Margaret McGILVRAY

McGILVRAY, Margaret (Age 80) On January 29, 2019, Margaret Carol McGilvray passed away with family at her side in Annapolis, Maryland. Margaret, or Midge as everyone knew her, was a remarkable and profoundly driven woman, possessing dogged determination and seeking excellence for herself, and for all with whom she came in contact. The daughter of hard scrabble blue-collar workers in rural Minnesota, and later Illinois, Midge pulled herself up and learned how to achieve early at a high-level, eventually earning herself a full ride scholarship to Northwestern University in Chicago, where she studied journalism. Her career later segued into education, and she eventually found herself in California teaching in the Oakland public school system. In 1979 she moved with her husband Donald McGilvray and her two sons Douglas and Ross to Spokane Washington where she earned her Masters in education from Whitworth and became an elementary school principal seeking assignments where she could work in schools that catered to disadvantaged youth. Midge was kind, and loving, and truly concerned about how YOU were doing. Midge's long battle with Parkinson's disease put on full display the same kind of gritty determination that had so defined her life in all the years prior. Her spirit and drive were inextinguishable. Midge touched a great many lives in her time on this earth, and will be sorely missed. She leaves behind, her brother Robert McAllen, her sons, their wives, and a multitude of granddaughters and great grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations in her name may be made to Washington State CASA, where she was an advocate for years, or Hospice of the Chesapeake in Annapolis Maryland, who so lovingly looked after Midge in her final months.