Margaret Ann Coleman

Margaret Ann Coleman passed away peacefully due to complications with lung cancer on March 31, 2022.

Ann was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England in October 1939, a month after World War II began. She was a small child during the Battle of Britain and remembers as a preschooler playing in the “bombuildings” where she would “go looking for treasures” and find jewelry and other such things. She also remembered seeing Operation Fortitude, or the fake army, in action as it was near her home area, with rows of fake tanks and dummies with real troops moving back and forth to confuse the enemy.

Kent, the county she lived in, is known as the garden of England. When she was very small, her mother worked in the fields picking peas. Ann followed her mother with a spoon and would eat the peas off of the vine. Instead of buying candy for a penny, she would go and buy apples. She has preferred fresh fruits and vegetables her whole life. She also played a lot more outside rather than in because, as she put it, the houses were much smaller and blander. She played games like hopscotch, jump rope, and rounder (a version of baseball). When she traveled she would usually use the double-decker bus alone, even at age seven. On long trips, she would go with her mom on a steam train. She remembers when they got rid of the steam engines too. She rarely ever went to a large city, especially London. During Easter, she would go to a nearby hill with all of the other children and have an “egg roll”, meaning they would roll the eggs down the hill, every year. For Christmas, she never got many toys. The toys she had were well played with, because there were only a few.

When Ann was 14 she moved from Ramsgate to North Umberland in the northeastern part of the country, where it was nothing but small towns. It was the mid 50’s and the fashion in England for young women was to carry an umbrella and wear a black Macintosh, which is a type of long raincoat or overcoat.

When she was 21, she saw an ad in the paper to work as hired help in exchange for passage to the United States. She had been itching for a way to leave home. She was getting tired of England. The sun rarely shone, the longing of travel was with her, and she was annoyed with pubs and all of the drinking in England. She arrived in New York by ship and worked as an au pair for a year for Robert Markell, who was a producer and art director for the 1957 movie, “12 Angry Men”, and also directed NYPD the TV series. She helped make meals, clean the house, and care for his two children ages 8 and 4.

After that, she went to North Carolina to help her cousin, Joan, for a short while, who was going to have a baby. She ended up staying for two and a half years. Then a friend invited her to go to Albuquerque. She accepted and lived there for a year, working as a Harvey Girl at the train depot. While there she met Ken Coleman, who was attending the University of New Mexico and had served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Central British Mission, who recognized her accent. He felt that she was a gift from God for him. After only three weeks, they were married on January 13, 1966.

She and Ken moved to Colorado, where Ken worked as a jeweler for Zale Corporation. There they had 2 children, Annette in 1968 and Trei in 1970. From there they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Ken worked as a JC Penny Company associate. In 1974, the Coleman family moved out to Cleveland, Tennessee where they ran an extension of the family business, Mr. Zip Convenience Stores of Tennessee.

During her nearly 50 years in Cleveland, in addition to her working as a store supervisor and auditor for Mr. Zip stores, she was also very active in her church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She performed countless years of service. She was a hard worker and very dependable, often being put in charge of functions and activities. She loved being involved in her neighborhood and community. She was voted Cleveland Mother of the Year, voted Cleveland Family of the Year, was active in the Scouting program and was a regular attendee of water aerobics at the YMCA. One of her most favorite things was being a grandma and she frequently talked about, and generously doted on, all of her 9 grandchildren and her first great-grandchild.

In her later years, she loved knitting scarves and hats, which she donated to St. Judes Hospital and to cancer treatment patients at the Oncology Center of Cleveland as well as giving them to family and friends. She leaves behind a husband, Ken, of 56 years of marriage, a daughter, Annette Coleman Evans, spouse, Rob, 6 grandchildren and 1 great- grandson, from Provo, Utah and a son, Trei Coleman, spouse, Laura, and 3 grandchildren from Cleveland, Tennessee. She was a true and loyal wife, mother, grandmother, family member, and friend and will be truly missed by all.

A celebration of her life will be held Saturday, April 16, 10:00-11:30am at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 4200 Pryor Rd. NE, Cleveland, TN. A broadcast of the service will be held on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBB849Y39xjg9y5PxEJhp0Q/live