Margaret A. McVeigh | Writer, actress, 90

Margaret A. "Pegi" McVeigh, 90, an amateur writer and actress and the mother of eight, died of heart failure June 30 at St. Joseph Villa, a nursing home in Flourtown.

Mrs. McVeigh was born in New York City. She grew up in Mount Airy, attending Cecilian Academy and graduating with honors from Chestnut Hill College in 1938.

As a teenager and young adult, Mrs. McVeigh starred in plays at Cecilian Academy and Chestnut Hill College. She acted in several experimental Philco TV shows in the early 1940s.

Mrs. McVeigh, who loved writing, worked for a time as an advertising copywriter at Geare-Marston in Philadelphia. She sent poems to the New Yorker and the Ladies' Home Journal.

While taking courses at St. Joseph's College, and working in the drama club, she met Joseph McVeigh.

The two married in 1943, and raised eight children in Mount Airy. Their daughter Kathleen died of leukemia in 1962, and Joseph McVeigh died in 1966.

Mrs. McVeigh moved to Flourtown with seven children. To be available to them, she sold Avon products, becoming the firm's top seller on the East Coast in 1973.

She also worked at the Women's Exchange in Chestnut Hill and as a receptionist at Chestnut Hill College during the 1970s.

Surviving are sons Kevin, Peter, John, and Christopher; daughters Jane McVeigh Schultz, Maggie, and Christina; 13 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. today at St. Joseph Villa, 110 W. Wissahickon Ave., Flourtown, Pa. 19031, to which memorial donations may be made. Interment will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.