Peggy Jemison Bodine's Obituary
Peggy Marshall Boyce Jemison Bodine
In July 2025, Peggy Jemison Bodine and 200 of her family and friends danced and celebrated her 100 years on this earth. On January 22, 2026, she joined the better dance party on the golden streets with the best company around.
Peggy loved life, her Lord, her family, Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis, her multigenerational friends, and knowing and doing new things.
Peggy was born to Marguerite and Stephen Boyce on July 11, 1925. Her parents separated when she was four and later divorced, and she was raised by her mother in various apartments in what is now midtown Memphis. A member of the greatest generation, Peggy said that Franklin Roosevelt, to whom she once wrote a fan letter and got a gracious reply, was the only President she experienced growing up.
Educated locally at Snowden and Central High, she made friends with women with whom she lunched regularly for decades, until she was the only one left. With one of these friends, Marje Radford Andrews, Peggy hosted one of the first events for Young Life, a Christian high school ministry, in the country.
After spending two years at Wheaton College near Chicago, Peggy returned to Memphis as World War II ended, where she met and married Frank Zimmerman Jemison in 1947. Peggy and Frank raised, loved, and left an expanding group: David Marshall Jemison, MD (Hilda), Marguerite “Meg” Bailey Jemison Bartlett (Mike), and Frank Jemison Jr. (Jeanne), who together gave her eight grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. Peggy was predeceased by Eliza Jane Jemison, one of those great grandchildren.
Peggy was the quintessential lifelong learner. She enrolled at Memphis State, now the University of Memphis, where she earned her B.A. in 1965 and her M.A. in History in 1974. She accomplished all of this while raising her children. She was a natural and enthusiastic leader and in several of her roles, she used her management style of pleasant persistence to make the city better. As president of the Junior League, she led an effort to improve accessibility for people with disabilities, asking able citizens to stay in a wheelchair for a day downtown to learn how inaccessible most buildings in Memphis were. As president of Memphis Symphony League, she helped focus on the importance of classical music as well as other musical styles. When a young singer named Elvis Presley moved in next-door on Audubon Drive, eventually on his way to Graceland, Peggy learned more about rock’n’roll.
All the many things that Peggy and Frank Jemison accomplished would not have been possible without the support provided for 50 years by Ms. Vera Bradley, a 6-foot-tall African American woman who taught the whole Jemison family much and whom the family and their friends loved.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Peggy worked with Memphis Inter Faith Association (MIFA) to write Neighborhood Histories aimed at building neighborhood pride in Cooper Young, Vollentine-Evergreen, Greenlaw, and Cherokee. Peggy’s gift for pleasant persistence and her relationships with people all over Memphis helped in those efforts. The histories lead to her PhD dissertation on the city’s Housing and Community Development Agency and its effect on neighborhoods. In 1992, at age 66, she earned her PhD and began her teaching career at the predecessor of Southwest Community College and at the University of Memphis. She was honored as Outstanding Alum by the University of Memphis in 1999 and expanded her focus on preserving history - a small statured red-haired lady in tennis shoes protesting when historic houses were torn down for fast food sites on Union Avenue. Her interest in history and neighborhoods led to positions on both Memphis’s Landmarks Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission. Peggy taught by example how to love her community well.
Peggy also had a great interest in European history and along with her close friend, Anne Connell, led guided educational tours of France. The tours were a great success and the participants well educated by these skilled teachers, and all had a lot of fun along the way.
When her husband Frank died after 52 years of marriage, Peggy struck up a friendship with her next-door neighbor, Dick Bodine, who had recently lost his wife of 50+ years. They married and moved to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. There she took up golf, snorkeling, and the island life. Peggy and Dick returned to Memphis full-time in 2008 for better health care and for family. They were very involved in the Bodine School, which Dick and Jinnie Bodine had founded, and which Peggy continued supporting after Dick’s death in 2015.
Peggy spent her last sixteen years at Trezevant Manor, continuing to enjoy those she knew, as well as making new friends. She managed her affairs with the help of Ms. Florida Smith, Ms. Karen Cannon and, for her last two years, Comfort Keepers – particularly Ms. Helen Sharp, Ms. Melody Brown, and Ms. Barbara Fombang. Her family is deeply grateful for all their care.
Two quotes say much about Peggy Bodine. From one of her baby boomer friends, “She was a light to so many.” From one of her grandchildren, “Peggy Boyce Jemison Bodine was the exception that proved the rule, that well behaved women seldom make history.” She was cherished by her children and her expanding family, and we will all greatly miss her love and interest in our lives and her personal warmth and gentle wisdom.
After a private burial, her family will celebrate her life on Thursday, February 5, 2026, at Second Presbyterian Church. There will be visitation at 9:30 am followed by a service in the Sanctuary at 11:00 am.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials be sent to Second Presbyterian Church, The Bodine School, or a charity of the donor’s choosing.
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