News Briefs
Wife of Former Executive Officer, Namesake of DeMolay Scholarship Dies at Age 94
DULUTH, GA - Jenny Lind Mather Pettys, a long-time Atlanta resident who was active in
social and civic affairs for many years, died Friday at age 94 of heart failure. She had been
in declining health for several months.
Graveside service will be conducted Monday, March 29, at 2:00 pm at Westview Cemetery (off of I-20 on
Cascade Road, 1680 Westview Drive, Atlanta, 404-755-6611). The family will receive friends
Sunday, March 28, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at H.M. Patterson & Son, Oglethorpe Hill (4550
Peachtree Road, Atlanta, 404-261-3510).
Born in Austell, Ga., July 16, 1910, Mrs. Pettys was the daughter of Roy S. Mather who, with
two of his brothers, moved here from Elkhart, Indiana. From Austell and later Atlanta, the
brothers founded and ran the Mather Brother Furniture Co., which became one of the largest
furniture chains in the southeast. The company’s retail stores were known throughout the
region for the advertising slogan: “Mather Furniture, Good and Bad.”
She was a 12th generation descendant of the Rev. Richard Mather, who immigrated from England
to Massachusetts in 1635 and from whom the famous line of Mather Puritan ministers descended.
She was married for more than 50 years to Atlanta business executive Norman W. Pettys, who
died in 1985. She formally resided in the Morningside neighborhood of Atlanta. For the last
eight years, she lived with her daughter in Duluth. Her identical twin sister, Mary Frances
(Mather) Smith died in 1995.
Mrs. Pettys was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was active for
decades in the social life of Yaarab Shrine Temple, of which both her father and husband
served as Potentate. Roy Mather, her father, headed the organization in 1963. Her husband
was its leader in 1960.
She was also active in the social life of the Order of DeMolay in Georgia when her husband
headed the Masonic youth organization in the state. A college scholarship for outstanding
DeMolay members in named in her honor. She also was a member of the Atlanta Woman’s Club.
Among other civic activities, she was a member of a special committee appointed in the
mid-1950s to study Atlanta’ schools. But writing - especially short stories and poems - was
her life-long passion.
She was a regular contributor to a feature of the old Atlanta Journal-Constitution Magazine
called "Little Stories of the Big City," and she was an enthusiastic member of the Atlanta
Writers Club, of which she was president in 1974. She published a children’s book,
"Two Little Moon-Faced Moodles" based on verse she created as a bedtime story for
her children.
A graduate of Bass Junior High School and Washington Seminary, she attended Randolph Macon
Women’s College in Lynchburg, VA, and Shorter College in Rome, but she did not earn a college
degree until 40 years later when, with her children grown, she resumed her studies and in
1973 became on of the oldest students to graduate from Georgia State University’s School
of Journalism.
She worked in the 1960s and 1970s as a secretary in the medical scholarship division of the
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.
She is survived by a daughter, Barbara Macon, and sons, N. William Pettys and Richard R.
Pettys, along with eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family invited contributions to the Jenny Lind Pettys Scholarship
Fund (checks payable to "Georgia DeMolay SPC"), 5095 Bowers Brook Dr, Lilburn GA 30047.
Jenny Lind Pettys
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