Margaret A. Olds-Muse

Age 99, passed away on January 1, 2021. Margaret Ann Olds Muse was born on March 25, 1921, the second daughter of Ralph Leslie and Dolly (Kent) Olds of Kalamazoo, MI. The family lived on Douglas Avenue, then Terrace Court, and then Stockbridge Avenue. They bought a 22-acre fruit farm on North Westnedge Avenue in 1924, where Margaret Ann picked and sold fruit with her mother. In the 1940s, they bought the Stoddard Farm next door and moved to Cooper Township. When married, Margaret Ann and husband, Frank raised cattle and farmed this land until the 1970s, and she lived on this property until 2018. She was proud to have lived in Kalamazoo her entire life, where Ralph Leslie worked as the Kalamazoo County Agricultural Agent.

Graduating from Kalamazoo Central High School in 1939, Margaret Ann played clarinet in band and enjoyed dances and events at Chenery Auditorium. She graduated from Western Michigan University in 1943 with a major in Home Economics and minor in English. She taught at Plainwell Junior High and later at WMU. Margaret Ann met her husband, Frank Meeuwse at what is now Markin Glen Park. They were married on December 18, 1948. Margaret Ann had her own cake decorating business and later worked at Consumers Power Company as a home economist until 1961. Their daughter, Anne Leslie, was born in 1962. Margaret Ann also was a substitute teacher at Plainwell High School in the 1970s.

A member of the First United Methodist Church since the 1960s, Margaret Ann made many friends and enjoyed  Prayer Share and the Merchandise Mart there. She loved entertaining in the home Frank built in 1979. They played cards and went out to lunch every day when he retired from the USPS in 1986.

Margaret Ann was preceded in death by her mother in 1970 and her father in 1975; her husband in 1992; her sister, Maxine (Kent) Olds Scofield in 2014; and best friend, Laura Brenner in 2015.  She is survived by daughter, Anne Leslie Muse (Kate Cook) of Kalamazoo; 12 nieces and nephews, including Jan Pohlers and James Meeuwse, and close friends, Jeanne and Lani Plott and Bonnie Balkema.