"She wanted just to bring joy": Margaret Peterson, 81, killed in Stillwater while bringing cookies to garbage truck driver
STILLWATER, Minn. – A community is mourning a grandmother who was hit and killed while delivering cookies.
Margaret Peterson, 81, was bringing the baked goods to her garbage man who she knew well last week when the truck accidentally hit her.
"She has been there for me since the very beginning," said Josh Pritchett, Peterson's grandson.
Pritchett moved in with his grandmother at her Stillwater home last year, bringing them even closer after Pritchett says she helped raise him.
"You didn't have to ask her to do something," he said. "If she saw it looked like you were struggling, she would just go and take her arm off for you."
Pritchett says he's still in shock about the tragedy.
"Leading up to her last day, she wanted just to bring joy, and how she did that was with baked goods," he said. "She was the foundation of my life. There was so much chaos that she was the one who stuck around to make sure I was taken care of."
Pritchett says the driver accidentally hit Peterson as another truck passed coming the other way.
"It's just a tragedy that she died this way," said neighbor Penny Van Hale. "It's a tragedy for both sides."
Peterson delivered baked goods all over the community, including at the county courthouse, where she worked for more than 20 years.
"It was always you heard that she was giving cookies out to people," Van Hale said. "The mailman, the garbage man. That's who she was.
Stillwater police say the Waste Management driver is cooperating with their investigation.
Pritchett has started a fundraiser to help with funeral costs.