Margaret L. Anderson

Life Sketches of Margaret Lorraine Erwin Anderson

Margaret Lorraine Erwin Anderson, age 83 of Calhoun, GA, passed away on Sunday, March 9, 2025 at her residence.

On the 5th of August 1941 Margaret Lorraine Erwin was born in the White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, California to Carroll William Erwin and Ella Pearl Stoelting Erwin.

She spent a few of her early years in Southern California, but by the time she was about 3 or 4 years old the family moved up north to Sanitarium, California near St. Helena.

She attended the foothills Adventist church school for grade school and went on to PUC Prep Academy for her high school education. Then she went on to Pacific Union College where she enrolled in the nursing program under encouragement of her parents. They advised her to pursue something that would ensure good wages for her adult life. Interestingly, both of Margaret’s parents were nurses, as well as all her siblings.

When she graduated with her R.N., she went to work at the St. Helena Sanitarium and Hospital. Soon she got the feeling that her life was too focused on one thing. She decided to go back to PUC to get her BA in Family and Consumer Science, known as home economics, back then. While doing that she worked as the boy’s dorm school nurse for PUC. As a result of that work, she was recruited by Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska to become one of their school nurses in 1967. Since she also had a degree in family and consumer science, Union College invited her to be a teacher in their home economics department in 1967. Just before school started, Union discovered that they had so many students signed up for health class that they would need to add another section of health. They called on Margaret to teach the additional section of health because “she was the only other person qualified” and she had been given a lighter teaching load for her first year of teaching at the college level. Not that she really had a choice, but Margaret agreed to do that.

Coincidently, Frederick Lee Anderson, a college senior, was assigned to Margaret’s section of the health class. Within a short time, He decided that he liked what he saw and decided to ask her for a date or two all at once. One for Saturday night and the other for the Junior-Senior banquet. Margaret was a little surprised, wondering how Fred could possibly know that he would want a second date since he really didn’t know her very well at all. Fred’s thought was that, yes, he wanted a date for Saturday night, and you need to ask for a date to the banquet well in advance of that event. Thus began a relationship that continued throughout the rest of the school year. Fred proposed to Margaret on Valentine's Day 1968, and they married on August 13, 1968, at Pacific Union College Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Margaret and Fred were hired by Sunnydale Adventist Academy to teach the following school year. So, after their wedding and a very short honeymoon to the coastal redwoods in northern California they packed up and moved to Sunnydale near Centralia, Missouri. Margaret spent the next five years as a school nurse, assistant girl’s dean, home economics teacher and many other chores associated with academy work.

In June of 1973 Margaret and Fred moved to new positions at Indiana Adventist Academy near Cicero, Indiana where Margaret continued with similar jobs as before plus adding an art class to her job. In 1978 they moved to Fresno, California for Fred to teach science at Fresno Adventist Academy. Since the academy had no positions open for Margaret, she worked at several other jobs. She worked as a supervisory nurse for a weight loss clinic, taught a few classes for Fresno State University, developed and administered an allied health school for a group of doctors in Fresno as well as a second campus in San Francisco, and finally worked in the Children’s Hospital in Fresno. These things she did over a period of 11 years but not all at the same time.

In 1989, Margaret and Fred moved to Calhoun, Georgia to assume teaching duties at Georgia Cumberland Academy, near Calhoun. Margaret’s job at GCA came to an end after 3 years. She found new work at Coosa Valley Technical College, later renamed Georgia Northwestern Technical College. She taught classes in basic math, anatomy and physiology, and medical terminology. She retired from there in 2011.

During all those years and beyond, Margaret also maintained and kept house, fed her husband and took care of him. Fred says that he could not have asked for a better or more devoted wife!

In her final years Margaret endured the curse of Parkinson’s that far too many people have endured. The care roles were reversed a bit. However, she remained the same caring, loving, kind-hearted person that she always was. May God grant her rest and ultimately her final reward when He returns to redeem all who place their faith in Him!

Margaret is survived by: her husband, Fred Anderson; and two sisters, Willita Mae Hale and Carolyn Jeanette Betlinski.

The family will receive friends on Sunday, March 16, 2025 from 1 PM until 4 PM at Thomas Funeral Home.

Funeral Services will be conducted on Monday, March 17, 2025 at 4 PM from the Chapel of Thomas Funeral Home with Pastor Don Keele officiating. Burial will follow in Chandler Cemetery. Pallbearers serving include Robert Anderson, Bill Hamilton, Jon Betlinski, Jeff O'Connor, Larry Otto, and David Steel.

You may leave the family online condolences at www.thomasfuneralhomecalhoun.com

Thomas Funeral Home has proudly been entrusted with the care of Margaret Lorraine Anderson.