Margaret S. Hardy

Margaret S. Hardy, known to all as Muggie, passed away on June 7th at the age of 95, after 72 years of joyful married life. She was born on December 7th 1923 in Charleston, West Virginia to Daniel Wilkin Stubblefield and Frances Ogden Stubblefield. Muggie attended public school in Charleston and prep school at the Shipley School in Philadelphia.

During her freshman year at Vassar Muggie was chosen Queen of the West Virginia Forest Festival, an annual honor still awarded today. She was also chosen Cherry Blossom Queen for West Virginia. Her college career at Vassar, where she majored in chemistry, was reduced to two years by the start of World War II. Instead of continuing her academic career, she took a job at the Du Pont Experimental Station in Wilmington Delaware to be part of the war effort, working on incendiary devices. Here she met and later married John Van Etten Hardy, a Princeton chemical engineer, in an Episcopalian service conducted by the same Bishop that married Muggie’s parents. Muggie and John have both been lifelong Episcopalians.

Thus began a career raising four children as she and John were moved by Du Pont in the 1950s first to Texas and then to various locations in West Virginia before moving briefly back to Delaware. In 1960, DuPont moved John to head up a DuPont-Mitsui joint venture. So Muggie packed up the children and flew to Tokyo where John had started plant design work. One benefit of Tokyo residency included membership in the Tokyo Tennis Club where Muggie had frequent games with Mr. Mikimoto of pearl fame. She fell in love with the history and culture of Japan, resulting in her building a collection of Japanese art, including a screen painted in the 1600s. In 1963, Muggie completed the round-the-world tour by leading the children through Asia and the Middle East while John was busy in India, ending with two weeks in Ireland before returning home to Delaware.

A few years later, John retired from Du Pont, and Muggie and John moved to the Carolinas where there was plenty of golf and tennis. Over the next few years, they participated in a series of international social golf tournaments with competitions at golf clubs on every continent except Antarctica. At an event in Singapore, one of Muggie’s golf opponents was the King of Malaysia¬, for which the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore advised Muggie to be generous in giving golf puts to the King.

Several years later Muggie and John participated in archaeological digs in Minorca, Argentina and northern Peru and trekked to the base of Annapurna III in the Western Himalayas, the world’s fifth highest mountain. She was helped over areas of difficult terrain by Nima Tenzing, the famous Everest Sherpa. After stays in Vail, Colorado and Maui, Hawai the senior Hardys retired to Florida with a summer cottage in West Virginia.

Muggie throughout her life was an avid reader of history and biographies and lover of the English language; it sustained her and enriched her life and that of all around her.

Muggie is survived by daughter Margaret Ogden and sons William Harris Hardy and John Van Etten Hardy Jr. Daughter Frances predeceased her mother. She has three grandsons, John Hardy III, McEwen C-T Hardy, and Dr. William Harris Hardy IV.

So here’s to Muggie; a wonderful mother, a golfer, skier, and tennis player who raised four wonderful children. She brightened the lives of her many friends and brought 72 years of pride and affection to her husband.