Rita Marie (Lewis) McCoy

Rita was born in 1944 in Springfield, Ohio. After attending Belmont High School in Dayton, Rita studied at Ohio University and graduated with a fine arts degree. She taught art in the Dayton public school system before travelling to Goose Bay, Labrador to teach in the overseas dependent school program. There, she met her future husband of 52 years. They moved back to Dayton, where Rita devoted herself to raising their two sons before returning to her field in education as an administrator at the Montessori School of Dayton.

Rita loved to read, and she nourished a broad curiosity about the world, ranging from the wondrous to the mundane. An avid gardener, she expressed her eclectic vision in works of living art as she nurtured a picturesque panoply of diverse and beautiful little gardens. But her most sublime endeavors were spent, with limitless affection, on her family and friends, on enduring relationships that she cultivated through a diligent and unrelenting love.

Preceded in death and to eternity by her father, David Lewis (1977); mother, Harriet Lewis (1985); mother-in-law, Maxine McCoy (1999); father-in-law, Walter McCoy (2000); and sister, Reenie Blakney (2003).

Rita's memory lives on with her surviving husband, James McCoy; children, Michael and Matthew McCoy; grandchildren, Daniel and Jack McCoy and their mother, Lisa McCoy-Ford; brother-in-law, David McCoy and his wife, Christine Knisely; and sister-in-law, Ann Sulfridge and her husband, Ken.

Rita’s family extends a warm and special thanks to the staff at Brookdale Kettering for the community and compassion that she found there; and to Caretenders Hospice and Tobias Funeral Home for their compassion and support.

Rita’s ashes will be buried in the St. Francis Memorial Garden at St. George's Episcopal Church, 5520 Far Hills Avenue, Dayton, Ohio 45429, following the offering of a Christian burial rite at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 24, 2024 in the Sanctuary. A gathering in celebration of Rita’s life will be hosted in the Parish Hall afterwards.

Memories may be shared and condolences expressed through Dignity Memorial at www.dignitymemorial.com. Memorial contributions may be made to the Lions Clubs International Foundation at www.lionsclubs.org.

And Rita continues to tend to little gardens in the hearts of all who were blessed to know her.