Remembering Margaret H. Lewis
I have been asked to write a few words about my friend, and our professional sister, Margaret H. Lewis. I stumble. I smile thinking about her. I edit. I hit my delete button. I muse.
I realize I have known Margaret for twenty years, but how can that be? Always smiling, happy, helpful, full of energy. So much so that I wonder; does someone wind her up in the morning? When I am with her she is excited and speaks a mile a minute. I am exhausted listening to her. She is like a bird that sings. Her enthusiasm is contagious. I have never heard her say an unkind word about anyone.
I marvel at her dedication. Her goal to graduate from college and to excel in each class lead her to take one class each semester so that her undergraduate degree took her over twenty years to complete, and how proud she was to announce she had graduated on May 12, 2007!!! Most of us would have quite, but not our Margaret.
I remember her after she left McGuire Woods, working for the Henrico County Attorney’s Office. She was always helpful to me, the new paralegal, feeling her way through bankruptcy questions, tax issues and life in general. Margaret befriended new members, and would offer encouragement to one of her long-standing friends in their moment of need.
As a founding member of the Richmond Association of Legal Assistants, now RPA, I know how she approached her work, not as a job but as a profession. How she, and a handful of women in 1982 came together in a triangular building, in a triangular room to begin something that has passed down to the almost two hundred members we have today. Not only did she support that organization but she went on to be a founding member of the Local Government Paralegal Association. I foresee her organizing the angels into a more efficient group.
Most of us will remember her as we last saw her, at the 25th Gala, she and her husband John, laughing, posing for pictures, smiling, winning most of the door prizes.
Jolly good job Margaret.
By Ann Knobbe, 2002-2003 RPA President, January 2008