Margaret Moriarty

Margaret DeFries Moriarty, 96, passed away on Wednesday, September 23, 2015 in Coppell, TX. Funeral services: Liturgy of the Word will be held at noon Saturday, October 3, 2015 at St Rita's Catholic Church, 12521 Inwood Road Dallas, Texas 75244. Burial will take place Monday at 2:00 at Fort Sam Houston where she will be laid to rest next to her husband Lt. Col. James Aloysius Moriarty, Jr. In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to the American Heart Association www.heart.org or Wounded Warriors Project, woundedwarriorsproject.org. Born in Eureka, Utah, to Vinnie Delores and Joseph Hyrum DeFries, she moved with her mother to Kingman, Arizona in the seventh grade after the death of her stepfather. When she was 19, she took a job managing the finances of a mining, farm and ranch equipment supply company in Kingman for several years. After her mother's death, she joined the Women's Army Corps in 1943. She was stationed in Dutch New Guinea and then in Manila, Philippines as a Cryptographer in the Pacific theater of operations. At the end of WWII Margaret resigned from the Army and as a civilian joined the Navy Judge Advocate General Office as the Civilian Chief Clerk for the division in Tokyo, Japan. It was there that she met Jim Moriarty a career Marine Corps officer and they were married in Tokyo, Japan in 1948. They were stationed in many interesting places, which she always called adventures, and traveled extensively in North America, Europe, Great Britain, Russia, North Africa, Japan, and China. Daughter Margaret Ann was born during a posting at the Pentagon and son James Patrick was born on a Navy base in Morocco. She loved saying that she had traveled in all 50 states. After retirement from the Marine Corps in 1963, the family settled in Fort Worth, Texas where she actively volunteered for a number of organizations. Margaret's passion, shared with her husband, was volunteering and serving as a board member with the Japanese Garden at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. Margaret was devoted to her family and took immense interest and satisfaction in the lives of her two children, six grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. She is survived by her daughter Margaret Ann and her husband James F. Atkins, Jr., and their children Meg, Catharine, James F. Atkins, III, his wife April and their children Taryn and Lucas, and her son James Patrick Moriarty and his wife Annette, and their children Sean, Anna, and Conor. The family wishes to thank her caregivers at Christus St. Joseph Village, Sandy Lake Rehabilitation and Care Center, and Vitas Healthcare.