Timon Mayo Atkins

Timon Mayo Atkins, DDS, born October 9, 1926 passed away November 3, 2020 with his loving family by his side at the home of his daughter in Bristol, Rhode Island. A lifelong resident of Atlanta, Dr. Atkins was one of four children born to the late Daniel Benjamin Atkins and the late Lila Elizabeth Mayo Atkins. Educated at the Inman Primary School and Boy’s High School, Dr. Atkins received his BS and MD/DDS degrees from Emory University following World War II where he served as Radarman First Class in the United States Navy assigned to the Pacific theatre.

Dr. Atkins ran a successful dental practice for 40 years and was one of a handful of dentists who treated handicapped children in the Southeast. He and his partners founded and developed Decatur Hospital as a specialty hospital for this purpose and to perform otolaryngology-head and neck surgery with specialists trained in both medicine and surgery. The hospital was later sold to Hospital Corporation of America. A member of the Georgia Dental Association and the American Dental Association, Dr. Atkins was active in peer-review and led numerous professional development efforts in the country. He and his late wife Pat also founded a free health clinic for the Methodist Children’s Home staffed by an array of volunteer doctors and dentists throughout Atlanta. This became a free treatment model replicated across the Southeast. Dr. Atkins was driven by a fervent belief and commitment that all children should receive excellent health care regardless of their ability to pay or their circumstances in life.

He and his late wife of 73 years, Patricia Caldwell Atkins were members of the Cathedral of St Philip and active members of the Atlanta Athletic Club. In 2009, the Club honored Pat and Mayo as 50-year members, having joined in 1959, proposed by Mayo’s finest friend, the late Eugene Brooks Sr. East Lake, the former home of the Atlanta Athletic Club, was central to Mayo’s love of golf. His weekly foursome was a constant source of enjoyment and later in life the “Duffers” were an important part of his retirement. Harold Sargent, John Gerring the starter, and caddie master Jim Brett all had a place in Mayo’s Club memories.

In their later years, he and Pat’s greatest joy was reveling in the many accomplishments of their only grandchild Timon, including Golf camp and lessons at the Club and participating in his school activities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Dr. Atkins is survived by two of his three children, Timon Hayden Atkins of Longwood, Florida and Janet Patricia Atkins and her husband Tarleton Harvin Watkins II of Boston, Massachusetts and Bristol, Rhode Island and his beloved grandchild, Tarleton Harvin Watkins III of Washington, D.C. His wife, Patricia, passed away in July of 2020 and his daughter Judith Gayle Atkins of Marietta, Georgia passed away in September of 2020. Burial will be private.