Margaret S. TOBIN

TOBIN Margaret S., a resident of Ho-Ho-Kus for more than forty years, died on April 7, 2010 at the age of 85. She was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on August 14, 1924, the daughter of Catherine Hoverter Swope and Harold Swope. When she was twelve, her family moved to Utica, New York, where she graduated from Utica Free Academy in 1941 at the age of 16. America entered World War II less than six months later. On June 17, 1944 she married her high school sweetheart, U.S. Army Air Corps First Lieutenant John E. Tobin. The war ended on her 21st birthday and she always remembered how happy she was that day, for herself and everyone else in our country and around the world. She worked at several different jobs during and after the war, including at the offices on the New York Central Railroad in Utica and at Lederle Laboratories in Pearl River, New York, and her efforts enabled her husband to complete college and law school.She was the mother of four children and played an active role in the community life of Ho-Ho-Kus while raising her children, as a PTA volunteer and class mother at Ho-Ho-Kus Public School, as a member of the Contemporary Club, and as a volunteer at Bergen Pines, Valley Hospital, and a number of other local organizations. She was also a devoted and active member of P.E.O., a woman's philanthropic organization that supports higher education for women, and she was honored as a 50-year member.At the age of 48 she entered Ramapo College and she graduated in 1976, having achieved a very high level of academic success, while continuing to fulfill her parental and household responsibilities. She greatly enjoyed this long-delayed opportunity to further her education, and her enthusiasm inspired her family and friends.For several years thereafter she worked in the office of Congressman Andrew Maguire and then for a local accounting firm.With the birth of her first grandchild in 1977 and the arrival of eight more over the next seventeen years, she became and extraordinary grandmother.Her husband of more than 52 years, John E. Tobin, died in 1997. The sudden and untimely death of her daughter Catherine Julia Tobin at the age of 29 in 1981 was the most profound sorrow of her life. She is survived by three sons and their families: John E. Tobin, Jr. and his wife Karen Ryan, of Concord, New Hampshire, and their children, Daniel, Peter, Jazmine, and Rebecca; Brian D. Tobin and his wife Lori Tobin of Allendale, New Jersey, and their children Michael, Erin, and Matthew; and Paul C. Tobin and his wife, Jill Tobin, of North Attleboro, Massachusetts and their children Meaghan and Jackson, as well as three great-grand-children.A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, May 1, 2010 from 1:00 to 2:00 at The Hermitage, 335 North Franklin Turnpike in Ho-Ho-Kus, with an informal gathering to follow, also at the Hermitage. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in the name of Margaret S. Tobin to Ramapo College for a scholarship for women.Please send any such donations to: The Ramapo College Foundation, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah, NJ 07430. Arrangements Feeney Funeral Home, Ridgewood.