Ruth Mary Demere's Obituary
Ruth Mary Pidgeon Demere passed away on Friday, March 11, 2011. Visitation will be held on Monday, March 14, from 5 – 7 p.m. at Memorial Park Funeral Home, with a Holy Rosary following at 7 p.m. The Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, March 15, at 10 a.m. at St. Anne Catholic Church, 706 S. Highland, with burial immediately following the service at Calvary Cemetery. Ruth Mary was a fourth generation Memphian: her great- grandfather, Christopher Pidgeon, came to Memphis from Ireland in the 1840’s. One of his two sons, Philip Pidgeon, founded the Pidgeon-Thomas Iron Company, which operated in Memphis for over 100 years. The younger son, Ruth Mary’s grandfather, James C. Pidgeon, purchased the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Memphis in 1909. Ruth Mary was a member of the Board of Directors of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Memphis. Ruth Mary was very proud of the positive impact her family business had on the development of the City of Memphis, numerous small businesses, civic and sports teams. Yet Ruth Mary was most proud of the tremendous and often anonymous impact her family business had on the neediest Memphians and countless charitable organizations. Ruth Mary’s father, J. Everett Pidgeon, was a founder and the first Chairman of the Board of LeBonheur Children’s Hospital and its Germantown Charity Horse Show. As a youth, she was a champion horsewoman in the three- and five-gaited and the fine harness classes, representing her family’s Magnolia Farms stables. She was an All-City Basketball player for Hutchison School. She was a member of the Memphis Country Club, a Sustaining Member of the Le Bonheur Club and a former Member of the Junior League of Memphis. Ruth Mary was a communicant of St. Peter Roman Catholic Church, a founding Member of Ave Maria University, and a former Member of the Board of Directors of the Memphis Catholic Diocese Development Board. She was a Third Order Dominican (Secular) and a member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. She attended the University of Mississippi where she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority. Her children are McCarthy Demere, Jr. (Susan) of Greenville, South Carolina; Michael Demere (Lee Anne) of Nashville; Patrick M. Demere, Marie D. Conn (Steven) and Jim Demere (Kathryn) of Memphis. Her grandchildren are Camille Ruth Demere of Brooklyn, New York; Jackson Everett Demere of Greenville; Elizabeth Lee Demere, Ruth Anne Demere, and Michael Collins Demere of Nashville; Devan Marie Tackett, Andrew Tackett, Anne Catherine Demere, Patrick Raymond Demere, Mary Pidgeon Demere, Ryan James Demere and Leo William Demere of Memphis. Her elder brother, J. Everett Pidgeon, Jr., died in the 1962 crash of his private airplane in Memphis. Surviving siblings are her brother, G. Robert Pidgeon, Sr., Helen P. Viar, and Nell S. Pidgeon. Pall bearers are John Lemm, Mark Lemm, Michael Lemm and Peter Lemm of Memphis; Cecil Chance, Matthew Chance and Michael Chance of Nashville. The family requests in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama, or Madonna Learning Center in Germantown, Tennessee. Memorial Park Funeral Home, 5668 Poplar Ave. Memphis, TN 38119, (901)767-8930, “Behind the Stone Wall”.
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