April 10, 1957 – April 29, 2012

NATCHEZ — Graveside services for Margaret Peabody Cotten, 55, of Huntsville, Ala., who died peacefully Sunday, April 29, 2012, at her residence, will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Natchez City Cemetery.

A memorial service will be 10 a.m. today at Church of Nativity in Huntsville.

Mrs. Cotten was born April 10, 1957, in New Orleans, the daughter of Howard Bell Peabody Jr. and Margaret Pipes Peabody. She was raised in Natchez and had lived in Huntsville since 1986.

She was a 1975 graduate of Oldfields School and attended Sophie Newcomb College and Worcester University. She loved arts, photography, poetry and the Mississippi River where she spent a number of years exploring while in the employ of the Delta Queen Steamboat Company.

Margaret was an imaginative and creative soul who expressed herself through her art and writings.

She was preceded in death by her father and her “other mother,” Leola T. (Nene) Hardin.

Survivors include her mother; her husband, J. Harvey Cotten Jr.; two sons, John and Andrew of Huntsville; two sisters, Betsy Myles and husband, Poe, of New Orleans and Louise Peabody of Natchez; one brother, David Peabody and wife, Ginger, of Arlington, Va.; and seven nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Huntsville Botanical Garden, the Historic Natchez Foundation and the Pavilion at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.