April 19, 1983 – May 24, 2019

NATCHEZ— A memorial service for Ashleigh Marion Pearson Patterson, 36, of Smyrna, Ga., who died Friday, May 24, 2019, will be 4 p.m. Saturday at Community Chapel Church of God in Natchez.
Visitation will begin at 3 p.m.
Ashleigh was born April 19, 1983, in LaGrange, Ga., the daughter of the Rev. Stephen Pearson and Bobbie Owens Pearson.
Ashleigh attended Trinity Episcopal Day School in Natchez, where she graduated with honors in 2001. She attended the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg where she was in the honors program. In 2006, she earned a bachelor of science in biology. From there, she enrolled in the University of Alabama, Birmingham, where she received her master’s degree in occupational therapy in 2008.
While pursuing her master’s degree in Birmingham, Ashleigh met the love of her life, Tyler. In a beautiful ceremony in Natchez, on June 27, 2009, she married Steven Tyler Patterson. She and Tyler lived and worked in Madison, until they moved to Atlanta in 2012. Although theirs was a life complicated by Ashleigh’s cystic fibrosis, Tyler made Ashleigh’s dreams come true. Their love was as endless as their numerous adventures.
In 2013, Ashleigh was blessed with a double lung transplant from an anonymous donor, who through death, extended Ashleigh’s life. Ashleigh’s new lungs gave her new breath and new energy — but in early 2019, she began to have health issues. After a courageous struggle, Ashleigh went to be with Jesus on May 24th.
Patterson was preceded in death by her father of Natchez and her paternal grandfather, William C. Pearson of Mobile, Ala.
Survivors include her husband, Tyler; her mother and one brother, Stephen Bryant Pearson, both Natchez; her paternal grandmother, Frances Pearson; one aunt, Sherry Pearson Weatherford and husband, Alan; one uncle, Chris Lamar Pearson; and cousins, Whitney Weatherford Daugette and husband, Cliff, and Josh Weatherford and wife, Melia, and their family, all of Mobile, and Christopher Pearson, of Fairhope, Ala.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Community Chapel, the American Lung Association or the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.