Margaret "Ann" Terrett

Once you met Margaret “Ann” Terrett, you were a friend for life.

“I think the most important thing — when you met Mom for the first time, you might not know her, but when you left, you were a friend,” said son Robert “Bobby” Terrett of Keedysville.

She didn’t like to be called Margaret, though, so husband Robert “Bob” Terrett only called her Margaret when he wanted to get a rise out of her.

Ann Garner was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Greenbelt, Md., the third of six children. After high school graduation in 1953, she worked for many years as a receptionist for doctors in Silver Spring, Md., and Chevy Chase, Md.

She met Bob, who also grew up in the D.C. area, through a friend and they went on a blind date in October 1956, about nine months after Bob got out of the Army.

He told his mother after their second date that “she was the girl I was going to marry.”

“I guess I was a sucker for redheads,” Bob said.

He proposed on New Year’s Eve, at a party filled with school friends.

“I was pretty sure she would accept,” Bob said.

The couple married in July 1957 in Silver Spring. They raised Bobby and their daughter, Susan Barnes, in Rockville, Md.

“Family was really important and her faith, too,” said Susan, who lives in Middletown, Md.

Many weekends were spent camping, progressing from tents to pop-up camper to travel-trailer to a motor home, in which they covered many miles across the country.

“We traveled a lot,” Bob said.

The family also owned a mobile home on two acres of property in Garrett County, Md., a retreat from the city.

“We loved the mountains,” Bob said.

They initially thought about moving to Garrett County, but Bob, an electrician, said he couldn’t get a job there. Friends who lived in Washington County encouraged the Terretts to settle near them.

The decision was made to move out of the Rockville area after both children finished high school. Not a day was wasted, with the family moving to Keedysville the day after Susan earned her diploma.

“The next day, I was picking raspberries,” Susan said.

Their Red Hill Road property boasted 1,500 raspberry bushes and peach trees.