Margaret Spickers Williams died Jan. 28 at her Westport home. She was 91.
Margaret S. Williams: moved to Westport in 1958. Contributed photo
She is survived by her two sons, Anthony McKay, and his wife Cindy McKay, of Pittsburgh Pa., and Peter Albert McKay of Manhattan, and two grandchildren, Jack Hutchins McKay and Larry Peter McKay, of Pittsburgh.
The only daughter of Dr. William Spickers, and Reed Hutchins Spickers, late of Franklin Lakes, N.J., she was born in Paterson N.J. on Jan. 30, 1920, and passed her summers in Bay Head, N.J.
In the fall of 1938, she was enrolled at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which was then located at the Carnegie Hall in Manhattan, and she was a proud graduate of the class of 1940.
In 1940, as an apprentice acting student in summer stock at the historic Woodstock Playhouse, in Woodstock, N.Y., she met and fell in love with fellow actor Scott McKay, who had come east after moving from his birth city of Pleasantville, Iowa, to Denver, Colo. They were married in October 1942.
After her 1950 divorce, she encountered her last great love, Warner Bros. actor and author Lawrence Williams in Rome, Italy, whom she married on the Roman Campidoglio in June 1956.
In 1958, she and Larry, bought their house at 8 Newtown Turnpike in Westport. They also combined to write a theater version of Larry’s Literary Guild winning novel “I, James McNeil Whistler,” which was produced at the Hartford Stage Company and then at the historic Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village in 1981.
Larry died at their home on Jan. 3, 1983. Maggie then found a new cultural home in 1983, with The Theater Artists Workshop of Westport.
Proud of her maternal family of Dunmore East, Waterford County Ireland, she took her Irish family name, Power, as a stage name, Margaret Power.
In Ireland in the recent summers, alternating games with short mandatory moments for the music of Richard Wagner, she forged her rich and undying bond of love with her grandchildren Jack and Larry.
Her sons, Anthony McKay and Peter McKay are planning a memorial service in celebration of her rich and wonderful life scheduled for June 2012.
Please contact them for further information as follows: Peter McKay- .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), Anthony McKay- .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Wow….What a great life she had! Although I knew she was gifted in the arts I had no idea of her depth as she never flaunted it – I simply knew her as just a great, friendly neighbor whose company you would enjoy. Living across the street from her for 40+ years we would watch out for each other – collecting each other’s mail, having the other’s house keys in case of emergency, searching for animals when they went on their own adventures—that sort of thing. She was the type of neighbor you would wish for and we (me and my family) will miss her. RIP Mrs. Williams.