Nurse was instructor for 2 local schools

9/1/2002

Margaret J. Boeker of Sylvania Township, who taught nursing skills to a generation of medical caregivers, died of heart failure Friday in the Hospice of Northwest Ohio, Perrysburg Township. She was 79.

She was born Nov. 13, 1922, in Newark, Ohio, the daughter of a railroad conductor and his wife. She was interested in nursing from childhood, her husband, Justin Robert Boeker, said.

The couple met in 1943 on a blind date and married soon after.

“She was a brunette. She grew on me pretty fast,” said her husband, who was then a young engineer at the Owens Corning plant in Newark.

Mrs. Boeker graduated from the Newark Hospital School of Nursing in 1945. The couple moved with their growing family several times and came to Toledo in 1966. Mrs. Boeker dedicated her time to her family, Mr. Boeker said.

In 1970, when the last of her four children left home, she returned to the classroom, earning degrees at Mary Manse College in 1973, the University of Michigan in 1976, and the University of Toledo in 1979.

With advanced degrees in nursing and teaching, she taught at the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing for three years and the St. Vincent School of Nursing for 10 years, retiring in 1987.

She took great pride in having raised a son who became a psychiatrist and a daughter who holds a doctorate in nursing and is chairman of the health services department at Floyd College in Georgia, Mr. Boeker said.

Surviving are her husband of 59 years, Justin Robert Boeker; sons, Barry and Thomas; daughters, Barbara Rees and Ann Gibbons; sister, Mary Elizabeth Dorsey; nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the Reeb Funeral Home, Sylvania, where visitation will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

The family requests tributes to the Margaret Boeker Nursing Education Memorial Fund at Floyd College, P.O. Box 1864, Rome, Ga. 30162.