Julia "Julie" Ann Tillery

Julia “Julie” Ann Tillery (nee. Bahr), passed away Monday, June 15, 2026, at HCA Bayonet Point Hospital near her home in New Port Richey, Florida.

A longtime resident and permanent fixture of the community in Augusta, Georgia, Julie moved to Florida in recent years to receive additional support from her son Will.

Julie was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 24, 1944, the second of three children. Her mother, Mary Ann Farbach Bahr, brought the family to her hometown while it’s patriarch, Col. Robert C. Bahr, Sr., served in the U.S. Army’s Twelfth Armored Division overseas. As the daughter of a career Army officer, Julie grew up all over the world, notable locations including Okinawa, Japan, and Florence, Italy. She remained a true Southern belle, however, owing to her heritage and her family settling in in Savannah, Georgia, from the time she was 12. She graduated from Savannah Country Day School in 1962 and was presented in the 1963 Cotillion and Debutante Ball in Savannah and the Bachelors Ball in Louisville. Julie briefly attended St. Mary’s Junior College in Raleigh, North Carolina, before joining Delta Airline’s elite force of stewardesses in the mid-1960s. For years, her father Bob Bahr booked periodic flights out of Atlanta simply to check up on her and “see her in action.” Witty, gregarious, the kind of person who never met a stranger, Julie took to the role like a duck to water. In 1967 she met the love of her life, Bill Tillery, while studying to become an orthoptist at Baylor University School of Medicine.

After a whirlwind romance, the two married in February 1968 and were inseparable for nearly 50 years. Bill completed his degree in ophthalmology in May 1968, and the two moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where their first child, William Virgil Tillery, IV, was born in the summer of 1969. Bill’s career took them to Annapolis, Maryland, shortly thereafter, then to Philadelphia in 1972. Their second child, Robert Carl, was born there in 1974, and their youngest, Meredith, was born in 1976 shortly after they moved to Augusta, Georgia, where Bill became a partner at the Southern Eye Center. Julie was a member of the Augusta Junior League and volunteered at St. Joseph Hospital. She owned several horses and was a fixture on the Saddlebred dressage circuit, where her daughter won a national competition. Yet Julie’s truest calling in life was as a fierce advocate. Her first and forever beneficiary was her baby brother, and she famously pulled his future wife into a bathroom to warn that should she ever hurt him there would be repercussions.

She once fearlessly marched onto backwoods Georgia farm to relieve its owner of a starving horse. She served on the Augusta Animal Services Advisory Board for years, and lived in a constant state of dog rescue, often taking them into her own home. But the most important avenue of her talents — beyond her family — was as a Guardian Ad Litem within the Georgia court system, standing up for children for nearly 20 years. Julie is reunited in death with her beloved husband, her parents, her eldest brother, and the dozens of ponies and puppies she adored, specifically her dog Snickers, who crossed over just a few days before her.

She is survived by her brother, William Henry “Hank” Bahr (Lane); her sons, William Virgil Tillery, IV (Lisa), and Robert Carl Tillery (Megan); her daughter, Meredith Tillery McNamara (Martin); and by her grandchildren, Arabella Margaret Tillery, Kendall Carly Tillery, Martin Patrick McNamara, Margaret Anne McNamara, and William Virgil Tillery, V. All her family, and anyone she considered family, will cherish her memory, especially the 35 years she brought them all together for Thanksgiving.

The funeral service will be held at Noon, Saturday, July 25, at Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia.

The family will receive friends following the services in the Reid Memorial fellowship hall. In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to Best Friends animal rescue. https://everloved.com/obituaries/best-friendsanimal-society/julia-tillery/

Arrangements are being provided by Platt's Funeral Home, 721 Crawford Avenue, Augusta, GA 30904 (706) 733-3636. Please take a moment to share your condolences by signing the online guestbook at plattsfuneralhome.com.