Margie lived a life defined by love, sacrifice, resilience, faith, and an unwavering devotion to her family.
Her story began humbly. As a child, Margie worked alongside her family as a field worker, learning at an early age the meaning of hard work, perseverance, and the importance of family. Those early experiences helped shape the remarkable woman she would become a woman of tremendous strength who never allowed life’s difficulties to diminish her kindness, her laughter, or her positive outlook.
On April 27, 1957, Margie married the love of her life, Robert “Bobby” John Garza. Together they began a marriage and partnership that would span more than 65 years and take them and their growing family on an extraordinary journey.
Margie and Bobby raised six children: Bernice Hines, Margaret “Pinky” Garza, Robert J. Garza Jr., Shirley Wickery, Gregory Garza, and Stephanie Garza.
As Bobby’s career took the family from San Antonio to assignments throughout Central and South America including Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador Margie remained the constant center of their home. Wherever the Garza family lived, Margie made it home.
She raised her six children with strength, discipline, encouragement, and unconditional love. She instilled in each of them the belief that through hard work, education, determination, and faith in themselves, they could accomplish whatever they set their minds to.
Her greatest legacy can be seen in her children and the lives they built.
Margie was enormously proud of each of them and of the professions, families, and paths they chose for themselves. Behind their accomplishments was a mother who encouraged them, challenged them, comforted them, prayed for them, cooked for them, laughed with them, and reminded them sometimes in ways only a mother could that they were capable of more.
She was the pillar of the Garza family.
Margie will also be remembered for the things that cannot be measured by titles or accomplishments: her unmistakable laugh, her kindness, her wonderful cooking, her generosity, and her ability to look at life with optimism and humor.
Her kitchen was a gathering place. Food was one of the many ways Margie expressed her love. A meal prepared by her was never simply something to eat it was an invitation to sit down, stay awhile, talk, laugh, and be together.
To Margie, family was everything.
She experienced a life far removed from the humble circumstances of her childhood. She traveled, lived in different countries, experienced new cultures, raised six children, welcomed grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and watched the family she devoted her life to grow across generations.
Through all of those experiences, she never forgot where she came from or the values that carried her through life.
Margie was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Robert “Bobby” John Garza, who passed away on April 27, 2023, their 66th wedding anniversary and by her granddaughter, Brianna Rose Plehn.
Margie is survived by her six beloved children: Bernice Hines (David), Margaret “Pinky” Garza, Robert J. Garza Jr. (Sarkara), Shirley Wickery, Gregory Garza (Cassie), and Stephanie Garza; her grandchildren, Steven Hines (Cynthia), Bryan Hines (Angie), Gregory Hines (Ami), Blake Rowden, Jason Wickery (D’Anna), Jagger Rowden, Ciara Williams (Joey), Dylan Plehn, and Cole Robert Garza-Doumani; and her great-grandchildren, Devin Hines, Hunter Hines, Brendon Hines, Ryder Rowden, Coleson Anzellotti, Caliana Anzellotti, Olivia Hines, Ariana Hines, Charlee Hines, Barrett Hines, Scarlet Elias, Joey Williams, Addison Wickery and Magnolia Williams. She is also remembered with love by many cousins, nephews, nieces, extended family members, and dear friends throughout the United States, Central America, and South America.
For her children, Margie was more than their mother. She was their protector, their teacher, their source of strength, their greatest supporter, and the person who helped convince each of them that they could build a better life.
Her family will miss her laughter. They will miss her cooking. They will miss her stories, her kindness, her encouragement, and the comfort of simply knowing she was there. But most of all, they will miss Mom.
The young girl who once worked out in the heat of the sun grew to become the matriarch of a beautiful family spanning generation. Her life is a testament to how far determination, hope, sacrifice, and a mother’s love can carry a family.
Margie’s physical presence may be gone, but the family she built is her enduring legacy.
Every success of her children carries a part of her. Every family gathering will carry a memory of her. Every recipe passed down will tell a story about her. And every generation that follows will carry something of the strength she gave them.
She was deeply loved. She will be profoundly missed. And she will never be forgotten.
All houses are dark until the mother wakes up.
-Khalil Gibran
Rest peacefully, Margie. You took care of everyone for a lifetime. Your work here is done.
A Funeral Service will be held at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 8134 Blanco Rd, San Antonio, TX 78216, US, on September 18, 2026, from 10:00 am to 11:00 am. A Committal Service will follow at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, 1520 Harry Wurzbach Rd, San Antonio, TX 78209, US, on September 18, 2026, from 11:30 am to 11:50 am.
