Peggy Ann Armstrong Dillard

Peggy Ann Armstrong Dillard was born on August 17, 1938 at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee to Dr. Louis Edgar Armstrong and Margaret Adelia Tucker Armstrong. At the age of 12, Peggy and her family moved from Nashville to a small town just south of Birmingham (Helena, now Indian Springs Village), where her father served as the founding (and longtime) director of the prestigious Indian Springs School. Because Indian Springs only admitted boys at that time, Peggy attended and graduated from Shades Valley High School in 1956. She then moved to Columbia, Missouri to attend Stephens College, the second oldest women’s college in the United States. While there, Peggy was named to the Senior Service Roll, which recognized “graduating seniors who have rendered unrecognized but outstanding service to the college and to their fellow students . . . .” She was also selected as a “senior sister,” given several honor-roll citations, served as secretary of the Foreign Relations Club, and was a member of Phi Theta Kappa and Sigma Alpha Chi. Peggy graduated from Stephens College in 1958 with an associate in arts degree and often referred to her time there as the happiest of her life. She then enrolled in Stetson University, where she made the honor roll several times and was a member of the Psi Chi National Honorary Society in Psychology and the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. Peggy graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Stetson in 1960. She then attended and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1963 with a Master of Science in social work degree.

After graduating from the University of Tennessee, Peggy began her lifelong career as a dedicated social worker, primarily for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. During that time, she worked with countless children, who desperately needed her help, love, compassion, and expertise. She also authored two widely distributed and highly respected works, “A Framework for Developing Supporting Services for Single Parents and Their Children Within the Public School System” and “How to Cope with Divorce and Helping Your Child Adapt to Divorce.”

Outside of work, Peggy loved collecting political memorabilia (she was a longtime and proud member of the American Political Items Collectors), reading, listening to music, closely following politics, tracing her family’s genealogy, cheering on the Tennessee Titans and Georgia Bulldogs, and bragging on her grandchildren. She was brilliant (but humble), quick-witted, kind, compassionate, honest to a fault, fiercely loyal to family and friends, fluent in sarcasm, a natural educator and mentor, and a devoted mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt.

Peggy passed away at 1:20 p.m. on December 18, 2025. She will be dearly missed by her loved ones and friends.

Peggy was preceded in death by her father, Dr. Louis E. “Doc” Armstrong (1906-1982); her mother, Margaret Adelia Tucker Armstrong (1911-1972); and her son’s father, Dr. Jerry Wallace Dillard (1937-1986). She is survived by her son, Presiding Judge Stephen Louis A. Dillard (of the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia); her daughter-in-law, Krista McDaniel Dillard; her grandchildren, Jackson Armstrong Dillard, Lindley Kay Dillard, and Mary Margaret Dillard; her sister, Kay Armstrong Carter; her brother-in-law, Dr. Frank Carter; and her nieces, Christine Carter Booz and Jenny Carter Logan.

A celebration of life will be held honoring Peggy’s life and legacy on January 10, 2026, in Macon, Georgia, and officiated by Rev. Joseph S. McDaniel. Her ashes will be interred at Elmwood Cemetery & Mausoleum in Birmingham, Alabama, on her parents’ family plot.

In lieu of flowers, the family has established a scholarship fund at Stephens College, in memory of Peggy Ann Armstrong Dillard, Class of 1958, supporting student scholarships and honoring a life of impact. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=YW87S99KQU4BE