Margaret Anne Beyer

Please scroll down to read Margaret's full obituary. Funeral events will be held as shown below. In honor of Margaret’s love of cruising, the family requests that you wear colorful resort clothing to the ceremony as we celebrate Margaret’s life.

Streaming Link for Service: https://dmvmemorials.com/obituary/margaretbeyer/

Visitation: July 26, 2025 at 11:30 am at Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home, 11800 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD

Funeral Service: July 26, 2025 at 12:30 pm at Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home, 11800 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD

Graveside Service: July 26, 2025 at 2:30 pm at Parklawn Cemetery, 12800 Veirs Mill Rd, Rockville, MD

Reception Following: information on location will be distributed at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in her memory to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) or the American Cancer Society.

You may leave a message for the family by selecting "Add A Memory" below.

MARGARET ANNE BEYER

Margaret Beyer, of Rockville, MD, passed away on July 9, 2025 after a valiant four-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Margaret (called Peggy by her family and schoolmates) was a woman of many outstanding qualities and talents. She was a leader and mentor; a devoted wife, sister, and aunt; a loyal friend; a patient teacher; a lifelong learner. She was smart, artistic, and creative in all aspects of her life, and a loving, kind, dependable, welcoming, and supportive relative, friend, and colleague. She was also a lot of fun, and sometimes could be downright silly. And she loved cats!

Margaret was born in Providence, RI on March 10, 1951; she was the second of four children born to the late Robert Beyer and Ellen Fletcher Beyer. She grew up in East Providence, RI, and graduated from St. Mary Academy, Bay View in 1969. In those junior high and high school years, she took on the role of a second mother to her youngest sister Mary. “She sang to me when we were squished three in the back on road trips and we baked endless trays of chocolate chip cookies together. Peggy was the cool older sister who let me have sleepovers in her college dorm room and helped me with art projects. She was brilliantly successful in any intellectual or professional endeavor, but I remember most the deep gaze of love in her twinkling blue eyes, and a friend who had my back in any situation.”

Margaret was always artistic, and designed and sketched house interiors from a very young age—presaging her eventual career in design and architecture. She took those art skills to college where she majored in studio art at Newton College in Newton, MA, earning her degree in 1973. There she met her lifelong friend, Sue Iovieno, in a first-year drawing class in the fall of 1969. Sue reports that Margaret was known, among other things, for cooking clandestine pots of spaghetti sauce on a hot plate in her dorm room to feed hungry classmates.

After graduation from Newton, and after a whirlwind trip all over the US in a campervan with Sue and other college friends, she went on to take night courses at what is now Boston Architectural College while she worked at a variety of day jobs. An early adventure involved the purchase of a run-down three-family home in Jamaica Plain, MA which she acquired for the princely sum of $500 at a city auction of abandoned and foreclosed properties. She wanted (and got!) hands-on practice in architectural and construction skills. Before she moved in, she took every window out of that house, one at a time, and brought them home to her apartment to reglaze. She lived there for several years, working at home typing papers and resumes—on an IBM Correcting Selectric typewriter—to give her time to work on the house. After a lot of demolition, sawing, hammering, and painting (with no outside help), she eventually sold the property, at a significant markup!, and moved to Richmond, VA where her grandfather’s family was from. (After that rehab experience, she swore she would never live in an old house again, and she never did!)

In Richmond she worked in entry level jobs for a variety of design and architectural firms, picking up numerous skills along the way. She became a CAD master (there’s power in knowing how to do something that no one else does!), learned how to write proposals for government contracts (like all members of her family she was a terrific writer), and earned certifications in interior design and construction management.

It was in Richmond that she met the love of her life, Ralph Sager. They were both instantly smitten and remained so for the 43 years of their relationship. Neither felt the need for a formal commitment, but they did eventually marry 29 years ago in a courthouse ceremony in Port Orchard, WA. Ralph says of Margaret that: “She was remarkable—she could accomplish anything she wanted. How lucky it was for us to find each other!”

Margaret earned an MBA degree from the University of Richmond in 1991, and she and Ralph eventually moved to Rockville, MD when she took a job with the Harris Design Group in Bethesda. There she managed the design and installation of systems furniture workstations for the Department of State and the Social Security Administration. After four years she moved to 3D/International in Washington as a VP, directing interiors management teams. One of those teams was responsible for multiple facility construction projects as part of the Pentagon Renovation Program, both before and after the 9/11 attack. In 2005, she became a VP at Mark G. Anderson Consultants in Washington, providing construction management consulting to the FBI.

Up until that point in her career, the government had been her client. But she changed sides in 2009, going to work at the Department of Homeland Security, managing facilities for 22 DHS offices and 2 million square feet of space. She finished her government career as program manager for the Department of Education Space Modernization Program.

During her years as a government employee, Margaret also earned an MS in Technology Management/Homeland Security at University of Maryland University College.

She was a licensed architect (passing the architectural exam on her first time through, without an architectural degree—a fairly rare accomplishment!), a certified construction manager, a LEED accredited professional, and a certified interior designer.

