Margaret Estelle Reid

Born Margaret Estelle Dillon in the City of Brooklyn, New York, on Friday, February 6, 1931, “Margie” Reid was the third child and second daughter of Edwin Alexander and Angel (nee Shaleesh) Dillon. As a young girl, she lived in Cobble Hill, a neighborhood she regarded with great affection. In the late Thirties, however, Margie moved to the home she always cherished, to the seaside community of Gerritsen Beach, on the southern shore of Brooklyn. As she did with her brothers and sisters - Eddie, Sarah, Jimmy, Barbara, Robbie and Ronnie – Margie remained close all her life with hundreds of friends, classmates, and neighbors, she grew up with on “The Beach”. It was a very special place, am oasis for city kids, particularly during the Depression.

Margie was a deeply devout Roman Catholic. She attended church and elementary school at Resurrection on Gerritsen Avenue, and high school at St. Brendan’s in Midwood. She treasured her Catholic faith, culture, and education. With the same devotion, she felt tremendously fortunate and blessed to be an American, and was a very patriotic and conscientious one. She was a perfect example of the Greatest Generation, as was her husband, Lawrence T. Reid (Sr.), also from Gerritsen Beach, known to all there as “Lar”.

Like Margie, Lar was a star in Gerritsen Beach. Six years older, he met his future wife at the wedding of a mutual friend after he returned from service in WWII. It was love at first sight, leading to a spectacularly happy and prolific life and marriage, with seven children, Donna, Timmy, Eddie, Margaret Mary, Lorri, Chris, and Tommy.

In 1964, inspired by John Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon, Lar and Margie moved to Merritt Island, Florida, where Lar launched a decades-long stellar career with IBM at the Kennedy Space Center. They were very active, pioneering parishioners at Divine Mercy Catholic Church and School.

Following Apollo, the family briefly returned to New York, upstate to the winsome, but far-too-wintry-for-Lar, Duchess County. After several very snowy years, it was back south to the Sunshine State, to Coral Springs. During her years in Coral Springs, Margie made many new friends, attended St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, and was a very highly regarded Executive Secretary for the Broward County School System, from which she retired.

Margie’s devoted and beloved husband, Lar, father of all her children, passed away in Boca Raton on March 27, 2004. They were married almost 53 years.

Margaret Estelle Reid is survived by: Three brothers and two sisters, and their spouses: Edward Dillon, James and Margie Dillon, Barbara and James Rocco, Robert and Janet Dillon, and Veronica Howell.

Six children and their spouses: Donna Reid O’Neil (John), Lawrence Timothy Reid Jr., Edward Reid (Jane), Margaret Reid Fallon (Robert Jr.), Christopher Reid, Thomas Reid (Robin).

Seven grandchildren: Lauren Graham (Brian), Keely Coco (Ryan), Robert Fallon III (Nina), Lawrence T. Reid III, James Paul Reid, Thomas Reid, and Jack Reid. Eight great-grandchildren: Reagan, “JD”, and Dillon Graham; Casey, Cameron, and Charlotte Coco; Pearl and Stella Fallon.

Margie was predeceased by her parents, Edwin and Angel Dillon, by her sister Sarah Ward, and her precious youngest daughter, Lorraine Elise Reid, as well as by her marital in-laws John and Dorothy Reid, William Reid, Thomas and Marie Reid, James and Rita Reid, Florence and Charlie Flay, Helen Englert, Vincent and Marguerite Reid, Veronica Madlinger, Eugene Ward Sr., and Gerard Howell Sr.

Margie was not only a wonderful daughter, woman, friend, daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was also an enchanting beauty, often compared to Hedy Lamarr, widely regarded as the most beautiful woman of her time. Lar was a very lucky man to have married Margie, as were all who had the pleasure of knowing her.

Margaret Estelle Reid began her way to Heaven on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. She will be forever loved and remembered by all who know her as an extraordinarily kind, gorgeous, loving, and fun, friend, woman, sister, cousin, mother, aunt, grandmother, and great-grandmother. God bless and rest her soul for all the love and joy she gave, and all the sacrifices she made for othersmade for others