Margaret Maygray Essres

Born October 13 1931 in Denver, CO. She was proud to be a Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Sister-in-law, Aunt, Mother-in-law and God Mother. She raised her family in Littleton and Castle Rock and lived near Hudson, CO when she passed away on September 23 2013 from Aspiration after surgery.

She was a daughter of Robert Andrew Gray (father) and Jane Nellie Millar Gray (mother). A sister to Jack Andrew Gray of Denver, CO, Robert Donald Gray, Billie Gene Gray, Bobbetta Jane Gray Merrill of Clearlake CA, and Richard M. Gray and Barbara Elizabeth Gray Otto. Wife of Theodore Essres. A Mother of two kids 48 year old Jane Robin Essres Miller (the perfect child) and 43 year old George Andrew Essres (the preferred child). The perfect child and preferred is a joke between us kids she loved both of us equally (I had to add that so George felt better). Nothing but a little laughter to help you get through a time like this. Mother-in-law of Alex David Miller and Grammy to two wonderful grandchildren, 12 year old Megan Viktoria Miller and 3 year old Wyatt Alex Miller.

A memorial will be held on October 13, 2013 from 1pm to 5pm at Camden Lakeway, 7355 W Grant Ranch Blvd, Lakewood, CO 80123; food and drinks will be provided.
Please do not send flowers. Donations in memory of Margaret May Gray Essres may be made to the Weld County 4H Ceramic program, 525 N 15th Ave Greeley, CO 80631. Please note Cermaics/Memory of Margaret G Essres. Thank you from Margaret's family.

Mom was a very strong and patient person. She loved to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chocolate, sweets, Alex's green chili and was the "BEST" bunny rabbit shaped Grammy delicious pancake maker ever. She liked to swim, sit in the hot tube, golf, bowl, spending time gardening and building rock gardens, daylilies and shrubs, mowing the lawn and watering it the old way by using a sprinkler and moving it every 20 minutes. She was known for shoveling snow in her bare feet and her favorite shoes that she wore 365 days a year no matter the weather or temperature were a pair of Birkenstak sandals. Anyone that has experienced fall time in Colorado would know why she thoroughly enjoyed when the leaves changed colors and then when summer came back looked forward to watching everything turn green and start growing. She enjoyed doing ceramics especially with her grandkids. (Mom's specialty was ceramic Christmas trees, which if a person was lucky enough, would receive one for Christmas). She enjoyed coming out of her room in the morning telling her grandchildren "Good morning sunshine" and enjoying them replying "Good morning sunshine", signing LOVE in sign language, sitting on the back deck drinking coffee in the morning and sitting on the front porch feeding the chickens bread during the day and most of all helping raise and adoring her grandchildren every day. Her favorite color was blue and her favorite singer was Kenny Rogers, her favorite TV show NCIS and her favorite holiday was Christmas (she always made it very special for everyone). She said that the best thing in her life was her kids.

We grew up with Mom's unique and loud whistle that we would hear from blocks away, no matter where we were, once we heard the whistle we knew it was time to head home. The funniest time that she whistled was when we got separated in a busy casino in Las Vegas. It was amazing how two adults would stop and realize that whistle was Mom's.

Mom attended and graduated from East High School which is still open today. She talked about her swimming in high school and was so good at swimming that she qualified to go to the Olympics one year when she was younger but because it cost too much to go she was unable to; to us it was cool enough that she could have gone. She also spoke of the air rifle team and the awards that she received. She learned how to do short hand (it is a old school way of taking notes fast while using word abbreviations) it was fun to watch her take notes.

Mom worked at Martin Marietta as an Executive Secretary during the Titan mission time frame and is where she met her husband Theodore "Ted" Essres (who passed away on Christmas night in 1999). After leaving Martin Marietta she went to help Dad with the family Real Estate business "Essres and Company" started in 1964. She was truly a Margaret of all trades. She helped with the liquor store and restaurant as well. She was the bookkeeper, secretary, and even though she never got her real estate license we always joked that she knew more about the real estate business than Dad.

To say that she enjoyed swimming would be a major understatement. It was one of her passions. It worked out well for us kids and our friends because we grew up with built in ground pool in our backyard. It was always strange to us when friends or relatives could not swim because we were raised as tadpoles it seemed and we thought everyone knew how to swim. Mom and Dad purchased a house boat time share on the RX9. We went to Lake Powell several times a year. September being Mom's favorite time to go and her favorite spot to go was "77 Sunset Strip" as she called it. It was at Buoy 77 at Lake Powell. She also helped both of her grandchildren start swimming.

Growing up Mom enjoyed her son's baseball and football years. She was the Mom in charge of bringing gallon's of Margarita's every week to the Dolphin football games for her and other parents to enjoy. One of the memorable moments for her son was that for football practice at home she would punt the football to him to practice catching, this was done with a regular leather football being kicked by her barefoot, that is one tough foot and woman. She got thrown out of one of George's baseball games for yelling at the umpire about what she thought was a call. Lesson somewhat learned, many years later while watching her Granddaughters volleyball game she was the first one to remind everyone to keep their mouths shut.

She was a great horse show Mom and traveled all over with her daughter. She did the 4H ceramic project with her granddaughter Megan for the last 3 years and was very proud when their project this year won Champion at Weld County Fair and Reserve Grand Champion at the Southeast Weld County Fair. She was very proud when Megan received her first trophy for their ceramic project. She taught Wyatt her grandson how to ride his bike without the training wheels. It was in the house and she was sitting in her chair holding on to the back of the bike and getting his feet in the right spot to ride. Then she would let him go and he would ride it across the room.

To say the least there are many things about our Mom that now as we reflect back we could keep going on about and how we were very lucky to have her as our Mom but that would be a very long novel. We are extremely blessed to have her as our Mom and as the previous stories tell she was a big part of her children's and grandchildren's everyday lives and is greatly missed.
I will finish this with this which I happened to find in Mom's file of important papers. It leaves me wondering who really left such a true statement of what happened in the last 2 weeks of our Mom's life in a file that I knew that I had to look into if something was to happen to Mom.

GOD SAW YOU GETTING TIRED
AND A CURE WAS NOT TO BE,
SO HE PUT HIS ARMS AROUND YOU
AND WHISPERED "COME WITH ME."
WITH TEARFUL EYES WE WATCHED YOU
SUFFER AND FALL AWAY
ALTHOUGH WE COULDN'T BEAR TO LOSE YOU
WE COULD NOT ASK YOU TO STAY.
A GOLDEN HEART STOPPED BEATING,
HARDWORKING HANDS WERE LAID TO REST,
GOD BROKE OUR HEARTS TO PROVE TO US
THAT HE ONLY TAKES THE BEST

God Bless you all and Thanks to all the people that help us get through this very difficult time in our lives.
Love you all