A warm and happy 100 years

Elia Powers

In her younger days, Margaret “Peggy” McLaughlin enjoyed reading

celebrity gossip magazines and watching passersby from a window in

her downtown San Diego home.

“She was always curious about people,” said Edna Membury, who was

married to McLaughlin’s nephew. “One time when a couple caught her

watching their fight, they said, ‘Close the window, you old biddy.’”

McLaughlin didn’t have to conceal her identity in early February,

when friends and family from five generations came to Costa Mesa to

celebrate her 100th birthday. She danced with nephews, sang Irish

songs and told jokes to more than 50 attendees.

She sat in the middle of a Holiday Inn banquet room and listened

as people around the periphery said kind words in her honor.

“She recognized everyone who was talking,” Membury said. “It was a

touching moment for everyone in the room.”

A 53-year Southern California resident who lived in Costa Mesa

during her later years, McLaughlin died April 9 of natural causes.

McLaughlin grew up in Greenock, Scotland, and lived there until

she was 18. Along with most of her immediate family, she moved to New

York in the early 1920s.

One of 10 children, McLaughlin was close to her nine siblings and

was particularly fond of her mother, who lived in Queens, N.Y.,

according to McLaughlin’s niece, Cathie McQuaid.

McLaughlin, the second youngest child, lived with her mother in

her mother’s final years. The family lived in a three-story town

house, and McLaughlin found work at the Literary Digest.

Relatives slowly began migrating west, and, in 1952, McLaughlin followed them to Southern California.

“We couldn’t believe people were swimming in November,” said

Membury, who also moved to the area with her husband, Philip.

Eventually, almost all of the family joined McLaughlin on the West

Coast. She spent much of her time in San Diego, where she worked at

Scripps Clinic in La Jolla.

In her later years, McLaughlin lived with McQuaid in Costa Mesa.

McQuaid remembers her aunt for her religious beliefs -- she

belonged to St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa -- and her

strong personality.

“In politics or anything, she’d tell you her opinion,” McQuaid

said.

The two would dine together, rent classic movies, shop and work

crossword puzzles.

According to her family, McLaughlin credited her longevity to

staying single and not having children.

Philip Membury said she was always happy on her own.

“She enjoyed life in general,” he said. “She was warm and

affectionate -- a very happy person.”