Mrs. Marguerite Whitley May

Marguerite Elaine Whitley May was born in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 13, 1919, toward the end of the Spanish flu epidemic. She attended public schools and was an honor student in Phoenix Union High School's Class of 1937. In 1943, Marge enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later WAC). Most of her military service was spent as a clerk typist and Dictaphone operator at the newly-built Pentagon building in Washington, D.C. Marge was on leave and in New York's Times Square on V-E Day in May of 1945. After the war, she moved to Spokane, WA, attended Kinman Business University on the GI Bill and opened a small stenography business. She taught Sunday school at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral and became an assistant director at the Dale Carnegie Institute. In 1954, Marge married Kenneth Dale May, a traveling paper salesman. The couple moved with their growing family from Spokane, to Littleton, CO, to Syosset, NY, and finally to Topsfield and Boxford, MA. Marge lived the last 50-plus years of her life in Massachusetts. She never adapted to the snow, the humidity, the Boston accent, or the reserved Yankee temperament, but forged deep ties with her New England neighbors and friends, and came to call the North Shore home. A lifelong writer of short, humorous essays and light verse, Marge was a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal's "Pepper and Salt" feature starting in the mid-'60s. She also worked as a freelance typist and wordsmith for local authors and businesspeople. With the declining health of her husband, she became a commuter and breadwinner, toiling as a secretary at an environmental engineering firm in Boston. Typing sewer specifications was not her dream, but she relished her lunch hours, eating her sandwich on the Green Line platform, learning how to haggle with the aggressive vegetable vendors at Haymarket, and browsing at Barnes and Noble. Marge retired eagerly in 1987, a year after her husband's death. She continued doing freelance typing and office work, haunted the Boxford library, flew home to Arizona every few years, and developed a crossword puzzle habit that she called her "link to sanity." On the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Tri-Town Transcript solicited written memories from veterans, and Marge's published contribution was the beginning of a satisfying late-life career as a columnist for that paper and later the Village Reporter. Marge fell in her kitchen in September of 2011 and underwent a successful complete hip replacement. Though she learned to walk again, she was not able to continue living at home, and moved to a nursing home in Newton. She continued to work crossword puzzles, read the daily paper, and (very much out of character) attend a daily exercise class. She loved reading her poems and columns, perusing photos from her childhood and the war years, and eating Reese's peanut butter cups. Marguerite Whitley May was predeceased by her husband, Kenneth Dale May; her parents; and her brothers, Morse Edison Whitley, Jr. and Dwight Milton Whitley. She leaves daughter Whitley May Daly of Groveland, MA; son Kenneth Dwight May and his wife Valerie Corbin-May of Brockton; and daughter Melanie May and her husband Barry D. Nusbaum of Brookline; as well as 12 grandchildren, many great-grandchildren, and a recent great-great grandchild. She also leaves two nieces, two nephews, and three cousins. ARRANGEMENTS: A service celebrating Marge May's life will be held on Sunday, March 3, 2013, at 2 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 124 River Road, Topsfield, MA. Friends and relatives invited. Assisting the family with arrangements is the Peterson- O'Donnell Funeral Home 167 Maple St. (Rte. 62), Danvers. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Boxford Town Library (please write "memorial fund, Marge May" on the memo line), 10 Elm Street, Boxford, MA 01921.