Margaret loved travel to far-away lands, especially on cruises. She was bitten by the cruise bug at the age of 10 when she sailed with her family to Europe on the SS Rotterdam for her father’s sabbatical year in Germany. After she met her husband, Ralph, cruising became a lifelong passion for both of them, and, in her retirement, she really doubled down, completing visits to all seven continents. They spent seven weeks cruising in the Pacific in celebration of her retirement. They also took ship to such destinations as Anchorage, Hong Kong, Auckland, Hanoi, Tahiti, Venice, St. Petersburg, and Istanbul. They sailed up and down and around the coast of South America, including Antarctica, ventured through the Panama Canal, toured the British Isles as far north as the Shetlands, and enjoyed the beaches of the Caribbean numerous times. They were often accompanied on these cruises by Margaret’s college friend, Sue, forming their own “Three Musketeers” travel club. (Sue applauds Margaret’s incredible coordination of these cruises as she produced Excel spreadsheets to document and outline all necessary information by day and destination.) A couple of cruises for 2026 and 2027 were still on the books at the time of her death.

She also traveled a good deal on land—both locally in greater Maryland and Virginia, and further afield. She and Ralph did much research on Margaret’s Virginia ancestors in person—visiting Civil War sites and archives in the days before ancestry.com was available. She also traveled with her sister Cathy to Ireland to do roots research, visiting the towns in central and western Ireland where their Irish ancestors had lived.

She and Ralph were enthusiastic Disney park fans, visiting multiple parks multiple times (including introductory visits led by Margaret for many of her nephews and nieces).

Outside of her architectural drawings, her artistic talents primarily manifested themselves in numerous craft and needlework projects and in baking. She was talented at crewel, knitting, and crochet, made many of her own clothes (including her wedding dress and the bedazzled white sneakers that accompanied it, as well as a maxi-skirt made out of her father’s old ties), and sewed clothes and Halloween costumes for her nephews and nieces as well as clothes for American Girl dolls (including a full Pentagon Renovation doll in tiny jeans and leather jacket decorated with tiny patches, and accompanied by a PenRen hardhat).

She loved all things "Outlander", and read the books and watched the TV show numerous times.

For several years she baked hundreds of her famous chocolate chip cookies, individually wrapped, for her brother’s firm, Smash Advertising, to distribute at conventions where Margaret would also staff the hospitality suite.

Margaret had always loved films and plays, and she and Ralph served as extras in a number of movies filmed in Richmond. In retirement, until her illness made it impossible to continue, she took theatre classes, obtained a professional headshot which accompanies this obituary, submitted numerous audition videos made in a little closet she outfitted as a home recording space, and earned several professional roles in films and commercials and an IMDb credit for her appearance as Susan in "Zombinatrix". (Don’t ask!)

Margaret will be remembered by many—and for many different reasons. She was astonishingly perceptive of the needs of others. Her niece, Bobbie, writes that whenever she was feeling stressed or frustrated at some situation, “Peggy could always make you feel like she understood exactly what you were feeling, and that it was a valid way to feel, but in a way that could also somehow really take the sting out of it without ever being dismissive. She’d do this thing where she’d kind of nod and agree with you and then make some observation that would be relevant and insightful but also matter of fact and casual. I don’t know if she was doing it on purpose, but it’s a rare skill that I find to be incredibly impressive and also such a gift to those in her life.”

All of her former employees were lovingly mentored and supported by Margaret who lifted up all the folk who came into her sphere professionally—one friend notes that she “made them believe they were smarter, more skilled, and more confident than they had previously believed.”

Her family members all recall how supportive she was—always showing up for events that were important to them, and encouraging her siblings in their efforts. Her brother Rick says that “Margaret was a person of great intellect and achievement, but also great humility and supportiveness. A rare and wonderful combination!”

Her sister, Cathy, who had started talking on the phone to Margaret nearly every day during the pandemic, and continued the habit right up until two days before she died, says that “I will sorely miss those conversations—not talking to Peggy every day will leave a deep hole in my life. I could bounce every problem off her and she was a great listener!”

And Sue Iovieno’s goddaughter, whose young child was a favorite of Margaret and Ralph’s, says that “if there were an ad campaign for carpe diem, Peggy would be their gal!”

Margaret is survived by her husband, Ralph Sager, DVM of Rockville, MD and her siblings: Catherine Beyer Hurst of Providence, RI; Rick Beyer (Marilyn Rea) of Chicago, IL; and Mary Beyer Trotter (Don) of Olympia, WA. She is also deeply missed by her nieces/nephews: Brian Hurst (Sarah Senderhauf) of Denver, CO; Tim Hurst of Dubai, UAE; Bobbie Beyer-Collins (Kim) of New Orleans, LA; Andy Beyer of Telluride, CO; Julie Trotter Riggles (Gordon) of Lynnwood, WA; Rachel Mei Jarrett (Ethan) of Noblesville, IN; Faith Trotter of Rochester, NY; Robin Champ (David Miller) of Clifton, VA; Jason Sager of Fredericksburg, VA; and numerous cousins and friends.