Margaret Irene Stewart

Margaret passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by family on December 12, 2020. She was born January 12,1933 to Hugh Norman and Miriam Josephine Goldsmith in Greenville, South Carolina. Margaret is survived by her husband Ronald C. Stewart, children Lori Morrow (Bob), Cragg Stewart, Geri Barkhoff (Steve), 10 grandchildren, Jessica, Jacob, Danny, Nick, Gabby, Julie, Lauren, Kayla, Ryan and Isabelle plus 8 great-grandchildren. Also survived by three siblings, Carolyn Chapman (Howard), Jane Shaffer and James D Goldsmith.

She spent most of her early life in Greenville with her 6 siblings except for when her parents relocated to Delray Beach, Fl where she attended high school and watched over her two younger siblings.   She returned to Greenville at 18, living with her older sisters and proudly working for many years at an engineering firm.  

Margaret married Ronald C. Stewart who was the love of her life in 1961.  While Ron served in Vietnam, Margaret continued to work and be full time mother to her three children.  She and Ron moved several times before being transferred to Tacoma in 1967. Margaret was always most comfortable with family and Tacoma allowed her to be close to her three siblings who lived coincidently in Seattle.  She loved being the wife of an Air Force serviceman and raising her children at St. Charles Parish.  Margaret was a devout Catholic and even after her children were grown, Margaret continued to volunteer at church, most recently as part of the bereavement group. 

Pursuing her passion of caring for children Margaret began teaching at the Achievement Center Daycare/ Preschool and later served as assistant director.  She joined her family’s engineering firm, H.G. Goldsmiths & Associates in 1989, where she took on secretarial duties. Margaret was very proud of her brother’s company and commuted from Tacoma to Bellevue for 15 years.  This move allowed her to interact daily with her brothers, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews.

In retirement, Margaret was able to travel the country with Ron in their RV and visit all their friends around the country.  And there were many friends, as Margaret kept in touch with all from high school through the present.  Margaret was also blessed to cruise to many lovely places, most recently Nova Scotia.  She never thought of herself as old and was always up for new adventures.

As the family matriarch in Washington, Margaret stayed in touch with all her nieces and nephews.  She relished being the grandmother to 10 amazing grandchildren, all of who stopped in regularly to visit.  Margaret made all her grandchildren’s special events, even the east coast graduations and communions.   Being very organized and detailed, Margaret was well known for never failing to send a card on every occasion. 

Margaret is rejoined with family in Heaven and we take comfort in knowing that she is always watching over us.

A service will be offered at St. Charles in Tacoma on Friday December 18th at 9:00am in conjunction with daily mass. To attend please go to saintcharlesb.org to register for mass, a limited amount of space is available.

The service will also be live-streamed on St. Charles Facebook page, Facebook.com/saintcharlesb/. To watch the live stream you will need to like/follow St. Charles page. Five minutes before the start time go to St. Charles page and wait for the feed to begin. You may need to “refresh” the page every 30 seconds or so until the post begins showing.

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