Marguerite d’Autremont Gerry Rowland
Marguerite d’Autremont Gerry Rowland
November 22, 1917 — September 18, 2017
Marguerite d’Autremont Gerry Rowland, 99, passed away on Sept. 18, 2017, six weeks shy of her 100th birthday. She was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, on Nov. 2, 1917, to Marie d’Autremont and Alex LeRoy Gerry. She spent her childhood years in Duluth and attended Pine Manor Junior College, graduating from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1939. In the late 1930s, the family moved to the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where Margot met her future husband, Robert A. Rowland Jr. (Bob). They married on Sept. 14, 1940, and settled in McAllen, Texas. Margot worked for many years as a public school teacher while Bob and his brother Joe developed properties and built subdivisions in and around the Valley. In later years they developed resort properties and built homes on Lake Travis and other Highland Lakes in Central Texas around Austin and Marble Falls. They raised three children together. After retiring, Margot and Bob spent many years traveling the United States and many parts of Europe and Latin America. After Bob’s death in 1989, Margot continued to live in their home in Marble Falls, moving in 2002 to a retirement center in San Antonio, where she lived happily until 2016, participating in art classes, water aerobics and showing off her line dancing abilities at Friday’s Happy Hour! She passed away peacefully in her extended care home in New Braunfels.
Margot was predeceased by her beloved husband and parents; her sister, Katy Bardwell of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and her brother, Elbridge Gerry of Rockford, Illinois. She is survived by her son, Robert A. Rowland III and his wife, Wick, of Cat Spring, Texas; her daughter, Gerry Rowland Rackley and her husband, Jim, of La Vernia, Texas, and her daughter Mari Margot Rowland Turner and her husband, Duke, of Granite Shoals, Texas. She is also survived by eight grandchildren and step-grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren, many nieces and nephews, and her brother-in-law, Dr. Stanley Bardwell and sister-in-law, Barbara Eisner Gerry.
A gathering of family and friends celebrating Margot’s wonderful life will be held at a future date. She is greatly missed.
