Eunice Atkinson

Mrs. Eunice Hatfield Atkinson, 92, of Hartsville, passed away peacefully on Saturday morning, September 22nd, 2018, at home with family by her bedside.

A graveside service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday in the Florence National Cemetery.  The family will be receiving friends Tuesday evening, from 5-7 at Norton Funeral Home.

She was born to the late Ira Osgood and Lillian Goodale Hatfield on August 11, 1926, in Hartsville, South Carolina. She grew up on a farm and was very proud that as a child she picked one hundred pounds of cotton in one day. She graduated from Hartsville High School in 1944 and attended Lander College in Greenwood, South Carolina where she especially loved the lectures given by South Carolina Poet Laureate Archibald Rutledge. She married Robert Lee Atkinson, decorated 82nd Airborne World War II veteran in 1946 and was married for 62 years until his death in 2008. Eunice and Robert were always very active in their church and their faith and provided their children with a wonderful Christian home.  After having four children, she continued her education and went to nursing school and earned her LPN degree. She worked at Byerly Hospital for several years and then her passion for horticulture overcame her nursing career and she and her husband started Atkinson’s Garden Center. She was active in the Hartsville Chamber of Commerce and often donated flowers and her time to Coker College and Kalmia Gardens. She operated Atkinson’s Garden Center for thirty years until her retirement. In her retirement she enjoyed her flower garden, her humming birds, watching golf on television, Facebook, making her world famous sweet tea and seeing her grandchildren and great grandchildren grow.

She is survived by her four children:  Susan Atkinson Hewell (Michael); Phyllis Atkinson Palmieri (Mark); Ira Bert Atkinson (Donna); Reginald L. Atkinson (Linda) all of Hartsville. Six grandchildren: Eden Hewell Gardner (Dylan), Zoey Susanne Hewell, Leonardo G. Palmieri; Brian Lee Atkinson; all of Hartsville; Michael Todd Brown (Angie), Andrea Brown Rockefeller (Joshua) both of Georgia. Seven great grandchildren: Amber and Ashley Atkinson (Hartsville); Michael Todd, Cheyenne, Nicholas Brown; Joshua and Austin Rockefeller (all of Georgia).

She was preceded in death by her brother, Ira O. Hatfield, Jr. and a sister, Lorice Hatfield Gibson.

Norton Funeral Home of Hartsville is honored to be serving the Atkinson family.