Peggie M. Trei

1931 - 2025

Peggie M. Trei
05/14/1931 - 02/12/2025
Peggie M. Trei, a San Francisco native, died February 12 in Redwood City. She was 93. Peggie was smart, stubborn, witty, and proud of her Irish, German, and English heritage. The only child of George and Adelaide McNamee, Peggie grew up in the Marina, graduated from George Washington High School, and in 1953 earned a nursing degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She loved nursing, and worked at hospitals in the Bay Area, Boston, Washington, D.C., Brussels, Belgium, and Geneva, Switzerland. She was a proud Girl Scout and spent happy summers riding horses at Camp Sugar Pine in the Sierras. In 1956, she married Alan Trei, and they moved to the east coast to start a family. In 1965, Alan's advertising career took the family from New York City to Sweden, England in 1968, Denmark in 1970, Belgium in 1972, and Switzerland in 1979. Peggie acquired German, Swedish, Danish, and French along the way. She enjoyed reading mysteries, played a mean hand of bridge, cooked elaborate French meals a la Julia Child, competed in dressage, and loved all kinds of needle crafts from dressmaking to embroidery and quilting. In 1983, Peggie divorced and returned to the Bay Area, where she rekindled friendships and started a new life. She worked as a night nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City and quickly rose through the ranks to become nursing manager of neurosurgery. In 1989, she earned an MPA from Cal State Hayward. After retiring, Peggie took up genealogy and in 2007 co-wrote the McEmeels of Clogher: The McNamee Family in America. She was a longtime member of Aurora Colony Historical Society in Oregon, St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Redwood City, the Peninsula Quilters' Guild, the Family History Center in Menlo Park, the AAUW, and Filoli. She was fiercely supportive of her children, Peter, Lisa, and Michael, and loved her five grandchildren, Suzy, Vicky, Sara, Alise, and Kaia. Peter's wife, Robin, and the staff of Gordon Manor provided loving support in her later years. Peggie will be missed. A celebration of her life will take place later this year.