Margaret Mary Sprengelmeyer

Margaret M. Sprengelmeyer, 1945-2025

Margaret Mary “Margie” Sprengelmeyer of West Asheville, NC, passed away on Tuesday evening, September 16, 2025, in Asheville, surrounded by loved ones. She was age 80.

She was born on March 6, 1945, in Hammond, Indiana, and named for the hospital where she was born, and later worked as a nurse, St. Margaret’s.

From a proud Polish-American family, she attended Hammond High School, where she met the love of her life, the late Lawrence Ray Sprengelmeyer. After graduation, her adventures included a visit to see him in San Francisco, California, where they rekindled a romance and then married on June 19, 1965.

The ceremony was held in a converted gym that was a stand-in for a fire-damaged cathedral. Margie enjoyed recounting how the bride, groom, and guests were forced to take off their shoes and participate in their stockings in order to protect the wooden basketball court.

In San Francisco through the flower-powered 1960s, the couple got to see The Beatles in a legendary Cow Palace performance. Meanwhile, Margie was proud to participate in Civil Rights and anti-war marches with Joan Baez and others. She remained politically active throughout her life, demonstrating on various causes and even traveling to Washington, D.C., to protest the war in Iraq.

Before the end of the 1960s, the couple had three flower children, Amy, Mike, and Molly – affectionately dubbed “The Rat Club.” Then their father’s career as a railroad executive took the family hopscotching around the country to homes in all four time zones – San Francisco, Chicago, Albuquerque, Atlanta, and Houston.

In Albuquerque in the 1970s, Margie studied to become a Licensed Practical Nurse, and her 30-year career included work in oncology, neo-natal care, medical research, and home hospice.

She and Larry divorced in the 1980s, and she worked extra hours to raise three teenagers as a single mother. She also became fiercely independent, for a time owning a remote ranchette near Moriarty, New Mexico, that she dubbed “No Man’s Land.”

She eventually returned to Hammond, Indiana, to help care for her aging parents, and she also was at Larry’s side before he lost a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2002.

Margie ended her nursing career in Asheville, serving with the American Red Cross and with Western North Carolina Community Health Services. She made her home in the Candler Knob area, where she enjoyed gardening, cooking, writing, making stained glass mosaics, bantering with neighbors on the porch, or watching her beloved Chicago Cubs on television.

She attended St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Candler, NC.

She was preceded in death by her former husband, Lawrence Ray Sprengelmeyer; her parents, Helen and Michael Brzuzan; sister, Marie Huffman; brothers, Raymond Bruzan and Thomas Bruzan; granddaughter, Amaña Isis Medea; and her longtime canine companion, Rosie.

She is survived by her daughters, Amy Sprengelmeyer of Portland, Oregon, and Molly Sprengelmeyer of Yancey County, NC; son, Michael E. Sprengelmeyer of West Asheville, NC; sister, Kathy Baccino and husband John of Noblesville, Indiana; brother, Mark Bruzan and wife YoungHee Han of Hammond, Indiana; grandson, Gabriel Sprengelmeyer and wife Annaliza of Clatskanie, Oregon; grandson, August Sprengelmeyer of Portland, Oregon, whom she helped raise in West Asheville; numerous Bruzan- and Kozlowski-family cousins, her cherished nieces and nephews, and the countless neighbors, friends and co-workers who turned to her as a confidante, adviser or surrogate grandma.

Cremation has taken place, with arrangements by Groce Funeral Home on Patton Avenue.

The family is planning a memorial for a future date. In recent years, she said she wanted a festive gathering, with loved ones dancing to the Eagles song “It’s Your World Now.”