Margie Switzer Wise

Yes, it is Margie, not Margaret. My mother was named Margie and it really is on her birth certificate. Of course I just called her mom. Born April 11, 1930 in Floyd County VA at her grandparents farm in a log cabin to J. Nell McDaniel and Fred E. Switzer.

Margie grew up initially in Roanoke and the surrounding area during the Great Depression, her father working at a bottle company in Roanoke and her mother working at a mill in Christiansburg. Margie first attended high school in Troutville, but only for a few months until the family moved to Woodbridge, VA, when she started at Occoquan High School. Margie had a sister, Eunice and brother Charles Ellis (CE). She took a number of different courses in high school (including Latin), but concentrated on typing and dictation, which were some of the predominant skills women needed in the marketplace at that time (1940’s). She was on the basketball team there and was nominated Miss Occoquan at her high school - I have a picture of her somewhere as Miss Occoquan.

She graduated and married my father John Edward Wise Jr., whom she called Johnny, in 1947. They moved to Falls Church about that time, living first in an apartment on Gibson Street, then a small house on Roosevelt Blvd just outside the city limits, and finally in 1958 in their final place of residence on Parker Ave. Margie used her typing and dictation skills to work at Falls Church High School, at that time on Hillwood Ave, and then as a secretary for the Army Corp of Engineers at Fort Myer. She had a son, John (that’s me) in 1954 and a daughter, Elaine in 1958. She quit work when I started to school in 1960 to be a “homemaker”, but added to the family income by doing part-time work in jobs such as a Gallup Poll interviewer, cosmetics sales lady, and later as a crossing guard for Falls Church City.

Her husband Johnny worked first during the war at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria - actually making submarine torpedoes, as it is now known as an arts center - and as a butcher at A&P Food Store until becoming a Falls Church Police Officer in October 1948 which he held until his retirement as a Lieutenant in January 1975. After my father’s retirement from the Falls Church Police Department my parents co-managed the gift store Reflections and décor in Annandale. Their friends Ray and Laura Fritter owned that gift store, and when the Fritters moved to Florida, John and Margie decided to follow them.

They lived in the Florida Keys (Little Torch Key) for a year and a half working at Summerland Hardware, owned by Ray and Laura, on Summerland Key. John and Margie lived part time after that in our vacation home on Kerr Lake on the Virginia North Carolina border. The original structure of that vacation home was built entirely by my mother and father. That “tar -paper shack”, which we referred to as the “cabin”, was built in 1965 and became a vacation home that is still standing today. A second home on that property known as the “doublewide” was constructed in more recent years. After a fire in the doublewide in 2002 the “tar paper shack” cabin become their residence in North Carolina for about a year while the doublewide was reconstructed. Due to ill health John and Margie have not been at the vacation home much since about 2006, spending increasing time in Falls Church. My father passed in 2010 after a fall during a visit to that lake home. After she became unable to drive herself I drove my mother down to the lake as much as possible during my monthly maintenance and astrophotography sessions there. She loved being there. She was visiting the NC vacation home the week before she passed away last Sunday.

Margie’s hobbies revolved mostly around activities with our family, which included cooking and crocheting. I loved her lemon meringue and apple pies – the recipe for the lemon pie is on the “prayer card” available upon request, and I still have many of the colorful “Afghan” crocheted blankets that she produced. They keep me warm during the winter while I am watching my favorite Star Trek reruns on streaming services or her favorite western – Gunsmoke. Family outings were frequent during weekends while we kids were growing up – drives to Skyline Drive or the Eastern Shore or motor boating on the Potomac. More extensive vacations included camping trips in North Carolina (Kerr Lake and the Smokey Mountains) and Florida. On one of the Florida trips the family saw the Apollo 11 lift off to the Moon, which inspired me to study physics and astronomy in college, leading eventually to my employment in the space industry.

Margie and Johnny toured the US in a recreational vehicle for about a year, visiting every state in the Continental US. They visited friends and family when health permitted all over the country, usually by car. These trips included visiting their son (that’s me) when I was in Colorado and New Hampshire.

Margie was eager to do car trips even into her old age. The week before she passed I took my 94-year old mother down to the lake home in North Carolina, a 4-hour trip, where she spent 5 days enjoying the good weather of a North Carolina autumn.

Spiritually, Margie attended Columbia Baptist, as well as Pohick and the Falls Church Episcopal Churches. While living in North Carolina, Margie attended church at a small Presbyterian congregation in South Hill, Virginia.

As Margie aged, she was of course, less and less able to do many of the things she loved. But she still wanted to help her family in any way she could. For instance, numerous times, in fact just about every day during the last few years of her life, she would offer to help me prepare dinner, even though she could barely walk (or even see). That was just the kind of person she was - completely devoted to helping those that she loved. And that’s what I will remember the most about her.

In lieu of flowers contributions may be sent to the American Heart Association or the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation.