Margaret Jane Crowell, 83

Margaret Jane Crowell passed on to be with the Lord on Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010.

Born as the sixth, and youngest child of William and Pauline McCormick on Sept. 10, 1927, Margaret lived with her parents in the area near Detroit, Mich., for all her childhood years. She attended public schools and worked in local businesses while attending high school.

Late in World War II, Margaret met Army Air Force Cpl. Dwight Crowell of Sandpoint, Idaho. He was stationed at Selfridge Field in Michigan. In November 1945, they were married. After a few months in Michigan, they moved to the Crowell family farm west of Sandpoint where they both lived out their years.

Throughout those years, Margaret can be remembered for several items of note. She became the mother to three sons, David Crowell of Kent, Wash., Stephen Crowell of Kent, and Crandon Crowell of Sandpoint; and one daughter, Becky (Crowell) McPherson of Valley, Wash. She was also grandmother to eight and great-grandmother to two.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Margaret and Dwight were known for the fabulous strawberries they grew and harvested each summer. Their labor produced several thousand gallons of berries each year which they sold to people in the local community, thus making many acquaintances and friends in the Sandpoint area.

At least 40 people in the Sandpoint area will remember Margaret as their 4-H leader. In the late 1950s she took on the leadership role for a 4-H forestry club named the “Baldy Busy Beavers” and continued to act as the club’s leader until the mid-1960s. During that period, she had as many as 15 members at a time.  She was also selected as a judge for 4-H projects at the Bonner County Fair. She received a number of awards for her 4-H work in Bonner County.

Margaret was very devoted to her church work and her Christianity. She attended nearly every church meeting, service and celebration. She taught Sunday School to young children and organized Vacation Bible School.  She sang soprano in the choir, occasionally doing solos for the congregation. She was a member of the Calvary Baptist Church in Sandpoint, and later the Sagle Baptist Church.

In the 1970s, Margaret became the first senior coordinator at the Sandpoint Senior Center when it opened. She managed that service, including the meals programs, managing employees, planning senior outings and trips, and managing the budget, as well. She spent more than seven years managing the senior center. In the years following her work at the senior center, Margaret was well known as the self-appointed volunteer who would take a special interest in the welfare of elderly people in the community and she kept a list of people, mostly older widows, whom she assisted in a variety of ways on a regular basis. She made it her mission for more than a decade to take care of the elderly who seemed to have “slipped through the cracks” of the system and needed help.

From the late 1960s and onward, Margaret and Dwight Crowell switched their farm over to growing Christmas trees and planted several thousand firs and spruces. They took meticulous care of the young trees, fertilizing, weeding and pruning them into the exact right shape each summer. The first of their crops were harvested in the early 1970s. They continued with the planting, harvesting and replanting for years to come. Many families in the Sandpoint area think of the Crowell farm as the place where they take the family to pick out a carefully grown and shaped tree for the holiday season.

Margaret was preceded in death by her parents, all of her siblings, and her husband of 53 years, Dwight Crowell. She is survived by her three sons, one daughter, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at Sagle Baptist Church Thursday, Dec. 2, at 2 p.m.

Family and friends are invited to sign Margaret’s online guest book at www.coffeltfuneral.com.

Funeral arrangements are under the care of Coffelt Funeral Service.