seventh grade, you went to Hunt,” Irby said. “I wanted to play football and that’s where I met Tom. He was just built for football. He started at guard as an eighth-grader and played right on through while I sat on the bench and waited my turn for two or three years. He was a tough, tough guy.”
They remained friends for 65 years.
“Everyone respected him and nobody pushed him around,” Irby said. “He was the guy who would defend people who got pushed around. Nobody messed with Tom.”
Lee’s powerful physique stayed with him his entire life.
“When I met him he was already in his 60s, but even at that age I remember thinking he was one of the best put-together guys I’d ever seen,” said Joe Max Higgins, former CEO of the Golden Triangle Development LINK. “He had thighs like Earl Campbell.”
Well into his 70s, Lee kept in shape by running, which Brown said was his escape from the unique stresses of the funeral home business.
“People always talk about seeing dad running down Ridge Road with his dog,” she said. “He ran five miles every day, so he was a familiar figure out there.”
Lee began his working career as a Columbus police officer – one of the first Black cops in the city – but soon gravitated to sales, where he combined his natural charm with a competitive spirit. He routinely won salesman of the year at Sears.
“Dad was so handsome and charismatic,” Brown said. “Everybody loved him, especially the ladies.”
“Back then, Sears was a starting point for a lot of Black men who went on to be business owners and leaders,” Brooks said. “So it wasn’t a surprise that he would be a successful business man. He was successful in just about everything.”
Brown said her dad was determined to be successful and put in the hours to do it.
‘A giant, right to the end’
In 1992, Lee purchased Sykes Funeral Home, which had been an institution in the Black community since its founding in 1936, renaming it Lee-Sykes Funeral Home as a way of honoring the founders.
For some, the idea of learning an entirely new business would have been intimidating, but Lee quickly immersed himself in the world of a funeral director.
“Dad was genuine, compassionate and sincere,” Brown said. “He was totally focused on the family members who had lost their loved one. It didn’t matter to Dad if they had $10,000 to spend or only $2,000; he gave them every bit of his attention. There were so many times when people came and had very little money to spend. A lot of people started having cremations because they were so much cheaper, but back in the day that was something the Black community was reluctant to do. A lot of times, dad would just figure out a way to make it happen, even if they only had just a little money to spend.”
Particularly in the Black community, funeral home directors and owners are looked on as community leaders. Lee certainly performed the role too.
“He just had one of those personalities that every time you spent time with him, you left feeling good, “Brooks said. “He was loved and respected by everybody.”
Lee served on a variety of boards in the community. His biggest impact – and enduring legacy – came through the almost 30 years he served as a board member of Lowndes County Industrial Development Authority.
He began that service just as the county’s economic development landscape was beginning to take shape.
“Mr. Lee was on the board when I came here,” Higgins said. “To say he was a part of economic development doesn’t cut it. He was intimately involved in every deal we made out there.”
Higgins recalled traveling to PACCAR’s headquarters in Dallas with Lee and a few others who were involved in recruiting the company to Lowndes County.
“We had dinner that night, and one of the PACCAR people said the company was a little disappointed in the hiring process, that things were going to slow,” Higgins said. “All the applications were being done online, and back then, a lot of people didn’t know how to do it. Mr. Lee listened to them, and then he said, “Y’all are losing out on a lot of very good workers in their 30s and 40s because of the way you’re hiring.
“They listened to him, made some changes and the hiring went a lot smoother,” Higgins added. “Not long ago, you could go out to PACCAR and 65% of the employees were Black and 35% were women. I think you can attribute that to Mr. Lee.”
Brown said her dad had been in a state of decline for a while, suffering from falls, failing kidneys and some mild dementia.
“He still recognized everybody, but he got confused about things. He spent the last three weeks at Baptist, and the nurses just love talking to him,” Brown said. “He was still happy and still had his good sense of humor. The nurses would come see him even when they weren’t on shift, just to talk to him. He had what I’ll call a few choice words and had the nurses in the palm of his hand.
“That’s just who he was,” she said. “My dad was a giant, right to the end.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 30 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
