Margaret Susan Groeling

Born in Oklahoma City on January 18, 1949, Margaret Susan was also known as Susan,

since her schoolteacher felt there were too many Margarets in her classroom in the

early 1950's. She was a lifelong student and educator. Her step dad, John, moved their

family from the plains of Oklahoma to the beaches of Southern California in the mid

1960's, waking up to the crash and roar of the early morning waves, cresting on the

golden sands of Huntington Beach, California. Later moving to Buena Park, California,

Susan, now known as Meg, excelled in literature and drama at Western High School. A

D-Day veteran, John took Meg parachuting on weekends. They also both worked at

Disneyland. Meg manned the storybook boat tour and John, Junglebook.

Participating in local politics as a lifelong Democrat, she participated in Robert

Kennedy's 1968's bid for the presidency, signing people up to vote at the Ambassador

Hotel. Meg enrolled at Los Angeles Tech in downtown Los Angeles, where she went on

to be one of the most successful dress designers of the mid 1970's. She participated in

the first Renaissance Faire.

As a survivor, she rebounded multiple times from abuse, years before the term "Me

Too" became popular. Meg supported a women's choice and her struggle for equality.

Meg married four times. Later in life she toured California giving lectures on the

American Civil War.

After excelling in dress design in Los Angeles, Meg enrolled at Cal State Long Beach and

after ten years of studies she was able in embark in the education profession, where she

excelled again. She taught in Paramount, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Gilroy,

California, where she became the Teacher of the Year (2014-2015). A pamphlet printed

by the Gilroy School District described her in this way, "Ms. Thompson knows how her

middle school students' minds operate. She realizes they are not 'mini-adults,' but

rather children who need to be children. Students in Meg's classes are happy and

inquisitive." She attended the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Intel Laboratory

for Learning. Meg was known as "our royal purple teacher."

In the early 1990's, Meg Reed was given the title of "Queen of the Vampires" by the

local Fullerton Pacific News and Review. Meg curated an art show with her own

Preternatural Productions, which organized the Undead Poets Society of Long Beach

and produced a vampire play called Undead II. She attended the original Burning Man in

San Francisco.

Throughout her Goth period and university studies Meg began to write and edit for Civil

War magazines. In the early 21 st Century, Meg reinvented herself again, writing over 500

entrees for The Emerging Civil War Blog. She also earned a Masters in military history at

American Public University (online). Meg Groeling by this time had written three books:

The Aftermath of Battle, First Fallen and an unpublished (as of this day) about the

influence of the Civil War on the writings of Walt Whitman. Her book First Fallen was

reviewed in The Wall Street Journal.

Meg died on July 27, 2023 of cancer, survived by her sister Martha and her

husband Robert, three stepchildren and four grand stepchildren. Known for

her love of her Hollister neighborhood and learning. She died at the Monterey

Community Hospital, much loved and appreciated by the Civil War community

and education field for her "uniqueness" and brilliance.

Published in Good Times, Gilroy Dispatch and Hollister Free Lance · August 16, 2023