Margaret W. Hetzer

LEITERSBURG, Md.—

Margaret “Maggie” Hetzer was an original.

Her friends said she never missed calling on their birthdays and anniversaries, and those of their family members.

“She always asked about our families. She never talked about herself. She ended her phone calls with, ‘I love you,’” said Lieba Cohen of Hagerstown.

“How do you describe somebody like that?” said Bill Hetzer, Maggie’s husband of 43 years.

“Special,” said Carolyn Brooks of Hagerstown.

Even though Maggie didn’t like to shop in stores, the “fashionista,” as described by Tina Angle of Hagerstown, had a knack for finding the perfect gifts for her friends and styles that suited her unique fashion sense in the catalogs from which she shopped.

“She was so fashionable,” Carolyn said. “A lot of things she wore, only Maggie could pull off.”

“She was a very classy lady, elegant, but down to earth, wholesome,” Lieba said.

Maggie knew her friends’ style preferences, and was famous for dropping off catalogs with clothing suggestions indicated, Lieba said.

In addition to her style and caring for friends, Maggie was known for her love of animals, the outdoors, travel and commitment to the community.

“She was just a kind person, a good person and loved animals,” Bill said.

Maggie was born in Lincoln, Neb., the only child of Sam and Frances Weston, who were from Brooklyn, N.Y., but met in Washington, D.C., and moved several times before settling in Williamsport at the end of Maggie’s second-grade year.

They opened Weston’s Hobby Shop in downtown Hagerstown.

After graduating from Williamsport High School, Maggie attended Hagerstown Junior College part time and worked at the Washington County Free Library.

When she got a full-time job as a receptionist at IBM, she took a break from college classes, earning her associate degree from HCC years later, in 1982.

Bill remembers seeing Maggie for the first time when she was a little girl “in pigtails.” Her father occasionally would take her to the Savoy Restaurant, where Bill, his father and other business people would meet for lunch.

Later, when Bill was charged with the construction of Boonsboro High School, he remembers driving through Williamsport one day at about 9 a.m. when he saw a tall brunette, Maggie, dash across the road in front of him, late for school.

Over the years, their paths would cross and occasional dinners out became frequent.

“He called her Maggie or sometimes Miss Maggie,” Tina said. “He absolutely adored her.”