Margaret Donohue Brand

Her parents were James Francis Donohue and Rosalie Ryan Donohue of Hartford; her father, a naval officer, was at an undisclosed location in the Pacific. A half world away, on January 27, 1945, the Russian Army, assisted by the Polish Red Cross, entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners.

Margaret Mary, affectionately known as Maggie, would find life as challenging and exciting as the day of her arrival.

The family moved to Roswell, NM, in late 1947. Her father’s career as a biostatistician and epidemiologist took the family to Columbus, OH, in 1949, where a second daughter arrived and Maggie’s maternal grandmother, Maggie Murphy Ryan, joined the household. In 1951, the family of five settled in the suburbs of Washington, DC. They remained in DC until 1957, when many U.S Public Health officers relocated to Atlanta, GA, to support the expansion of the Communicable Disease Center (renamed the Center for Disease Control and commonly known as the CDC).

Maggie attended St. Pius X High School in Atlanta prior to her graduation in 1964 from Sacred Heart Academy in Cullman, AL.

Her marriage to Jeffrey Brand in 1969 in Sacred Heart Church in Atlanta resulted in the eventual birth of her three sons, Kyle Andrew, Kane Arthur, and Kirk Anthony Brand. The family lived in Longmont, Colorado, for a number of years prior to her husband’s assignment to IBM Japan. Maggie often said her favorite years were spent in Japan and her home in Kyoto, where she quickly adapted to Japanese culture and enjoyed studying ichibana (floral arranging) and Japanese cooking.

Following the family’s return to Colorado, Maggie earned an associate degree in marketing and public relations from Front Range Community College. She volunteered her time to help Japanese international students acclimate to living in the US. She took several various community-focused occupations while living in Longmont, including school bus driver for special needs children, snow plow driver for area commercial parking lots, and intake counselor for the local rape crisis center.

In 1990, Maggie moved back to Atlanta, GA, where she remained until 1994, when she joined her sister in Asheville, NC. Here, Maggie became a licensed insurance agent, retiring from Western Southern Life Insurance Company in 2010 shortly after the birth of a granddaughter, prompting her to return to Colorado once more. Always active, she spent her post-retirement years working with and accompanying elders in the community and volunteering as needed for her Catholic faith community. In June, 2020, following serious illness, Maggie agreed to move back East to live with her sister.

She is survived by two sons, Kyle Brand, daughter-in-law Jenny Brand, and granddaughter Kayla Diane Brand of Aurora, CO. She is also survived by her youngest son, Kirk Brand and his family of Berthoud, CO, and several step grandchildren.

In the southeast, Maggie is survived by her sister, Irene Donohue Jurczyk of Myrtle Beach, SC, her niece, Kathryn Ryan Tinsley of Dawsonville, GA, nephew James Patrick Jurczyk of Rockingham, NC, and their respective spouses and children, and a number of loving cousins around the country.

She passed peacefully on Thursday, October 28, her stoicism and indefatigable spirit intact.