Marguerite (“Peggy”) Shirley (Née Lonergan) Davison

Marguerite (“Peggy”) Shirley (née Lonergan) Davison, born Dec. 1, 1927 in Manhattan, NYC, gently passed away in her sleep the morning of Sept. 12, 2023 in Baton Rouge, LA. She was 95. Her parents, Jesse Gillis and Thomas Lonergan (both 1895-1977), were originally from Trenton, Nova Scotia, Canada (mother Jesse born in Nova Scotia, father Thomas in Liverpool, England). Her younger sisters were Miriam (“Bay”) Lonergan (1929-1993) and Gerry Lonergan Frey (1931-2023). Peggy was raised in The Bronx, and graduated from St. Benedict’s Catholic Grammar School, St. Jean’s Catholic High School, and CCNY Junior College, NYC. As a young girl, she had a great love & fascination for model train sets, which was very unusual for a girl of her era, her father encouraging this with the gift of an electric Lionel Union-Pacific diesel model set when she was eight; she held onto both this fascination and the train set throughout her life (the train set featured every Christmas in our family’s “little village under the tree”). Her father took her and her sisters to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year, and, in 1939, went to the NY World’s Fair, where she remembers seeing a television for the first time in a technology exhibit. Peggy also remembered fondly the summer train trips their NYC family took to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to visit grandparents, aunts, & uncles up there. As a young woman, she worked as a secretary for the Hallmark Co. and others in Rockefeller Plaza, where she enjoyed ice skating in winter under the Plaza’s Christmas tree and walking with brown-bag lunches to the various nearby art museums and Broadway theater performances. She was a classy dresser throughout her life, and loved wearing Chanel #5 Eau de Parfum.  At age 24, she took a seasonal job working as a secretary at a resort in the Pocono Mts in upstate NY, where she met her future husband and father of her children, Robert “Bob” Walter Davison (1921-2009), who was a young WWII Army Air Corps veteran & Rutgers U. graduate from Hillside, NJ. After dating several months, the two eloped to Cape Girardeau, Missouri (Bob having started a manager’s job there with American Investments/Public Finance Corp.), where they were married May 3, 1952.  In 1953, a job transfer to a new office moved them to Sulphur, Louisiana, where their four children were born and raised. Living first in rental houses in old Maplewood as well as in Sulphur, in 1959-1983, Peggy lived at the Davison family’s newly-built home at 38 Horseshoe Lane, Maplewood/Sulphur, where she adored being a mother to her babies/young children, diligently teaching each of them prior to enrolling them in school, working as a housewife when the children were little, and later returning to work as a secretary for The Pauley/Pease Agency in Lake Charles when her youngest entered 1st grade.  She loved reading mystery novels, especially Sherlock Holmes, as well as Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines, and history books about her Scottish heritage of which she was very proud. She enjoyed cooking elaborate “Yankee” Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, her specialty Italian steak marinara (learned from her upstairs Italian landlords in NYC), Granny Smith apple pies, Kentucky Nut Loaf, and Snickerdoodles. When her children grew older, she took art classes at McNeese, where she became an accomplished painter in oils and pen-and-ink. She sewed and crocheted, loved romantic music by Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra, enjoyed gardening in her flower beds, Sean Connery, and watching “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”, “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”, and “As The World Turns”.  In 1983, the marriage ended in divorce, so after living briefly in Lake Charles, where she had worked for the LA Dept of Veterans’ Affairs, she moved to Baton Rouge, LA to work for the LA Dept of Insurance, until she retired in 1993. She lived independently in various apartments near her son Bobby and his family there, until she moved in 2011 into an assisted living home. As her elder needs gradually grew, she was eventually moved into a dementia care facility in 2019, where she lived in good health until her gentle passing away in her sleep the morning of Sept. 12, 2023.  We are especially grateful to Ersula Jones-LPN & Jaci Templet-SW of St. Joseph Hospice, who were so attentive to our Mom’s comfort, and so communicative with the family in our mother’s final years.  Our mother taught us to be kind and compassionate to people and especially to never mock the poor.  Remembering her tenderly forever are her four children (Patricia Edythe Davison [b. 1953], Robert John “Bobby” Davison [b. 1955], Marguerite Ann “Missy” Davison [b. 1959], and Thomas James “Tom” Davison [b. 1961]); one daughter-in-law/wife to “Bobby”, Debbie (nee’ Foster) Davison; nine grandchildren (Brandi LaBruzzo, Renee Daniels, Dustin Davison, Matt Tilley, Kelley Williams, Kourtney Davison, Thomas Blackwood, Christine Stark, and Elliot Blackwood); and nineteen great-grandchildren. She is also survived by her best friend for 90 years/since they were 6-yr-olds in 1st grade, Mary Hunt Turek, of Edison, NJ.  Funeral services will be held on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, at 11am, at The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 715 Kirkman St., Lake Charles, LA. 70601. They will be conducted by The   Rev. Dr. Mitzi George, Rector, who will lead us in Traditional Rite 1 and Holy Communion, followed by the inurnment of our mother’s remains in the adjacent Chapel of the Resurrection.