Mrs. Margaret Mary "Peg" Cunningham
May 21, 1920 - January 25, 2012
Margaret Mary "Peg" Cunningham Margaret Mary "Peg" Cunningham, nee Brown, age 91. Loving wife of the late Thomas F. Sr. Dear mother of Thomas F. Jr. (Judy) Cunningham and Margaret M. "Peggy" Serrano. Grandmother of Monica (Scott Dikkers) and Lisa Serrano, Thomas F. III (Amy Jo) Cunningham and Katie (Curran) O'Keefe; great grandmother of Logan, Keegan, Raegan and Charlie. Beloved aunt and dear friend of many. Peg was retired from Armstrong Elementary School after 34 years of service and worked as a substitute teacher at Decatur Classical School until 2007.
Eulogy for Margaret M. Cunningham
On the day that Gabrielle Giffords bid her farewell to Congress, Peg Cunningham bid her farewell to those of us left on earth as she ascended to heaven. Peg was connected to each of you – whether family or friend, colleague or neighbor, fellow parishioner or casual acquaintance, caregiver or doctor, student or classmate. None of us knew at the time that we last saw her that we were saying goodbye.
And it is fitting that we send Peg off with laughter, hugs, a cascade of great memories, plenty of tears, and love. This most of all – an abundance of love and joie d’ vive, which is Peg’s gift to all of us. Her spirit lives on in each of us whose lives she touched. She definitely made the world a better place.
Margaret Mary Brown was the daughter of Helen Ryan of County Tipperary and Michael Brown of County Mayo and could not have been more proud of being “all Irish.” She thought the sun rose and set on her parents and was very close to her sister Betty and her brother Tom. She graduated from Chicago Teacher’s College just as World War II began and so got a position as a teacher at the Bell School for the Deaf. She frequently recalled how her parents had her take piano lessons, never dreaming that one day she would earn her living from a teacher certificate that required every elementary school teacher to play the piano. Ahh, the wisdom of that policy so long ago. Before the war ended she married architect Tom Cunningham and they moved to Alabama where my dad trained pilots in the Army Air Force.
After the war, a remarkable thing happened. A group of friends who had known each other since grade school came back to St. Margaret Mary parish and embarked on lifelong friendships that last to this day. I’ve never seen friendships like these – supportive, hilarious, loyal, and unfailingly true- through good times and bad. I can’t count how many of you told me this week that you’d lost your best friend. And Peg continued to extend the hand of friendship to new people she met over the years. She was always up for a good time and was the last to leave any party.
Peg often sat at the piano and played her old favorites – “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” or “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” And she credited the BVM nuns at Immaculata with teaching her the piano – except everything she played had a honky-tonk, syncopated rhythm. When I asked her about it, she remembered that she took about three piano lessons from an unemployed musician when she was 13 during the Great Depression – and HE had taught a stride piano base line. So the Works Progress Administration had a lasting impact on her life.
About five years ago, she and I were going to spend a bitterly cold New Year’s Eve together. I arrived from Milwaukee about six and she was so excited because she had hatched a plan for our evening. “We car ride the CTA for a penny starting at 8 PM. Let’s do it and go downtown for a penny!” So bundled we got and off we went on Peg Jr. and Peg Sr.’s fabulous adventure, which was not a bogus journey. We took the bus to the Western Avenue “L” and rode the Ravenswood downtown, bopped around the Bean and Millennium Park and headed back north before the drunks had boarded the trains. In bed before midnight, we had a night to remember. You may have seen some oh so attractive pictures of twinkly-eyed Peg peering out from scarf and hat.
Peg had the gift of gab and was a grand master at drawing people’s stories from them. I saw this in her interactions with friends of mine and my brother’s over the years. She would elegantly and non-invasively engage in (usually) delightful conversations about their families, their nationalities, their interests, and then share enough of herself that genuine connections were made. She followed not only local and national politics but also Chicago sports, thanks in large part to her dear friend Bobbe Beattie. They were fortunate to attend a Michael Jordan Bulls game before Bobbe passed away.
To the core of her soul, Peg was a Chicago public school teacher and proud of it. She loved teaching and as one former student wrote in a note, “As our third grade teacher, Mrs. Cunningham always took the time to make us feel smarter than we were.” She would run into former students everywhere – in parking lots, at Walgreens, at the Jewel – and they would approach and say, tentatively, “Mrs. Cunningham? Do you remember me? You were my teacher at Armstrong (or Decatur).” She would marvel that they recognized her until I reminded her that she was an adult when they were young kids and she looked remarkably the same. She always supported the good kid who was struggling in school and these former students became lifelong friends as well.
She enjoyed many trips to Ireland with her sister Betty. They were quite the pair and my father-in-law aptly nicknamed them “The Gold Dust Twins.” Whether entertaining relatives from Ireland or visiting an abbey, the bond over the pond was alive and well in her generation. And she wanted Tom and me to feel connected to our Irish cousins so the Ryan-Brown link would continue.
Peg had strong opinions which she did not hesitate to express to her family should one of us do something that displeased her. But she never stayed angry at us for long and her forgiveness came from her faith and her generosity of spirit. I am honored to be her daughter and challenged to be a better person because of her. She set a fine example and cut an elegant figure. You will be missed, Mumsey Wumsey. Your sense of humor saw you through some dark days and in recent years I could get you to laugh by reminding you that I’ve ALWAYS done what you wanted me to. Not. Thank you for sharing your soul with us for so many wonderful years. May you rest in peace until we meet again.
Funeral Information
Funeral Service Saturday January 28, 9:15AM from Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home, 6150 N. Cicero Ave., Chicago to St. Margaret Mary Church for Mass at 10:00AM. Interment All Saints Cemetery. Visitation Friday 4:00-8:00PM.
Donations Information
In lieu of flowers donations to St. Margaret Mary Church, 2324 W. Chase, Chicago, IL 60645 would be appreciated.
DirectionsVisitation: Map to Cicero Ave Chapel Service: St. Margaret Mary Cemetery: Map to All Saints Cemetery Light a Special Candle View Memorial and Sign Guestbook Printer Friendly Version
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