Eva Marguerite Hubbard

Eva Marguerite Harris Hubbard was known as “Marguerite” to her loved ones and close friends, but of course “Mom” to her sons. She was born on February 3, 1916 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was 16 and a high-school junior when she met and fell in love with her life-long partner and husband Donald Earl Hubbard who then was 18 and a high-school senior. They met in study hall at Omaha South High School in 1932 and married September 25, 1937. They had four sons Darrel (1939), Paul (1945), Lee (1949), and Steve (1951). With her usual sense of style, Marguerite passed away on Mother’s day, May 8, 2005. She is survived by: her husband Donald; three of her sons Darrel and wife Jene of San Diego, CA, Paul and wife Susan of Fargo, North Dakota, and Steve and wife Jan of Fortuna, California; five grandchildren; and six great grandchildren. She was predeceased by her brother George, sister Mary, son Lee, and grandson Paul. Marguerite will be buried at Willow Island, Dawson County, Nebraska in St. Patrick’s Cemetery, which was established by her Great Grandfather Richard Costin on his homestead in the mid 1800s and which was later deeded to the county.

As a child, Marguerite moved with her parents Walter Costin Harris and Sarah Gertrude Connell Harris and older sister Mary Gertrude (1913) to Omaha, Nebraska in early 1919, where her brother George Michael was born that year in December.

Marguerite was an attentive grade school student and an accomplished violinist by the seventh grade and sat as second violin in the Creighton University orchestra when only an eighth grader. She was a woman of great intellectual abilities. She took all the college preparatory courses and was the top student on the national honor society for Omaha South High School. She was awarded college scholarships at Mills College, University of Nebraska, University of Iowa, and the College of Saint Mary.

Due to the deepening depression and family responsibilities, Marguerite had to complete some of her college courses over time at Saint Mary’s College, Creighton University, and Omaha University between 1933 and 1951. She finally completed her college education at Moorhead State University (MSU) in 1965, where she graduated magna cum laude with a major in Economics and minors in English and Latin.

Marguerite worked from the time she was a young teenager. She held many positions that included newspaper printer, social worker, employment interviewer, medical claims adjuster, administrative assistant to civil engineers, and finally assistant librarian at MSU from 1965 until her retirement in 1986 at age 70.

Marguerite was a feminist and women’s rights advocate long before those terms were coined – as were her mother and grandmother. But she held those views within the life-long construct of the traditional family structure. She was a life member of the American Association of University Women, a life member and past officer of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). She was an accomplished life long genealogist producing a volume of formally-documented research on the Costin, Connell, Ballard, Kennedy, Harris, and Hubbard lines from the American Revolution through the Civil War and World War II.

Marguerite was an unconditionally loving, benevolent, nurturing, and caring mother who advocated strong work ethics, fair treatment of women, moral courage, and self-worth for all whom she encountered. For Marguerite, her family, husband, and sons always came before all else. From the time she was a young woman, she sacrificed her own opportunities for advanced education and professional career advancement, so that her family could have those opportunities.

Marguerite cherished her husband through their seventy plus year love-affair and maintained a bond with Don that went beyond this earth-bound existence. She managed the role of traditional wife and mother while maintaining her own independence throughout her life. She possessed a deep personal association with God, a belief in the goodness of the human soul, and a profound faith in the existence of an afterlife.

A remembrance service will be held at 7:00 PM Thursday May 12, 2005 at the Hanson-Runsvold Funeral Home, 215 So 7th St, Fargo. All are welcome. No flowers please. Instead please make donations to the DAR scholarship fund or to Hospice of the Red River Valley. Family contact is Darrel Hubbard 1-619-892-3958.