Maytrude Ginter Anderson

The family of Maytrude Elizabeth Ginter Anderson celebrates her life and mourns her passing at home on St. Simons Island Monday, November 18, 2019.  Born September 26, 1921 in Chicago, May was the first child of Hattie Schwartz Ginter and Fred Lester Ginter.  At age 2 she and her brother Billy moved with their family to Hinesville, Georgia where their father established a construction business.  May’s first job was delivering “The Savannah Morning News”, spending, she confessed, her weekly salary of 10 cents on Jordan almonds, a family favorite yet.  While in school, her family grew to include brothers Gene and George.  She graduated from Bradwell Institute in Hinesville and from Montreat College in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Returning to Hinesville, her family complete with the birth of her youngest sibling, Audrey, May worked at Lowes’ Boarding House.  There she met her husband-to-be, George Arthur Anderson, who was cruising timber at Fort Stewart.  She married George at Flemington Presbyterian Church in Flemington, Georgia.  During World War II May accompanied George on his stateside military assignments from Mississippi to Washington, taking jobs as she was able, such as making perfume and license plates.  After George’s service in the Army Air Corps was complete and he returned from duty as B-17 navigator in Europe, May and George settled in the Golden Isles, where George worked as a forester and researcher at Brunswick Pulp and Paper Company.  There they raised their two daughters, Christine and Barbara. 

May was an accomplished seamstress, sewing items such as lined draperies for her home and beautiful dresses for herself and her children.  Her daughters remember feeling so proud wearing their mama-made “rackety-coon” dresses, sweet blue pinafores bedecked with little raccoons, to Pirates baseball games in Brunswick.  May, along with George, was a founding member of the St. Simons Presbyterian Church, where she devoted herself to service as a Sunday school teacher and as a leader in the local church and Savannah Presbytery.  Having wished to be a pianist as a little girl, May shared her love of music as a supporting member of the Community Concert Association and Mozart Society.   She was an active volunteer in the community, knitting hats for sailors from around the world for Seaman’s House, and preparing and serving food at Manna House in Brunswick.  For many years, May, along with her daughter, Barbara, was proprietor of the Treasure Trove, a shop for needlework and Swedish giftware, where she taught many, young and old, to knit, needlepoint, and cross-stitch.

May was preceded in death by her parents, Fred and Hattie, her husband, George, and her brother, Billy.  She leaves her daughters, Barbara (of St. Simons) and Christine and her husband Steve Readdick (of Tallahassee); a granddaughter, Hannah, and her husband, Robert Dixon; and great-granddaughter, Lily; her brothers, Gene and his wife Clara (of Canton, Ohio) and George and his wife Martha Sue (of Sunbury); sister, Audrey Ray and her late husband, Donald (of Huntsville); as well as nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews.  Her family and friends will remember May for her acts of selflessness large and small, her love of birds and flowers, creating perfect backyard habitats, moments of bliss picking wild strawberries around the family cabin in Scaly Mountain, her faith in God, and her enduring dream of a kind and just world.

We extend special thanks to May’s dedicated caregivers, now friends and family, Annie Boyd, Jaime Wood, Katherine Dallas, and Lenora Elkins, and for Allison Thompson, Margaret Armstrong, and others from Hospice of the Golden Isles who accompanied our mother on her final walk, providing support and comfort.  To you we are forever grateful.

A memorial celebration and interment will be held at 1:00 p.m., Wednesday, November 20, 2019, in Hinesville Cemetery.

Contributions in the memory of Maytrude Ginter Anderson can be made to St. Labre School (www.stlabre.org), 1000 Tongue River Road, Ashland, Montana 59003, to support the education and life opportunities of children from the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations.

Carter Funeral Home Oglethorpe Chapel is in charge of arrangements.  Online condolences may be made at www.CarterOglethorpe.com.