Marguerite (Peggy) Landis Saecker, 80, of Madison, Wisconsin, formerly of Oak Park and River Forest, died on Jan. 4, 2016 at Agrace Hospice in Fitchburg, Wisconsin after a courageous battle with multiple myeloma.
Born during a spring blizzard on May 1, 1935 in Appleton, Wisconsin to Ralph V. Landis and Pearl Bauer, her father, a surgeon, carried her mother through the snow to St. Elizabeth Hospital and oversaw her birth. Largely raised in Appleton, a memorable part of her childhood was spent at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois during WWII where her father was chief of surgery.
Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated summa cum laude from Lawrence University with a B.A. in history in 1957 and then attended Edinburgh University in Scotland as a Fulbright Scholar. On her return to Wisconsin in 1958, she enrolled in an accelerated one-year program at UW-Madison, earning a master’s degree in both education and history in 1959.
On July 31, 1960, she married her lifelong love and partner, Peter A. Saecker and spent the next 52 years in Oak Park and neighboring River Forest raising her family and actively participating in the community. After teaching history and economics at Oak Park and River Forest High School from 1959 to 1963, she rejoined the faculty in 1974 as the history and economics librarian. During the 1960s and ’70s, she advocated for fair-housing, civil rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment.
In 1971 she was elected to the Oak Park Public Library board, serving until 1979. As a longtime member of the Friends of the Library, she organized the Book Fair for many years, and she and Peter ran the library’s film series during the 25 years preceding the VHS era. As a member of the League of Women Voters, she worked on the efforts to write and ratify the current Illinois Constitution.
Other activities included being a Girl Scout and Brownie troop leader, memberships in the American Association of University Women, the 19th Century Club, the literary society Phi Sigma, and the First United Church of Oak Park. Retiring in 1993, she spent the next 18 years fulfilling her passion for exploration by traveling extensively around the world, including unique trips to Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Libya. In 2012, she moved from River Forest to Madison to be closer to her family. An avid reader, tennis player, swimmer, cyclist, photographer, and gardener, she loved theater, music, and any museum. She enjoyed watching professional tennis tournaments and the Packers and Brewers, and she cheered on her beloved Cubs to postseason play in 2015.
Her burning curiosity fueled her lifelong passion for learning. In the end, she told her family that she still had a thousand, million questions. She loved her family and friends deeply and lived appreciating life’s gifts and finding joy in every day.
Peggy Saecker is survived by her daughters, Ruth and Mary (Gilbert Nathanson) Saecker; her grandchildren, Rosemary Spolar and Emma and Pearl Nathanson; her siblings, John (Molly) Landis, Ruth (John) Braun, and Robert Landis; her five nieces and nephews; and her extended family and many friends. She was preceded in death by her husband, Peter; her parents; her siblings, Marjorie and Ralph; and her sister-in-law, Connie Landis.
A private family service will be held in Appleton. The family wishes to thank Dr. Walter Longo, Beth Kingston, and the staff at the UW Carbone Cancer Center who made the last several years of her life possible and the Agrace Hospice team who expertly managed her end-of-life care.
The family appreciates memorials made to the Madison Public Library, Olbrich Garden, the Trillium Fund for Myeloma Research at UW-Madison, or the charity of one’s choice. Please share memories at www.CressFuneralService.com.