In Memoriam

Peg Portland Gaughan, SJCAA Board Member Emerita
Class of '32

Marguerite (Peg) Rachel Portland Gaughan, a member of the Class of 1932, its long-time secretary, and our only Alumnae Association Board Member Emerita, died of congestive heart failure on June 11, 2010, at the Brandywine Assisted Living Facility in Rehoboth Beach, DE. She was 99.

Peg was one of 13 children born to Charles and Emma DeFant Portland, a mining contractor and homemaker, in Pottsville, PA. Five of her siblings died shortly after birth. Despite the financial hardships experienced by her family during the Great Depression and her father’s serious illness, Peg attended SJC, and after graduating in 1932, remained on campus, living in the White House, and teaching Latin and French. She returned to Pottsville after her father died and, on a teacher’s salary in the 1930s, became the sole support of her family.

In Pottsville, she reconnected with a high school friend, Lt. John V. Gaughan, whom she married in 1945 upon his discharge from the armed forces. They moved to Washington, DC, where her husband, a graduate of Villanova University, attended George Washington University Law School at night and drove a taxi during the day. After John finished law school, the family, which by then included a son, John, and a daughter, Mimi, moved to Anchorage, AK, where Peg taught at Chugach Elementary School and her husband was an attorney with the Alaska Territorial Housing Administration.

In the early 1950’s the Gaughans settled in Silver Spring, MD, and Peg taught at the Highland View Elementary School until her retirement in 1973. She traveled extensively and remained active in her community and other organizations well into her 90s. For 20 years, Peg volunteered in the Correspondence Unit at the White House, where she addressed envelopes for Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. She also served at the Army Community Services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, manning the information desk, and the Widowed Persons Services for Montgomery County. She attended Bible study weekly and taught English to neighborhood immigrant children through Highland View School.

Peg was devoted to St. Joseph College, her classmates, and our Alumnae Association, serving for more than 50 years as class secretary or an SJCAA Board Member. She was named the first Board Member Emerita in 2004. Peg was also our long-time representative to the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae (IFCA), a group founded in the early 1900s by two SJC women.

Peg was preceded in death by her husband in 1977 and their infant daughter Catherine. She was also predeceased by her brothers Charles, Louis, Richard, Robert and Thomas Portland.  She is survived by her son John Gaughan and his wife Janelle of Bethesda, MD and Bethany Beach, DE, her daughter Mary Ann (Mimi) Gaughan of Silver Spring, MD, and her sisters, Marie Pramuk of Manasquan, NJ and Georgene O'Donnell of Pottstown, PA, and many nieces, nephews and loving friends.  Peg’s remains will be interred with those of her husband and daughter at Arlington National Cemetery.

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