Obituary of Margaret Stitham

Margaret Mary (Peggy) Poeppelmeier Stitham died peacefully on March 19, 2011 after a long battle with breast cancer. Born July 4, 1950 in Houlton Maine, daughter of the late Vincent E. Poeppelmeier and the late Alice Ann Donovan Poeppelmeier, Peggy was a resident of Cape Elizabeth, Maine and Kailua, Hawaii. Peggy grew up in Glastonbury, CT, and graduated in the class of 1968 at Glastonbury High School. She received her BSN from the University of Maine in 1973. Peggy began her career as a Navy Nurse, serving at Parris Island for two years where she became an expert in the treatment of heat stroke. She then became an instructor at Westbrook College nursing program in Portland Maine. Following a move to Hawaii in 1979 she became director of nursing at a skilled nursing facility, Hale Nani, where she worked for five years. She was office manager and nurse for her husband Mark Dillen Stitham’s practice before completing her nursing career as the school nurse at the Iolani High School from 2003 to 2008. Peggy married Dr. Stitham in 1980 and was the proud mother of two daughters, Katherine Kearney Stitham, 25, a graduate student at Columbia University, and Allison Dillen Stitham, 20, a junior at Colby College. She is also survived by her three sisters, Anne Donovan Moran of Sherwood, MD, Fran Sheeley of Armonk, NY, and Barbara Eretzian of Turner, Maine, in addition to an extended clan of adoring aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider a donation in Peggy’s memory to the Joseph A. and Mary A. Donovan Scholarship fund of the University of Maine Foundation, Two Alumni Place, Orono, ME, 04043, or to the CHEETA Project, www.thecheetaproject.org. A celebration of her life will be held later this year.