Margo lost her older brother Joe this week

Joseph Michael Takacs was born in March 1926 in Hungary and died peacefully in his sleep this Monday in Windsor Ontario, after suffering a stroke two weeks earlier.

Joe loved to golf almost more than breathing and we are all very glad to know that almost the last thing he did before his stroke was to play a really great round of golf !

Margo made one of her famous hankie quilts out of a hankie of Joe's, received by him as a recruit in the Army in WWII (today he'd get a t-shirt !) as a memento of his time at this particular boot camp.

I always loved that story and that is what I first thought of, when I heard that Uncle Joe had passed.

Margo's husband Rowland is down in Windsor now to be at Joe's celebration of life at his favourite golf club, where he (and his wife Paula and their 4 kids) spent 47 happy years---- and where he played that last round of golf ...

the last words MARGO wrote were about quilting

Margo Takacs Marshall 1928-2010

My mom, Margo Takacs Marshall, passed away a month ago, around 1 pm, September 19th 2010.

She began feeling she might have had a mini-stroke two months earlier on July 12th.

Then at 1 pm, September 12th, two months later, she distinctly felt unwell and told my father " I think I have had (a full) stroke".

 Then she went off to the hospital in an ambulance and died exactly a week later.

Mom had kept a diary on yearly calendars, as many women do, for dozens of years.

Recently, I noticed that her very last entry she ever got to write was this :

"Quilting" ( her regular weekly quilting session with others at the rural community hall across the road) - and then in a much worse handwriting "very unwell".

Mom noticed the effects of her ongoing stroke, not when she felt very unwell - something she often was for the last 50 years of her life, but only when her writing got noticeably bad.

By the time I first saw my mom,the morning of the next day, she opened one eye (unseeing) and momentarily stared at the direction of my voice - just that once during the whole week, just that first time.

Most of the family did not even get that brief response.

So I feel that for me and most of my family, we weren't really there when mom started having her stroke and was still lucid.

 This handwritten note on her diary is the last we 'saw' of the mom we all knew, before she lapsed into a total stupor.

It is a small bit of writing but very precious to me.

And how appropriate that the last thing mom ever wrote was about quilting - for the last 40 years she had defined herself first and foremost, not as a mother or spouse or gardener but rather as a quilter .

 And it was as a 'quilter' that Margo died in harness, doing what she loved most....

"I'm Still Here": Quilting together a wonderful life despite severe chronic illnesses

I am Margo Takacs Marshall's oldest child and a co- author of this blog with her.

I am planning a PDF Ebook of lots of color photos of Mom's non-hankie quilts, together with comments on each from her family and friends.

The title will be as above.

Here's the story behind that choice for a title.

In 1962, when Mom was 34, she was told by her three doctors that she's never live beyond 35.

When she was 70, that is twice 35 (35x2=70), she had a birthday celebration.

During it, Mom recounted that at 70, ie twice 35,  her three doctors, not much older than her, were " all gone" , but she added, "I'm still here !"

Her new doctors thought she would be dead on Monday,then on Tuesday then on Wednesday -- after that they gave up.

Sunday AM, she was "still here" .

Without her normally heavy meds, her heart, lungs and kidneys were still going strong, even after a "massive, massive stroke" destroyed half her brain.

After a lifetime of heart and kidney disease, she was still going strong.

During that almost half century of extra life, Mom was never really free of pain or disability for very long, but she carved out time to raise a family of five, do much volunteer work, garden, bird watch, animal-save, read,read read - and quilt.

At the age of 80, she became an author of an unique approach to featuring individual hankies as the centre piece of a medallion quilt, each quilt and hanky telling a story.

This afternoon, Mom's body finally went south but her spirit, and her quilts live on - are "still here" .....

Margo Oct 15 1928 -Sept 19 2010