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From: "John S Wilkinson" <>
Subject: Margaret Fresco
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 13:06:01 -0400


Washington Post.com 9-9-2005

Obituaries


Margaret Fresco, 97; Researched Roots Of St. Mary's County






Friday, September 9, 2005; Page B06

Margaret K. Fresco, 97, whose research into local history and genealogy
in St. Mary's County resulted in two books documenting aspects of life
there over 266 years, died Aug. 29 at her home in Columbia after
complications from a fall in July.

Ms. Fresco wrote "Marriages and Deaths St. Mary's County, Maryland
1634-1900" (third edition, 1989) and "Doctors of St. Mary's County,
Maryland 1634-1900" (1992) , which were published privately.






Her first book, which took 10 years to research, consists of 500 pages
of marriages and deaths from churches, newspapers and county court
records. It is in libraries throughout the United States and is a top
seller at the St. Mary's County Historical Society.

The 300-page book on doctors consists of biographies and genealogical
data on 287 physicians connected with St. Mary's.

She was born Margaret Mary King in St. Mary's, the daughter of a doctor.
She attended St. Mary's School at Bryantown and St. Mary's Female
Seminary at St. Mary's City.

Ms. Fresco began her career as a teacher in a one-room public school for
St. Mary's County. She married in 1926. During the Depression, she
worked as a librarian and recreation supervisor for the Works Progress
Administration.

She spent more than 20 years as a civil servant, working first at the
Veterans Administration headquarters in Washington.

She also worked with the Army, Navy and the Air Force, including three
times at the Pentagon while moving as a Navy wife, and at the National
Institutes of Health.

Ms. Fresco traveled extensively during her 35-year marriage to Navy Lt.
Commander Nace E. Fresco.

She rode a chairlift in the Alps in Switzerland and a rickshaw in Hong
Kong. She was a guest on a U.S. submarine, which cruised submerged in
the South China Sea from Subic Bay to Manila. She also lived in the
suburbs of Paris.

She later became interested in the history of St. Mary's County and
genealogy and regularly contributed articles to local newspapers and to
the local Historical Society.

In 1993, she was honored for her books by the St. Mary's County
Committee of the Maryland Historic Trust.

Ms. Fresco was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution,
Major William Thomas Chapter, through four ancestors -- including a
woman, Henrietta Slye Plowden (1710-1795), who lent the state 5,865
pounds of tobacco for the war cause.

She was also a member of the National Society of Magna Charta Dames.

Her first husband, Harry A. Myers, died in 1947.

Her marriage to Nace E. Fresco ended in divorce.

A son from her first marriage, Harry Amos Myers, died in 1987; a
daughter from that marriage, Margaret "Peggy" Arlene Dietrich, died in
2000.

Survivors include three children from her first marriage, Alma Jane
Schwertzfager of West End, N.C., Francis Bennet Myers of Charles County
and Jerimiah "Jack" Myers of Marietta, Ga.; a sister; 17 grandchildren;
25 great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandson.




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