Virginia Tuggle was an exemplary aunt, the kind every family should have.
She was known within her family as Ginga (with two hard G’s). It was a name given to her by her nephew, Roy Slaton Tuggle III of Atlanta, when he was a toddler and hadn’t yet mastered the pronunciation of Virginia. Once uttered, “Ginga” stuck.
Tuggle never married, but she treated the children and grandchildren of her lone sibling, Roy Slaton Tuggle Jr., now deceased, as her own.
She was the family’s premier party-giver, whether the event was a holiday or a family member’s birthday. The array of foods she would fix, her nephew said, was as varied as a smorgasbord, only Southern rather than Swedish,
To two generations of nieces and nephews, she was a generous gift-giver.
She also was their enthusiastic companion on berry-picking ventures and fishing trips that ranged from a Gwinnett County pond to the Gulf of Mexico.
Her niece, Sherry Tuggle of Monticello, got her so interested in the University of Georgia women’s basketball team that the two of them became fervent fans, attending many Lady Bulldogs games over a dozen-year period. “She also followed the women’s NCAA tournament brackets intently,” her niece said.
Late in her life, Virginia Tuggle became the current generation’s authority on family history. Relatives made special trips to her house in north DeKalb County to see if she could identify unfamiliar faces in old family photo albums, and most of the time she could.
Virginia Elizabeth Tuggle, 97, died of heart failure Wednesday at Emory University Hospital. Her funeral will be at 3 p.m. Sunday at A.S. Turner & Sons’ chapel, with burial to follow in Decatur Cemetery.
As a child she lived on her parents’ dairy farm, located close to what is now the busy commercial intersection of Briarcliff and North Druid Hills roads. She graduated from Druid Hills High School.
Tuggle started her retail clothing career during the post-World War II years as a clerk at Rich’s downtown store, working her way up to buyer. Through the 1950s she worked at department stores in Nashville and Indianapolis before moving in the early 1960s to New York City as a buyer for Saks.
She returned to the Atlanta area in the early 1970s and opened an outlet store for children called the Clothes Hamper on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs. Her nephew said she used the connections she made previously in the clothing trade to stock her business.
Retiring in 1980, she busied herself traveling abroad with friends, staying in touch with acquaintances she made throughout her career, and playing bridge. She was a regular at Druid Hills Golf Club, entertaining friends at lunches there long after she gave up golf and tennis.
She enjoyed fishing at a pond on a 70-acre property she owned near Snellville and especially liked going after red snapper off the Gulf coast near Destin, Fla. “Even recently, when she no longer had the strength to reel in a big one, she loved the experience of going out into the deep water,” her nephew said.
Tommie Puckett of Atlanta remembered her longtime friend as a gracious hostess and a tasteful decorator, adding, “Virginia’s house was a showplace at Christmas time.”
Survivors in addition to her niece and nephew include two grandnephews and a grandniece.
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