Margaret Anne Garrett

Garrett, Margaret Anne - 97, of Knoxville, TN, passed away on December 02, 2020 at her home. She was born on April 16, 1923 in Derby, England to the late Charles Owen and Winifred Kate Richards. She was a British war bride having met her late husband, Max Evan Garrett, when he was stationed in England during World War II. They had been married 63 years when Max passed away in 2008. Margaret came to the United States in 1946, never having left her home in England before. She came over on the Queen Mary, which at the time was decked out as a troop ship. She arrived in New York City and took a bus to Knoxville, where she thought her husband would be waiting for her. Well...the army had notified him that she would be arriving the following day, so he was happily ensconced in his trailer on the campus of the University of Tennessee, the trailers specifically put up for all the veterans returning to college. She met a sympathetic female cab driver who drove her all around the campus looking for Max! Needless to say she was spitting mad when she saw him, but soon got over that as it wasn’t his fault!! Shortly after she arrived, there was a knock on the trailer door and a UT professor was looking for her. He had somehow learned there was an experienced secretary living in the married students trailers and offered her a job! She spent the next 36 years working as the head secretary in various departments at the University and in the Dean’s office. She retired in 1982 but found retirement boring and went back to UT to work for several more years. She loved to read, travel, shop, and LAUGH!

She leaves behind her loving family - daughter Angela and her husband Don Phillips, of Fairfax, VA; daughter Teresa and her husband Jedd Dotson, of Knoxville, TN; granddaughter, Stephanie Phillips of Washington, DC; and grandson, Jeremy Dotson and his wife Amanda of Jefferson, GA.

She was a member of Erin Presbyterian Church, Knoxville. Her remains will be interred at the New Providence Cemetery in Maryville, TN. McCammon Ammons Click Funeral Home in Maryville will be handling her interment.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her name may be sent to the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley, 6717 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919.