Peggy Montin

Peggy Jackson Montin died on December 2, 2025, after medical complications and respiratory failure. Peggy lived courageously with Multiple Sclerosis for 40 years. She died peacefully in the presence of family and the loving care of Palliative care nurses and staff at St. Vincents-UAB hospital. After a family graveside service, a Memorial Service will be held at 1 pm, Saturday, February 14, 2026, at the Good Shepherd Chapel of Fair Haven Retirement Community, 1424 Montclair Road, Birmingham, Al.

If you had a friend in Peggy, you had a friend for life. She made people feel at ease around her and made friends everywhere she lived. Her career as a health care professional was important to her, and she was loved by her patients wherever she worked. Her childhood friends from the First United Methodist Church in Birmingham have remained close through all their adult years. Sue, Nickie, and Joy were particularly close and loving toward her. David and Deanna met her at Fair Haven and continued to visit regularly, offering care, help, and pedicures. Lisa, Linda, and Sonya brought communion to her monthly from First UMC, and their visits were treasured. The staff at Fair Haven loved Peggy and often came to her room on their breaks. Even in her darkest days, she remained interested in how others were doing and in their families.

Peggy’s TV was always tuned to the shows of her youth. She could quote Gunsmoke, M.A.S.H., Bonanza, and Everybody Loves Raymond. She watched the Andy Griffith show faithfully and always laughed at the comedy of Barney Fife.This comic relief was healing.

Peggy had many challenges in life. Through all her life’s challenges, she emerged a loving and faithful woman. Her loving nature spread joy to anyone who came into her presence. Her loss of sight was particularly painful for her, but in 2025, Dr. Joiner at the Callahan Eye Hospital was able to remove a large cataract, and she began to see again. Her last 2 months were particularly happy for her. Having lived in darkness for so long, she now saw her family and friends, live and in color.

Peggy lived a life that reflected one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, “ For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”. (1 Corinthians 13: 12-13)

Peggy is survived by her children, Kelley and Joseph, her brother, Stewart Jackson (Robin), her sister, Betty McArthur (Frank), and a host of nieces, nephews and friends.

Memorials to honor her can be sent to the First UMC (519 6th Ave N, Birmingham, Al 35203), The MS Society (https://www.nationalmssociety.org/), and/or Fair Haven Retirement Home (https://www.methodisthomes.org/senior-living/al/birmingham/fair-haven/).

“Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, That we are still.

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way you always used

Put no difference into your tone

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we always enjoyed together

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was

Let it be spoken without effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost

One brief moment, and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

'The King of Terrors', a sermon on death delivered in St Paul's Cathedral on Whitsunday 1910, while the body of

King Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster:

published in Facts of the Faith, 1919