Alice Kay Montgomery Gatlin

Alice Kay Montgomery Gatlin, 82, of Covington, Tennessee, passed away on December 6, 2025, surrounded by loving family and friends.
Kay was born May 2, 1943, in Gilt Edge community of Tipton County, Tennessee. She is the daughter of Clois John and Leona Vance Hartsfield Montgomery.
Kay graduated as salutatorian from Munford High School in 1961. She had been a cheer leader her junior and senior years at Munford High School.
Kay married Jerry Walton Gatlin on December 28, 1961, at the Gilt Edge Church of Christ. Kay and Jerry met on a blind date in September 1959 and dated two years and three months before their wedding. Kay and Jerry have been married for sixty-four years.
Kay, after graduating high school, went to work for The Great Southern Company as their keeper of books and worked there one year before deciding to be a home maker. When Kay's children started school, she began working as a Kindergarten teacher for Harding Academy Memphis in 1975. Kay worked one year as kindergarten teacher's aide and twenty-three years as kindergarten teacher.
Kay was a good cook and always enjoyed family gatherings, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She was an excellent seamstress, learned to smock for grandchildren and monogram for husband and family.
Kay was a member of the Church of Christ and worshipped at churches of Christ in Gilt Edge, Union Avenue, Raleigh, Wooddale, Southwind and Covington. She taught children's Bible classes at Raleigh, Wooddale, Southwind and Covington.
She had a plethora of names; "Kay by family and friends," "Meema and Grammy Kay by her grandchildren," "Miss. Kay" by students and the parents of students she taught at the churches she attended and for twenty-four years where she taught kindergarten at Harding Academy. After twenty-four years in kindergarten classes Kay took a giant leap and became the bookkeeper for Thompson Engineers, Inc., a consulting mechanical and electrical engineering company owned by her husband and son. She said more than once "it was easier to control twenty-five kindergarteners than a dozen engineers." She worked for Thompson Engineers, Inc. for seventeen years, retiring at age 73.
Kay liked to travel and visited many of the continental U.S. states. The ones she liked most were Alaska, Hawaii and Israel. The trip that got her the most excited was a trip from Memphis, to Nashville, to Knoxville and Las Vegas on a Tennessee Air National Guard C-141 cargo plane. On that trip she got to ride in the jump seat between the pilot and copilot as they landed the plane at the Nashville Airport and taxied to the Tennessee Air National Guard parking ramp. She thought they were going to collide with everything they passed as they taxied to the ramp.
Remaining to cherish Kay's memory are spouse, Jerry Gatlin; children, Jeff Gatlin (Mary), Jennifer Gatlin Phillips (Jeff); Grandchildren; Magnolia Gatlin, Beau Phillips (Hannah), Austin Phillips (Kensleigh), Jedidiah Phillips (Chasse), Neal Gatlin (Leslie), Sean Gatlin, Caleb Heathley, Abbe Keathley Harris (Jacob), Great-grandchildren, Alice Phillips, Lucy Phillips, Bear Phillips, Caroline Phillips, Ella Harris; sister Beverly Keith, sister in-law Harriett Montgomery, Rick and Patsy Moore, whom she and Jerry claimed as their own.
Preceding Kay in death are parents Leona and Clois Montgomery, brother John Clois Montgomery, sister Nell Huffman.
Favorite scripture: Psalm 139:14, "I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.
Visitation will be held on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Covington Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 12 noon on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, at the Covington Church of Christ, with Jeff Phillips and family and friends officiating. Interment will be in Walton Cemetery.
Memorial donations in Kay's memory may be directed to the Covington Church of Christ. 1690 Hwy 51 South, Covington, TN 38019. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Alice Kay Montgomery Gatlin, please visit our floral store.