MARGARET A. Mitchell Pearce Service: 2 o'clock, Tuesday, January 16, 2018 Place: Lithonia Chapel of Henry Funeral Home Visitation: 5-7 Monday Evening, January 15, 2018 Place: Henry Funeral Home, Lithonia Margaret Pearce, (age 96) of DeKalb County, Georgia, died on January 11, 2018. She was born on June 3, 1921 in the Rock Chapel community of Dekalb County, to Ethel Colie Mitchell and Byron Mitchell. Margaret was the oldest of five girls. She graduated from Stone Mountain High School. Margaret was preceded in death by her husband of 46 years, Clyde Clinton Pearce, Jr. She is survived by two sisters, Dorothy Jean Kearns, husband Raymond "Ray", and Mary Lynn Thomas, husband Oscar; two daughters, Carol Stovall, husband Dan, and Susan Tate, husband emeritus Jeff; two sons, Byron Pearce, wife Chris, and David Pearce, wife Beth; four granddaughters, Amy Watkins, Eleanor Shonkoff, husband Adam, Claire Mancebo, husband Josh, and Mary Margaret Pearce; four grandsons, Kyle Pearce, Keith Stovall, wife Lisa, Jonathan Pearce, wife Catriona, and Adam Tate; two great grandsons Miles Shonkoff and Julian Mancebo, as well as nieces, nephews, great nieces, great nephews and many cousins. Growing up, Margaret was an excellent student, loved to roam the woods and claimed one rock she found as her favorite reading spot. After graduating from business school in Decatur, she kept the books in her grandfather's store. When World War II came along, since they had no boys in her family, Margaret decided that as the oldest she should serve and joined the WACS, the Women's Army Corps. She was stationed at Turner Field, an Air Force base in Albany, Georgia. She had hopes of going overseas, but her Commanding Officer thought she was too valuable where she was. After her military service ended, she married and enrolled in the University of Georgia. During her second year in college, she left school to start a family with Clyde in Monroe, Georgia. Some of her closest friends grew out of her active membership at Mountain Creek Baptist Church near Monroe where she played the piano for many of the church services. She worked for over twenty years as a bookkeeper for the Walton County Board of Education. "Mok," as her sisters called her, was a gifted listener, an avid genealogist, a family historian, an accomplished artist and musician, a scrapbook maker for siblings & children, an advocate for principle, family, doing your very best and being kind to others. She could always see the other side of any argument and was always sympathetic to the underdogs. A key member of a loving extended family, she was often the one who various family members across a variety of generations would go to when they needed a supportive presence, or just wanted to talk through something. She will be sorely missed, by those who knew her and loved her dearly. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to The Rock Chapel Cemetery Association at P.O. Box 1004, Lithonia, GA 30058 or the charity of your choice in memory of Margaret Mitchell Pearce