Margaret Elizabeth Hadjisky Muzik

Margaret Elizabeth Hadjisky Muzik was the first daughter of Elizabeth Appleby of England and Joseph Hadjisky of Bulgaria, and the first and only wife of Thomas Muzik. 

She died in her sleep on August 7, 2009, in Washington state.

Margaret, nicknamed Peggy, was born in Michigan on March 30, 1922.

An excellent student of French and cello, she nevertheless during the World War II effort became an occupational therapist, graduating from Western University in Kalamazoo just in time to marry and join her new husband in Africa, where he was a tropical plant physiologist with the Firestone Rubber Company in Liberia.

Their first son Steven was born there, in 1945.  Their daughter Katherine was born in Michigan, 1948, while husband Thomas completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Muzik family moved shortly thereafter to Puerto Rico for his first employment, at the USDA Experimental Station in Mayaguez, for 7 years.

Katherine remembers loving to hold hands with her mother, jumping together in the waves crashing onto the shores of the clear blue Caribbean Sea. And, watching her parents dance, how wonderfully they danced together, Mambo, Samba, Salsa, Tango, Merengue and Waltz.

In 1957 Thomas became a professor of agronomy at Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington, where their second son Wesley Nicholas was born. They lived in Pullman until Thomas Muzik’s retirement from WSU, moving to Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1983. During their many years in Washington and Idaho, Peggy was an ardent member and president of the League of Women Voters, meanwhile joining Tom on his every possible sabbatical, including England, Spain and Colorado, and even his employment with Bechtel, in Saudi Arabia from 1981 to 1983.

Peggy lived a marvelous life, accompanying her husband around the world, living with on six continents. Not only his dancing and travelling partner, she was his bridge partner, his gardening partner, his skiing partner, bowling partner and fishing partner, until his death on their 61st wedding anniversary, Jan. 26, 2006. 

She is survived by her brother, Eugene Hadjisky of Michigan; her three children, two grandchildren, and one very soon-to-arrive great-grandchild.