Margaret Pittenger

Margaret (Baker) Pittenger, was born January 6, 1928, to Lee Roy and Garcie (Sumner) Baker in their home near Competition, Missouri. She passed away June 20, 2019, in Springfield, Missouri. She was 91 years, 5 months, and 14 days of age.

If Margaret were here today, she would tell us not to mourn for her, but to make sure that we have accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives. Then we can know what joy she had as a follower of Jesus Christ and be reunited in Heaven someday.

Margaret graduated from eighth grade at Competition and graduated from high school at Lebanon, Missouri. There she boarded with a doctor’s family and worked at a restaurant all four years. She completed her teaching certification from SMS Teacher’s College in Springfield, Missouri.

Margaret loved to teach children. She taught in one-room schoolhouses including: Rose, Astoria, and Barnett, often having to walk one mile to teach for $15 per day. She had to be disciplinarian, janitor, PE teacher, and serve in several other roles. She also taught at Fort Leonard Wood in an experimental government project to teach soldiers how to read.

She met the love of her life, Emory “Sam” Pittenger, who had served in the Navy C.B.’s during World War II. They were married on June 30, 1949, and made their home on a farm five miles east of Manes, Missouri. Four daughters were born to this union: Jean Ann, Ruth, Connie, and Carol.

Margaret enjoyed being a teacher, homemaker, wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Her relationship with Jesus, Emory, her girls, and her church were her “world”. She was very involved in serving the Lord by teaching Sunday School, being the church bookkeeper, and working in Vacation Bible School. One of her favorite things was to collect wonderful poems and assign them to church members to read on special occasions and in programs that she organized at church. She loved to read her Bible and her poems.

Everyone enjoyed the parties she would host in her basement for the community, church, and school. The homemade cookies and the games she organized made the events wonderful. She enjoyed sewing and quilting and was a master of embroidery work. She cooked Sunday dinner for the preacher and his family and would often make her famous homemade rolls, chicken and dressing, cream pies, and other great food. Everyone also enjoyed her garden vegetables, especially the corn and fresh tomatoes.

Margaret was very supportive of her children through school activities with PTA, Band Boosters, fundraising events, being a room mother, and taking her girls to music lessons and horse shows. She enjoyed learning all of her life and taught her girls many skills, especially sewing and being creative. She greatly enjoyed singing with her girls and hearing them sing gospel music. Most of all, she enjoyed sharing the gospel to anyone who would listen.

Besides her parents, Margaret was preceded in death by her husband, Sam Pittenger, one sister and brother-in-law, Mavis and Archie Johnson, one brother, James Baker, one sister-in-law, Dottie Baker, and one nephew, Phillip Johnson.

She is survived by her girls, Jean Ann Percy and her husband, Walter, of Springfield, Missouri, Drs. Ruth and Steve Glaze of Lynchburg, Virginia, Connie Haynes and her husband, Robert, of Olive Branch, Mississippi, and Carol Duey and her husband, Tom, of Rogersville, Missouri, one brother, Wayne Baker of Independence, Missouri, one sister-in-law, Mary Lou Baker, of Palestine, Texas, eight grandchildren, twenty-one great-grandchildren and one on the way, as well as many nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephew, cousins, and friends. She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, and neighbor who will be deeply missed by all who knew her.