Peggy Thompson
November 30, 1944 - March 8, 2023
We remember with love our member, Peggy Thompson, known more formally as Margaret Ruth Thompson, who passed away on March 8, 2023 after a life of joy and service. She and her husband, Clarke Dixon-Moses, moved, in October 2011, to Friends’ House retirement community in Santa Rosa. After 2016, Peggy lived in a memory-care home near her son, Bill, in Sunnyvale, CA.
Peggy was born on November 30, 1944. She grew up in Costa Mesa, California, as the eldest of seven children. She went to Stanford University, majoring in Anthropology and then earned her doctorate in Education at Cal Berkeley. While there, she specialized in Science and Math Education. She followed with work at NASA/ Ames, where she mentored women who were bound for work in the tech sector of our economy. Later, when she lived in Santa Cruz, she had her own company, Winning Grants. She enjoyed this work immensely, and did indeed win many grants for her clients.
One of Peggy’s joys was the chance to walk across Lighthouse Field, kept wild with flowers and butterflies, and then on to West Cliff Drive. She lived close enough to make this an easy walk, and one that she never got tired of doing. She loved to share these walks with friends. As a friend, Peggy was a deeply compassionate listener. She could also be lighthearted and had a wry sense of humor. She was a well-rounded person, and a real pleasure to be around. One of her loves was gardening. She gardened at home for many years, and also had a plot in the local Community Garden.
Peggy began attending Palo Alto Friends Meeting when she was in college. One of the service projects she cared most about that arose in that Meeting was helping Carmen Broz’s El Salvador Committee. She supported Carmen in raising funds for Salvadoran children, many of whom had been orphaned by the war. The Meeting worked to build a live-in elementary school and Montessori nursery school, supplying them with school uniforms, shoes, and books.
In the 1980’s, Peggy worked with her mentor, Dean Marge Blaha, of the San Mateo Community College District. Marge had charged Peggy with building a new community college campus near Stockton which was named Folsom Lake Community College. After Marge’s death, Peggy moved from Cupertino, where she had raised her kids, to Santa Cruz. Peggy had always wanted to live in Santa Cruz, and with Marge’s passing, saw the chance to realize her childhood dream of living by the ocean.
In the early 1990’s, Peggy began to attend the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting. She was a valued member, serving on the Finance Committee, the Oversight Committee, and the Worship and Ministry Committee. Eventually she served as Co-Clerk of the Meeting. Her involvement with Friends included working to find a permanent Meetinghouse, looking at various possibilities before one was finally found on Rooney Street. John and Betty DeValcourt remember her help during that time since she had also served on the Ben Lomond Quaker Center Board of Directors. She had given generously to support their work.
Peggy’s father, Art Thompson, was a physician who loved to sail, partaking in many sailboat races on Flathead Lake in Montana. Her parents were divorced when Peggy was about 27. Her mother, Roberta (aka “Robbie”) remained in Costa Mesa and became a librarian for the balance of her working years.
Peggy was the eldest of seven children. Her three sisters are Janet Smith, Sharon Strople, and Christine Tafoya. Her brothers are David Thompson, and Leonard Thompson. Their brother Donald is deceased. Peggy leaves two sons, Bill and Tom Shoenhair. Bill and his wife, Sameen, and their son, James, live in San Jose. Tom and his wife, Julita, are the proud parents of twins, Maya and Jay, born in February, 2008.
Peggy also had two stepchildren, Neill and Peter. Neill lives in Thailand. Peter lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, Jessica, and their children, Vivian (10) and Lionel (8).
Peggy and Clarke were married on August 15, 2009, at Ben Lomond Quaker Center, under the care of the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting. One of their first dates was sailing Peggy’s 15-foot sailboat on Lexington Reservoir. However, that trip made her late for a meeting of the Oversight Committee. Clarke discreetly dropped her off a block away from the Meeting so she could walk in and pretend that walking was what had made her late.
Peggy and Clarke enjoyed hiking very much, and that included weeklong backpacking trips in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada, with Clarke usually walking faster than Peggy, but stopping to wait for her every mile or two. One time Peggy didn’t show up, so Clarke walked up and down the trail several times, looking and calling for her. There was no answer. When he looked up the hillside on his right, there was Peggy’s blue baseball cap bobbing along contentedly 400 feet up. Needless to say, each was relieved to find the other alive and uninjured. Both vowed to buy whistles for the next trip.
Later that afternoon, Clarke collapsed from the combination of heat, hiking, and anxiety. When their stove wouldn’t work, Peggy gathered firewood, started a fire and cooked their dinner while Clarke crashed on a tarp in the dirt. Then she washed the dishes and set up camp. They jumped into the river to cool down and later they watched the stars emerging one by one by one until it was time to sleep.
Clarke and Peggy liked singing together, mostly folk songs. A favorite was:
There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding”
There’s a long, long trail a-windin’
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing,
And a white moon beams.
In recent years, when Ellie Aucoin-Unruhe visited with Peggy, she sang songs like “Simple Gifts” from Rise Up Singing. Peggy always seemed fresher after these sessions. Toward the end, when Clarke would read a favorite poem, or when Ellie was singing, Peggy’s eyes would sometimes kindle with delight and recognition, despite her aphasia and Alzheimer’s.
We are grateful to have been able to companion Peggy in these ways on her journey. It was a profound blessing for each of us, and we hope that it was the same for her.