Matrilinial Monday – Margaret Hansen Hillinger




Name: Margaret Hansen aka Maggie
Called by Grandkids: Nana
Birth: 1919, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Death: 2010, Issaquah, Washington
Spouse: Sam Hillinger
Marriage: 1948, Frankfurt, Germany
Children: Two boys, two girls, unnamed here as all are still alive.
Parents: Holger Skov Hansen and Julie Oline Hansen.
Siblings: Marilyn and Torben.
About: Maggie was the first child of three born to Holger and Oline Hansen, Danish immigrants. She grew up in a happy home, her father building houses, her mother tending to the children and their home and sewing. Unfortunately, Oline got Pneumonia in 1929 and died, and Maggie did not get along with her new stepmother or step sisters. She left to go to boarding school, which set her up as a secretary immediately after she graduated. In 1942, when the WAC corps were created, she was quick to volunteer, along with her younger sister. She moved around the states during the war, climbing the ranks until she achieved one of the highest ranks for a woman at the time. Once the war was over, she volunteered to go to Europe to help with rebuilding, and ended up near Frankfurt on the base there.

While there were few places one could easily relax in Europe at the time, the Army had set up special trips to vacation spots for the volunteers, and so it was that Maggie found herself headed to St Moritz. On that train ride she met a young private, Sam Hillinger, and together they learned to ski. After returning to the base, the two continued to date, and in 1948, they were married. Their first child, my father, followed soon after, and the couple returned to the states once he was old enough to travel so Sam could get his degree. After his graduation, the family moved again, this time to Seattle, where our family has resided ever since.

Sam and Maggie had four children, six grandchildren, and now have four great grandchildren. They lived long and happy lives together until Sam's death in 2000. Maggie continued to stay as active as she could, though she slowed down quite a bit after that, moving from their large house in North Seattle to a small apartment in a retirement community, and then to a nursing home near her two daughters near the end of her life. She died in 2010 surrounded by memories and family.

We still miss her.


0 comments :

Post a Comment

About this blog

This blog is maintained by two sisters who have had a life long interest in geneology.
Mika writes here mostly about our family (Hansen, Hillinger, Bordewick, Park, etc), and her search for more information.
Shannon mostly uses this space as a place to make the many stories written about and by her husband's family (Holly, Walker, Walpole, etc) available to the rest of the family, present and future.

Our blog is named Oh Spusch! mostly because Shannon is bad at naming things. The first post I put up includes a story about the time Walker's great grandfather took his whole family out to see a play and the littlest kept saying "Oh! Spusch!" No one ever figured out what she meant by that.