Margaret Louise McCarthy

Margaret McCarthy passed away peacefully surrounded by her family on August 25, 2021. Maggie is survived by her loving daughters Carolyn Jackson and Allison Setterlind, their husbands Tom and Erik, and grandchildren Sophie, Owen, and Anna. Maggie is also survived by her beloved little sister Barbara Whitehead Griffin in Massachusetts. She was the proud Auntie to Joseph Carlino, Cindy Guido, Mark McCarthy, Kelly Plaisted, and John and Matthew Blake. Maggie is preceded in death by her husband of 53 years, Gene McCarthy, her parents Louise and John Whitehead, and her big brother John Whitehead.

Like a true Nor’easter, Maggie was a force to be reckoned with, leaving nothing but smiles and laughter in her path. Her life had a very humble beginning as the daughter of hard-working immigrants from England and Newfoundland, but ended with a vast amount of riches in the currencies of family, friends, and love. After “robbing the cradle” of a young man five years her junior, Maggie and Gene started a family in Medford, Massachusetts and soon after moved to Georgia for Gene’s career with Delta Airlines.

While Gene assimilated to the South with ease by slowing his speech to a drawl and line dancing to Willie Nelson, Maggie held onto her Boston accent and Yankee way of life all the way to the end. She was so proud of her story, she would literally talk to anybody within earshot. Perfect strangers were immediate friends and had a quick invite to her home for her signature meatballs and spaghetti.

Maggie was a proud working mother--a wonderful role model to two young daughters, who by simply watching her thrive in her career, grew up to be strong, independent women. Working every day in downtown Atlanta came with sacrifices, but she would call becoming a grandmother her “second chance” to retire and spend as much time as possible caring for Sophie, Owen, and Anna. While Erik and Allison appreciated the wonderful job Maggie did in helping raise the children, they would often have to re-teach them how to say “butter.”

Maggie’s love language was food, and Thanksgiving was an event that took months to plan. Why cook just one turkey when you could cook a second one just for the leftover sandwiches and soup? Why stop at five different casseroles when there were so many more in the dozens of cookbooks throughout her house? She loved having a bird feeder, hoping to catch a glimpse of her favorite bird--a cardinal. Dogs adored her because she was always generous with sharing whatever she was eating with her fur-babies and all of the neighborhood pets. As the original Dr. Dolittle, Mags even left food out on her front porch and almost ended up domesticating a family of opossums.

Maggie was a proud and faithful Christian woman as a devoted member of the church choir and the Adventures in Faith Sunday School class at Stockbridge First United Methodist Church. Her friends at church became her extended family for almost forty years. She spent her spare time reading historical fiction, loving anything that had to do with Kings, Queens, and a good scandal.

Maggie McCarthy was a Yankee in the Deep South, and even though she had a funny accent, that didn’t stop her from talking to a new church member or a total stranger in line at the grocery store. Some people might think that this was confidence, but it wasn’t. Maggie’s heart was just so big, that she had room to love every living thing that was in that beautiful Nor’easter’s path.