Rachel Allen (Tharps) Boone
Mrs. Boone led an eventful life, cut short by tuberculosis. A graduate of Hartshorn Memorial College in Richmond, she and her husband, Clinton Caldwell Boone (a doctor and minister), both served as missionaries in Africa; their two children were born in Monrovia, where Mrs. Boone ran a primary school. The family returned to the U.S. in 1926 after a six years in the Liberian capital. Mrs. Boone died in 1938 at the Piedmont Sanatorium, in Burkeville, Virginia, a segregated rest home for African Americans. Her daughter, Rachel Boone Keith, became a doctor, following in her father’s — and her aunt Bessie Tharps’s — footsteps.
- Born: 28 February 1885
- Died: 24 February 1938
- Birth Place: Richmond, Virginia
- Death Place: Piedmont Sanatorium, Burkeville, Nottoway County, Virginia
- Spouse: Clinton Caldwell Boone (m. 22 Sep 1920)
- Parents: William Henry Tharps, Hannah (Harris) Tharps
- Children: Rev. Clinton Caldwell Boone Jr., Dr. Rachel Hannah Celestine (Boone) Keith
- Other Family: William E. Tharps, Mary E. (Tharps) Winn, Bessie B. Tharps, Missouri Alice Tharps, George M. Tharps, Frederick Douglas Tharps
- Occupation: Teacher
- Church:
- Affiliations:
- Address:
- Documents: Census (1900, 1910, 1920, 1930); city directories; daughter's birth certificate; death certificate; marriage record; passenger list (Monrovia–Boston); passport application; "Virginia Union University," by Dr. Raymond Pierre Hylton
- Military Service:
Notes: Mrs. Boone's husband is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery; her name appears beneath his on the grave marker, so there is a chance she is buried there, despite the presence of a marker at East End. Her death certificate does not list a cemetery.