Margaret "Peggy" B. Miesse

"Peggy" was born on November 3rd, 1919, the eldest child of Rebekah and Denny Brereton. She lived with her parents and sister Polly and brother Jim, growing up in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. She was athletic from an early age, loved to swim, ride bikes and skate with gusto. She developed an early love for reading, music, flowers and people, making friends easily.

Peggy attended a private girls' school, Penn Hall, where all her aunts and mother had also attended. She excelled in field hockey and basketball and was a great student. Her goal was to become a medical technician, though she went to business school for two years because of family finances. She attended Penn Hall Junior College, taking pre-med prerequisites. Peggy saw her dream fulfilled when she graduated from Gettysburg College, doing her internship at Pittsburgh Hospital. After earning her medical technician certificate, she accepted a job in Cleveland, and met the love of her life, Carlton Miesse, on a blind date. Though her first impression of Carlton wasn't a great one, they fell in love and married in November of 1949, at Lakewood Methodist Church.

After the birth of their two daughters, first Debbie, then Julie, the Miesse family moved to California in 1957, eventually settling in Palos Verdes Estates. Peggy loved her home in Lunada Bay with its white picket fence built by Carl and a backyard rose garden bursting with her favorite blooms. The house was filled with laughter, music, and family meals around the dining room table. Peggy sewed and knitted for her girls and packed many a school lunch, driving to all manner of lessons...piano, swimming plus Job's Daughters events, believing, "Busy kids are happy kids," and they were! Carl worked as a chemical engineer and Peggy as an executive secretary so that their daughters could pursue a college education,. Debbie trained as a junior high and high school English teacher, and Julie finished with a degree in child development and education.

In her later years, Peggy reveled in her role as grandmother to Katharine and Jennifer, cheering for every soccer goal and proudly celebrating two more college graduations. Also, with her husband, the small town girl from Pennsylvania satisfied a wanderlust to see the marvels of Europe, the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, Alaska and Hawaii.

At the age of 16, Peggy discovered her church family in a Lutheran congregation, finding a closeness with the Lord. After her marriage, she became a faithful member of the United Methodist Church, freely giving of her energy, time, creativity and resources. Her faith and trust in the Lord was nurtured and grown through a variety of potholes and bumps in the road of life; surviving a near-fatal childhood illness, having to be patient with achieving her life goals, meeting family obligations, the adventures of parenthood and the working world, enduring a husband's death, starting over as a single person, and accepting the loss of independence, relying on others toward the end of her life.

Throughout her life's spiritual journey with the Lord, Peggy has been grateful for the many blessings she has received, and for the Lord's faithfulness, love, mercy and strength, often shown to her through family members and her many friends. Peggy, in turn, has shown God's love to others throughout her life.

Her race is run, her hardest trials are done, her victory in Christ has begun!

Funeral Home:
Green Hills Mortuary and Memorial Chapel
27501 S.Western Ave.
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
US 90275