Myree Wells Maas, 88, of Decatur, hung on to important things in life

Myree Maas was a sticker. She stuck with the same husband, house and book club for more than a half century.

She also held on to stuff.

“We’re sorting through 57 years worth of junk now,” said her son, retired Rear Admiral Steven Maas, of packing up his parents’ house in Decatur. “They moved here in 1951, and I don’t think they threw away anything since 1951.”

Mrs. Maas met her husband, Joseph, when she was a fashion buyer for Davison’s department stores. Mrs. Maas, a 1942 graduate of Agnes Scott College, was his boss.

Mrs. Maas, the daughter of a dentist, in a sense was marrying up because her husband was from a family that owned a department store chain in Florida.

‘‘I don’t think she really cared for him when she first met him,” her daughter, Jane Edwards, said dryly. ‘‘He was from a prominent Tampa family ... and he was the only son and I’m sure he had a good opinion of himself.”

An office romance, however, blossomed and the couple became lifelong best friends until her husband died in 2006 after 57 years of marriage.

“They had a very good relationship,” Admiral Maas said. “I’m not sure I ever saw him speak a cross word to her. He did roll his eyes a lot at some of the crazy things she said.”

Myree Wells Maas, 88, died Wednesday. Her funeral is 11 a.m. today at Holy Trinity Parish Episcopal Church in Decatur.

She was the daughter of Robert F. Wells and Myree Vaughan Wells and grew up in Decatur — the city in which she spent her life — and attended Decatur Girls High before going to Shorter College and then to Agnes Scott where she double majored in English and psychology.

She quit her job at Davison’s soon after marrying. She and her husband later owned and operated the Casual Corner clothing stores in Decatur where he got to be the boss.

‘‘Dad pretty much did the managing part and she did the windows and the decor inside the stores,” Ms. Edwards said. ‘‘She definitely had a flare for design and decorating. I think for her the most fun thing at the Casual Corner stores was coordinating and directing the fashion shows.”

She was president of the Parkwood Garden Club, and she was a member of The Book Club since the 1940s. She helped start the book club with college friends from Agnes Scott and other young women that soon was having elegant luncheons and literary discussion each month.

Her son said Mrs. Maas’ political bent ran Libertarian and two literary works she enjoyed were Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

He described his mother as a devil’s advocate who enjoyed a good argument as well as a good book.

Like many an Agnes Scott alumna, she was a believer in advancing women rights, especially in the workplace. As a young woman, one of her most admired people was an aunt who had the spunk to be a lawyer in pre-1950 Georgia, Admiral Maas said.

During World War II, his mother was an enemy aircraft spotter and taught to identify German warplanes in case the Luftwaffe crossed the Atlantic, Admiral Maas said.