DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 5:16 p.m. March 16, 2009
Peace Corps worker slain; Alpharetta service planned
Kate Puzey, whose parents live in Cumming, taught English in West Africa
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Services for a slain Peace Corps worker whose parents live in Forsyth County have been set for Saturday in Alpharetta.
Kate Puzey, 24, had been in the West African nation of Benin for almost two years, teaching English. She’ll be remembered at noon service Saturday at Birmingham United Methodist Church in Alpharetta.
Kate Puzey with a young friend.
Her parents, Harry and Lois Puzey of Cumming, learned last week that someone had killed their only daughter. Her body was found Thursday outside her home in Benin. Her parents said they’ve been told the body will be accompanied back to Georgia in a few days by a Peace Corps official.
“We’ve been told they have a major suspect but we don’t know any details,” Harry Puzey said Sunday. “We don’t think her death was political or random but an individual act by one person.”
Lois Puzey said her daughter was a staunch defender of the “underdog.”
“She was whipsmart, articulate and honest with people,” Lois Puzey said. “She would always stand up for the underdog. That was a major part of her personality.”
Relatives said Kate Puzey acclimated quickly to life in Benin, dining with local seamstresses and wise women and attending a birthday party for a village child. Puzey wrote on her blog of witnessing a ritual circumcision and anticipating the start of mango season in April.
Puzey was born in Germany, where her parents were U.S. Department of Defense teachers. When she was 7 they moved to Okinawa, where Kate graduated high school at the top of her class. She graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia.
“We taught her to be a citizen of the world,” her father said.
Kate wrote about her experiences around the world on her blog, at http://beinginbenin.blogspot.com. One entry about Benin begins:
“I realized some time ago my education here goes way beyond the local language and customs. I’ve become familiar with so many new sounds. I now know the sound of a chicken when it’s being killed, a goat when it’s giving birth, the baby next door when it’s hungry … With all the noise I find myself listening more. That is, before I put in earplugs at night to try and get some sleep!”
“She was an incredible person, gifted in people skills,” said Lois Puzey. “She would just light up a room. It’s hard to believe someone bigger than life is gone.”
Said her cousin, Emilie Jacobs-Finnegan: “She always saw the positive in people. But she was not naive. She was feisty, a real steel magnolia, but she had a way of soothing people. She was open-minded and compassionate.”
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