Sara "Sally" Louise Stevens Booth

Sara “Sally” Louise Stevens Booth died on April 16, 2023 at UVHN:CVPH Medical Center in Plattsburgh after a brief illness. She was born on July 2, 1930 in Troy, N.Y., the second child of Samuel and Louise (Betts) Stevens. Her family eventually moved to Plattsburgh where her parents made the acquaintance of her future in-laws, Robert and Elizabeth Booth, and the rest, as they say, is history. After she graduated in 1948 from Emma Willard School in Troy, N.Y, she and her future husband of 71 years, Christopher “Kit” Booth, began a long distance romance, he at Cornell and she at Plattsburgh State. They married and officially began their wonderful life together on August 11, 1951.

In the years following Kit’s return from the Korean War, using their combined dynamic creative energy, they established Booth’s Distinctive Gifts, a shop which served the community with elegant merchandise and unparalleled personal service for 38 years.

Sally was deeply committed to her community. She thrived in environments that called upon her strong and steady multi-tasking skills. She generously offered her time and talent to many community organizations including the Kent-Delord House Museum, where she served as board president. Sally was a founding member and the first president of the Kent Delord House Museum Garden Club in 1986, and worked tirelessly to recreate and renew the beauty of the gardens first developed by Henry Delord in the early 1800s. She was tireless in researching the original design of the gardens and the historic plants and shrubs the gardens contain today. Sally wrote a history of the work of the Garden Club in a publication she authored in 2019 entitled “Kent Delord House Gardens”. She continues to be an inspiration to the members of the Kent Delord House Museum Garden Club and all those who knew her. Her legacy to the community lives on in the gardens of the Kent Delord House Museum.

Sally was also a docent at the Rockwell Kent Museum and served as the editor of The Kent Collector. It was with this enthusiastic group of docents that she traveled extensively, ever deepening her knowledge and appreciation of the great artworks of the world. Those trips hold joyful stories filled with wonder, laughter and near disasters which were often saved by her steady hand.

Sally was a charter member of the League of Women Voters of Plattsburgh; as a family, we gave up the dining room table in favor of TV trays in the living room for many months as she typed and edited and cut and pasted (the old fashioned way) a pamphlet titled “Your Vote is Your Voice”. We still have copies in the attic if anyone is interested.

In 1988, when the first Apple computer store came to Plattsburgh, the owner offered to let Sally take home a Macintosh 128K; “just to try it out.” She studied it every night after work for months to learn everything there was to learn. For the next 30 years, she continued to hone new skills, including her mastery of the complex publishing platform Adobe InDesign, which gave her the ability to produce increasingly complex publications for multiple community organizations including the program for the Battle Of Plattsburgh Commemoration Weekend for 16 years. That process also took many months each year but she deftly managed it all on twin computer screens, so we were free to eat at the dining room table.

Sally was a founding member of the Battle of Plattsburgh Commemoration Committee and offered her characteristic enthusiasm and expertise to all aspects of the weekend event. She made herself period-correct costumes, hosted an annual appreciation dinner, baked cookies, made dinner reservations to make sure that Kit Booth sat down for a few minutes to eat, and she showed up at every event so that the volunteers involved knew how much they were appreciated.

Sally was astonished and humbled by the recognition she received for her inspiring community service. These awards are included here for the historical record: Adirondack Council Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award (1992), Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow, Clinton County Bar Association LIberty Bell Award (2009), Kiwanis Breakfast Club Citizen of the year (2014), Mayor’s Cup Spirit of Ianelli Award (2014), Key to the City (2014), and the SUNY Plattsburgh Distinguished Service Award (2014). Her service was entered into the Congressional Record by Congressman Bill Owens (2014), and she received the Kent Delord House Museum Dean Wheeler Volunteer of the Year.

Her community remains grateful for these and many other tireless efforts, but for all of us who have known and been loved by Sally Booth, we will forever be grateful for the warmth of her grace, the comfort of her presence, her genuine embrace, her quick wit, easy laugh and her steadfast and devoted friendship.

She is predeceased by her parents, her brother Samuel Stoughton Stevens III, her sister Barbara Betts Edwards and her son-in-law Stephen Crain.

Those left to tell her stories and carry forward her example include her beloved husband, Christopher “Kit” Booth, her son Chris and his wife, Janet, and their daughters Lindsey and Katherine (Carter), her daughter Elizabeth “Lisa” Crain and her sons Stefan (Katherine) Crain, and their daughter Caroline, and Chip (Anna) Crain, her sister Mary L. Stevens, her sister-in-law Helen S. Booth, sister-in-law Nancy S. Stevens, a beloved and multi-generational collection of nieces, nephews and cousins who brought so much joy to her life, and a diverse array of friends who enriched her life in immeasurable ways.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 34 Brinkerhoff Street, Plattsburgh.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to the Kent Delord House Museum Garden Club, the Rockwell Kent Museum or to a charity of your choice.

“ Whatever you choose to do, leave tracks….leave the world a little better for your having lived. “ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U. S. Supreme Court Justice

Arrangements entrusted to Brown Funeral Home, Plattsburgh NY. Online Condolences may be offered at www.brownfuneralhomeinc.com