Horace Lee "Woody" Woodlief

Mr. Horace Lee “Woody” Woodlief, 96, passed way on Tuesday, December 6, 2022. He was born August 6, 1926 to Horace Lee Woodlief, Sr. and Thelma Stone Woodlief in Henderson, North Carolina. Woody graduated from Henderson High School in the Class of 1943. In January of 1944, he volunteered in the Army Air Corp and finished training as a mechanic in 1945. Having served in the Occupation of Germany after WWII until the end of 1946, Woody moved to Los Angeles, California to attend Aeronautical Engineering at CalAero Technical Institute in 1947. He graduated in May 1949. Woody met his wife, Lucille, at the famous Hollywood Palladium in 1947, and they were married in February 1952. They started their family in Alhambra, California. Woody’s first job in engineering was at Aerojet rocket research in 1949, and other research companies at Edwards AFB and in the Los Angeles area. He worked at North American Aviation Missile Division until 1954 in Preliminary Design. Woody was involved in the early years of the Navajo cruise missile and various weapons and space systems including the Hound Dog cruise missile and other USN missile systems until late in 1958. In the early days of space research, Woody was a configuration specialist on Apollo, the lunar landing vehicle, various land systems, space station concepts, and space shuttle concepts. He moved his family from Los Angeles to Marietta, Georgia in 1967 and found employment at Lockheed preliminary design in 1968 until he left engineering in 1970. His next career led him to opening Woodlief’s Military Antiques in Kennesaw in 1970, and later moving the shop to Marietta until 1988. He was always proud of his military service and of his contributions to the Space Program. He called his efforts the “Golden Years of rocket and space design”. Woody was a history buff and loved old cars and aircraft. He could be found at antique shows, museums, car and air shows along with his wife, Lucille, who preceded him in death in 2015.

Woody is survived his children, Susan Woodlief Shupe and her husband, Allan; Robert Woodlief and his wife, Kathy; his grandchildren, John (Leah) Shupe, David (Kate) Shupe, James Shupe, and Kate Woodlief; his great-grandchildren, Nora, Grace, Max, Charlie, and Henry.

The Woodlief family will greet friends on Friday, December 16, 2022, from 1:00 until 2:00 p.m. at Winkenhofer Pine Ridge Funeral Home. The memorial service will follow on Friday, December 16, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. from the funeral home chapel.