Phyllis Ann Garcia

Phyllis Ann Garcia passed away peacefully at home on April 3, 2022, surrounded by those that love her. She was born on June 22, 1965, to Bill and Carolyn (Teeters) Sayers in Columbus, Ohio. She attended Pickerington High School and Ohio State University and retired from Matrix Media Services after many years of dedicated service. Ann married Frank Garcia in 2004, and he proved to be the perfect partner for her. Ann prioritized spending time with the people she loved, and will be remembered as a devoted wife, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend.

Ann is preceded in passing by her father Bill, and her cousin Jenny.

Left to cherish her memory are her beloved husband, Frank; her mother, Carolyn Sayers; her sisters Cathy (Doug) Nicholson and Jaynie (Dwayne) Stout; her beloved nieces and nephews, Lynsie Stout, Erin (Brad) Bryant, Alex (Audrey) Stout, and Lucas Nicholson; great-nieces and great-nephews Cullen, Knox, Mac, Sullivan, Brindley, Brooks, and Griffin; as well as friends-that-became-family Jenny & Bruce Burton, Karla Kipp, and Kim & Joe Pallotta.

Ann’s first love was always her family. She loved passionately and deeply. Her greatest joy was spending time with them and watching her nieces and nephews grow up into amazing adults and great-nieces and nephews join the family. Ann was a loving, inclusive person who made everyone feel welcome and felt strongly that everyone person was valuable and deserved to be treated fairly. She was that person that could bring people together but also the person who made who made others want to get together. And that welcoming attitude made her the perfect hostess.

Ann’s creative outlet was cooking, and if you were lucky enough to enjoy her food, you never forgot it. She made so many wonderful things, from perfect cookies to perfectly layered sandwiches. Her snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, whoopie pies, flag cake, apple pie, and lemon ice-box pie were legendary. There was no meal so simple that still couldn’t be done with flair and precision. When she entertained, it was done at the same high standard - from a perfect selection of foods to coordinating crafted cocktails. She made it seem easy, but she was a perfectionist and held herself to a very high standard. More than one of us experienced watching her throw out something wonderful because it had a flaw and she was not going to serve that!

To get fresher ingredients for her dishes, she also took time to grow a lovely little vegetable and herb garden. She understood the value of green growing things and often kept fresh flowers around as well.

Her other passion was travel. Ann liked learning about a new place, whether it was a foreign country or the next town over. She enjoyed experiencing something different, whether that was scenery, culture, food, or people. Her organizational skills extended to travel arrangements and if you traveled with her, you knew all the details were taken care of and you saw everything there was to see - from the most common tourist spots to the little-known but fantastic restaurant. Some of her favorite trips were the family vacations to the Outer Banks because there wasn’t anything better than a beautiful place, good food, and family.

Ann’s welcoming and caring nature extended to animals as well. She had a knack for picking out animals that were challenging, but ended up being lovable and so well-behaved. She had a talent for understanding each animal’s idiosyncrasies with her animal-whisperer skills! Any pet adopted by Ann had hit the pet lottery because they were going to have the best life.

She was highly organized both at home and at work, but she also had her goofy side and had no problem with poking fun at herself like the many, many photos of the 1980’s “head on arms” high school photo pose. Ann was a consummate hostess, fun-loving, fiercely devoted, our Apple tech support, a perfect gift-giver, sore loser, obnoxious winner, striped shirt wearing, puzzle-oke sing-along, and pet-lover.

Visitation will take place on Sunday, April 10 from 3pm-6pm at Schoedinger Northeast, 1051 East Johnstown Road in Gahanna. Ann’s memorial service will be the following morning, April 11, at 10:30am at Grace Fellowship, 3600 North Waggoner Road in Blacklick.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Ann’s memory to either the Columbus Humane Society, https://www.columbushumane.org/ or the Cancer Support Community Central Ohio, https://www.cancersupportohio.org.