Margaret Susan "Meg" Groeling

1949 - 2023

Born in Oklahoma City on January 18, 1949, Margaret Susan was also known as Susan,
since her schoolteacher felt there were too many Margarets in her classroom in the
early 1950's. She was a lifelong student and educator. Her step dad, John, moved their
family from the plains of Oklahoma to the beaches of Southern California in the mid
1960's, waking up to the crash and roar of the early morning waves, cresting on the
golden sands of Huntington Beach, California. Later moving to Buena Park, California,
Susan, now known as Meg, excelled in literature and drama at Western High School. A
D-Day veteran, John took Meg parachuting on weekends. They also both worked at
Disneyland. Meg manned the storybook boat tour and John, Junglebook. 

Participating in local politics as a lifelong Democrat, she participated in Robert
Kennedy's 1968's bid for the presidency, signing people up to vote at the Ambassador
Hotel. Meg enrolled at Los Angeles Tech in downtown Los Angeles, where she went on
to be one of the most successful dress designers of the mid 1970's. She participated in
the first Renaissance Faire. 

As a survivor, she rebounded multiple times from abuse, years before the term "Me
Too" became popular. Meg supported a women's choice and her struggle for equality.
Meg married four times. Later in life she toured California giving lectures on the
American Civil War. 

After excelling in dress design in Los Angeles, Meg enrolled at Cal State Long Beach and
after ten years of studies she was able in embark in the education profession, where she
excelled again. She taught in Paramount, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Gilroy,
California, where she became the Teacher of the Year (2014-2015). A pamphlet printed
by the Gilroy School District described her in this way, "Ms. Thompson knows how her
middle school students' minds operate. She realizes they are not 'mini-adults,' but
rather children who need to be children. Students in Meg's classes are happy and
inquisitive." She attended the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Intel Laboratory
for Learning. Meg was known as "our royal purple teacher." 

In the early 1990's, Meg Reed was given the title of "Queen of the Vampires" by the
local Fullerton Pacific News and Review. Meg curated an art show with her own
Preternatural Productions, which organized the Undead Poets Society of Long Beach
and produced a vampire play called Undead II. She attended the original Burning Man in
San Francisco. 

Throughout her Goth period and university studies Meg began to write and edit for Civil
War magazines. In the early 21 st  Century, Meg reinvented herself again, writing over 500
entrees for The Emerging Civil War Blog. She also earned a Masters in military history at
American Public University (online). Meg Groeling by this time had written three books:
The Aftermath of Battle, First Fallen and an unpublished (as of this day) about the
influence of the Civil War on the writings of Walt Whitman. Her book First Fallen was
reviewed in The Wall Street Journal. 

Meg died on July 27, 2023 of cancer, survived by her sister Martha and her
husband Robert, three stepchildren and four grand stepchildren. Known for
her love of her Hollister neighborhood and learning. She died at the Monterey
Community Hospital, much loved and appreciated by the Civil War community
and education field for her "uniqueness" and brilliance.