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Margaret Tucker Obituary

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Margaret Tucker

Skokie, IL

November 5, 1931 - December 1, 2021

Margaret Tucker Obituary

Margaret Grace Tucker, nee Rattenbury, passed away on December 1, 2021. Margaret was the beloved wife of the late Dan Tucker, the loving mother of Ellen (Warren) Schoen and Andrew (Vicky) Tucker, and the adored grandmother of Jessica Schoen. She was also the cherished aunt of 40+ and the dear friend of countless others. Margaret was born on November 5, 1931, in New York City, to Alice Rattenbury, nee Murray, and John Rattenbury. She was the younger sister of Jack, Alice Anne, Kenneth and Bruce and the older sister of Elsie, her father’s daughter from his second marriage. Margaret’s parents separated when she was two, at which time Alice moved with her children to the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, where Margaret and her siblings attended St. Joan of Arc School. Summers were spent in New Rochelle, where her grandmother (Nanny) had a small store and restaurant called Mother Murray’s. In fall 1939, in the midst of the Great Depression, Margaret, Bruce and Ken went to live at Mt. Loretto, a Catholic orphanage on Staten Island that was temporarily home to many children whose families were struggling. During that time, Margaret’s mother found a job with the U.S. government that took the family to Chicago in 1942. They moved into an apartment on the 4100 block of North Greenview Ave., where Nanny also lived with them, as did Margaret’s Uncle Harry, who’d been a professional singer in Vaudeville. Margaret went to church at Our Lady of Lourdes and attended school at Ravenswood Elementary School and Lake View High School. While in high school, she worked as a check girl at the Lyric Opera, which enabled her to watch performances free of charge and helped cultivate a lifelong love of the arts. After graduating from Lake View, Margaret worked and attended college part-time, starting at Wright Junior College and ultimately earning a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University when she was in her late 30s. By that time she had been married for more than 10 years to Dan Tucker, a newspaperman and aspiring composer who was no doubt impressed by her knowledge of opera. After their 1956 wedding, Margaret moved into Dan’s family home at 7215 N. Ridge in Chicago, where she became famous for her hospitality. Before – and after – becoming a mother to Ellen in 1961 and Andrew in 1963, she regularly took in her many Spartz nieces and nephews for extended visits when her sister Alice Anne gave birth to another baby brother or sister. Dan’s father (Friar) lived with Margaret and Dan for nearly 40 years until his death at age 96. She was as welcoming of friends, and often strangers, as she was of family. Before becoming a mother Margaret worked as a substitute school teacher, sometimes riding three buses to teach at a school on the far south side of Chicago. When Ellen and Andrew were in school themselves, she became a real estate agent with Erna Thompson’s brokerage in Evanston, where the family moved in 1976 to escape the rock band next door on Ridge. The arts were central to her and Dan’s lives. Margaret was Dan’s biggest fan and advocate, and with her encouragement and support he composed works that have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, including selections from his opera “Many Moons,” while working full time as an editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune. As an empty nester, Margaret took up painting and over the next several decades produced a prodigious body of beautiful work, in a distinctive and recognizable style. Her paintings were given as gifts to friends and relatives across the country who display them proudly and enjoy them daily. Margaret was a very social person, and she treasured her girlfriends from different stages of her life: Jeanie Barch and Lois Buenger from her youth in Chicago, Nancy Majeske from college, Margaret Gaughan from early motherhood, and Itala Langmar from her years as a painter. She and Dan also had many friends together: Barbara and Harvey Dershin, Carol and David Liner, Kitty and Hiroshi Okano, her brother and sister-in-law Bruce and Betty Rattenbury, and Davida and Ray Rosen, among many, many others. Margaret and Dan had been married for 53 years when he died in 2010. A bad fall landed her in a series of nursing homes starting in 2011, but Margaret never lost her joie de vivre. She loved people, books, animals, music, food and life in general. For her 90th birthday, family and friends recorded video tributes that provide a much better sense of her one-of-a-kind personality than this biography does. We encourage all who knew and loved Margaret to watch the tribute video and be reminded what an extraordinary woman she was. tribute.co/birthday-tribute-for-margaret-tucker Visitation Saturday, December 4, 2021, 10:00 a.m. until time of Funeral Mass 11:00 a.m. at Saint Mary's Catholic Church, 1012 Lake Street, Evanston, IL 60201. Interment All Saints Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to: Saint Mary's Church Evanston 1012 Lake Street Evanston, IL 60201 or Doctor's Without Borders PO BOX 5030 Hagerstown, MD 21741 Info: donnellanfuneral.com

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