Margaret Tyler Mitchell
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Mrs. Margaret Tyler Mitchell died in Atlanta on March 3, 2022 at the age of 85. She was born in Macon, Georgia, August 9, 1936, to Tommie Lil Mason Tyler of Lyons, Georgia, a former grade-school teacher and homemaker, and Richard L. Tyler of Sandersville, Georgia, a sales representative for A. H. Hatcher, with accounts across southwest Georgia. In 1954, she graduated from A.L. Miller High School for Girls in Macon. The first in her family to receive a bachelor's degree, she earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Georgia in Athens, with coursework in the sciences and an ambition to pursue medical writing. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, finishing at the top of her class in the Journalism School and second in her entire class, UGA's Class of 1958. She was also a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority.
Proving that professional women of her generation need not be limited to secretarial work, Margaret used her undergraduate training and found a successful career in publishing, working for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta followed by a position at the W.R.C. Smith Publishing Company. Her future husband, William Niall Mitchell (introduced to her as "Billy") said he had been looking for "a chorus girl with a Radcliffe mind" and he found her. (Back then, Radcliffe was the women's college tied to all-male Harvard University.) Margaret and Billy were married in Atlanta in 1963. After the birth of two daughters, Meg and Molly, she returned to work and became the first Director of the Preschool at St. Phillips Cathedral in Atlanta.
In 1976, her family moved to Tallahassee, Florida where they became members of St. John's Episcopal Church. Margaret sold real estate and became a member of the Auxiliary at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, greeting people and making the hospital a less-frightening place for patients and families. She also served for many years on the board for the Children's Home Society of Florida. In 2015, she and her husband returned to reside permanently in Atlanta, rejoining childhood friends and family, but they remained in touch with many dear friends in Tallahassee. She loved painting flowers, traveling?to Europe, and even to Mexico and Costa Rica? going out to dinner, following the stock market, rooting for the Bulldogs and the Braves, and visiting her children and grandchild in New Orleans.
Margaret is survived by her loving husband, William Niall Mitchell of Atlanta; younger brother Richard Tyler (Dickie) of Dothan, AL; daughter Margaret Tyler Mitchell (Meg) and son-in-law Scott Pentzer; daughter Mary Niall Mitchell (Molly), son-in-law Jon Pult, and "perfect" grandson William Louis Pult, known as Willie; and her sister Jane's daughter Lee Tyler Darter, of Cochran, Georgia, Lee's husband Robert and her son Mason; niece Catherine Mitchell Jaxson of Atlanta, and nephews Wright Mitchell of Atlanta and David Mitchell of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Services will be held at a later date at The Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, GA.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Children's Home Society of Florida.