Margaret Mary Kersgieter was born June 10, 1929 in St. Louis, MO, the fourth child in a family of seven children. Her father, Raymond Hain, was a bus driver and supervisor, but also a skilled carpenter and handyman, building a two story home for his family to grow up in. He rode a bus to work, never able to afford his own car. Her mother, Clara Stratmann, was a homemaker.
Margaret attended an all-girls Catholic high school, Rosati-Kain, well known for its diversity and emphasis in educating young women. It is an established college preparatory high school still in existence today. Margaret attended from 1943-1946, at which time a new wing had been added, housing a gymnasium that doubled as a classroom during the day. She was a good student, but the gym is where she spent most of her time, waiting for classes to end before she was allowed on the floor to practice. She excelled at basketball and was a starter all four years along with her sister Henny. Only able to afford one new pair of tennis shoes per year, they wore holes into the toes before the season was over.
One of Margaret’s older brothers, the Reverend James Hain, lovingly known to us as Uncle Jim, also a great athlete, had become friends with a gangling young man with a friendly grin from St Edwards. Charles Glennon Kersgieter was smitten by Jim’s tall athletic sister with a pretty smile. While Charles enlisted and attended Notre Dame on the GI bill, Margaret rode her father's route on the bus to work at office jobs in downtown St. Louis. It was the first time she wore skirts and heels instead of a uniform. She loved it! When Charles returned to St. Louis, a diploma from Notre Dame in hand, which fostered an engineering job offer in St. Louis, that set into motion her true calling - being a wife and mother. Margaret, at the age of 24, married Charles on June 20, 1953, with Margaret's brother-in-law, the Reverend Paul Kersgieter, officiating over an elaborate church wedding.
Nine months later their first daughter was born, and within thirteen years, six more girls and three boys would follow, in that order. Father Paul would baptize, confirm and marry all of her children, perform seaside services for her son Glen, lost at sea in a naval airplane crash in the Pacific Ocean, and bury our dear father, and his only brother, Charles.
Although Margaret desired to raise her children in St. Louis among extended family, cousins and friends, Charlie’s career moved his growing family to New Jersey, Minnesota and finally Oklahoma. It was difficult for Margaret to find time to do anything besides be a homemaker. She was a devoted and loyal mother to a complex group of children that thought she was a complex mother. When they complained about having to share everything or that there were too many kids, her favorite response was, “which one should we have stopped at?”
With determination and faith, she managed to get through it all.
In 1995, after 42 years of marriage, she lost Charles to lung cancer. She remained single and lived independently, as was her nature, enjoying visits by her children, their families, and friends and neighbors at her residence home in Edmond. She lived briefly with her daughter Susan before her death.
Margaret is survived by two younger sisters in St. Louis, Charlotte Evans and Henrietta Mullen; one sister in law, Sister Eileen Kersgieter of the Loretto order in Nerinx, Kentucky; nine of her own children: Gregory Kersgieter and wife Kathy, Susan Osborne and husband Danny, Mary Bennett, Nancy Thompson and husband Mike, Chuck Kersgieter and wife Missy, Barbara Fagan and husband Charlie, Diane Rasmussen and husband Mike, Theresa Hendrickson and husband Erik, and Carolyn Huggins; 15 grandchildren; and 3 great-grandchildren.
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