August 25, 1922 – February 25, 2009
Marguerite Haisten Simpson passed away on Wednesday, February 25, 2009. She was born in Brundidge, Alabama in 1922. Her family soon relocated to Selma, where she grew up in the halcyon days of black-belt Alabama, hunting quail with her father until she was too tired to take another step, and helping to show his Tennessee Walking Horses. She enrolled in Alabama College at Montevallo, where she was featured as a college beauty in the June, 1941 issue of Look magazine. This prompted a flood of letters from “our boys” preparing to fight the Axis overseas, including correspondence from crewmembers of U.S.S. Arizona. She transferred to Auburn University, where she became a charter member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. Marguerite caught the eye of Army Air Corps pilot Charles C. “Charlie” Simpson, Jr., and they married in 1943. Thereafter she pursued a career as Air Force wife and devoted mother. However far away the Air Force took her, she remained an Alabama girl. After Col. Simpson retired from the Air Force, the family found their way to Huntsville, where she resided in the home that she and Charlie built in 1969 for the rest of her life. She was active in DAR, UDC and the Huntsville Women’s Club; her anchor was the First United Methodist Church. She is survived by a son, Charles Cass Simpson, III, of Mobile, and a daughter, Susan Simpson Hinton, of Homestead, Florida; surviving grandchildren are Charles Cass Simpson, IV, Christopher Brooks Hinton and Anne Marguerite Simpson. Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, March 2, 2009 in the chapel of Valhalla Funeral Home, 698 Winchester Road, Huntsville, with visitation on Sunday commencing at 6:00 p.m. The family requests memorial donations to First United Methodist Church of Huntsville in lieu of flowers. Please sign the online guest book at www.valhallafunerals.com.