She loved to learn and turned it into a lifelong research of family history

Emily S. "Peggy" Saliba loved learning.

The Pascagoula school teacher turned librarian loved to educate and to be educated. She spent 40 years in the Pascagoula School System and with the Department of Defense before she retired, then threw herself into learning and researching her family history.

Saliba, 75, died Saturday, two weeks shy of her 76th birthday. She was with her sister, Patsy Holzborn.

"She was the best person. She didn't get upset; she didn't whine."

Holzborn said her sister got her love of learning honestly. Their mother was in education and four uncles were in school administration.

"She loved her family dearly," Holzborn said. "My mother's side of the family had many children, and the Myers family children just doted on her."

And her sister's greatest accomplishment, Holzborn said, was that she never lost sight of why she got into education.

"She was a class teacher, an elementary school librarian and then a media specialist. But her eyes were always on the needs of the children. She never lost sight of that. They always came first."

She also was very involved at First Baptist Church of Pascagoula, but always behind the scenes, Holzborn said, serving as a mentor to some of the church leaders.

Once she retired from education, she threw herself into geneaology, Holzborn said, leading Saliba to research and document her family's history. "It led her to seek the pedigree in all of us," she said.

One particular achievement for Saliba came during a week-long visit to Salt Lake City, Utah, where she learned about geneaology research from volunteers with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who have an extensive geneaology research center.

Saliba was looking for her grandfather's naturalization papers. But after a week there, the volunteers told Saliba they just couldn't find the documents of her ancestor, who came to the U.S. from Lebanon, where he fled the Ottoman Empire.

"She found out that every time he came here (to the U.S.), he would change his name a little bit, because he was hiding from the Ottoman Empire."

Saliba asked if she could go through the documents. After combing through mounds of paperwork, she spotted it. Her great- grandfather had entered the U.S. using his middle name. The paperwork had been found.

"After 20 years, she found his naturalization papers," Holzborn said.

Another feat that came to its conclusion just last month was the documentation and designation of the family cemetery in Simpson County.

"An uncle took Peggy to a derelict cemetery of our ancestors. It was in a cow pasture and the cows had gotten in and the headstones were damaged.

"Peggy spent two years getting it historically recognized by the state."

It took another three years after that to get the Eli Myers Cemetery re-fenced, the headstones repaired and the cemetery restored. It was re-dedicated June 2, 2018, just a month before Saliba died.

"There are 17 graves there and Peggy has the full documentation on all of them. She gave us each a copy at the dedication," Holborn said.

"I would say she was the happiest she had ever been that day."

Visitation will be Tuesday, 10 a.m. until noon at O’Bryant-O’Keefe Funeral Home in Pascagoula. A funeral service will follow at in the funeral home chapel with the Rev. Eddie Kirby officiating. Burial will be at Machpelah Cemetery in Pascagoula.

This story was originally published July 1, 2018 at 2:55 PM.