Margaret Chafin
Margaret Ann Knox Chafin breathed her last breath on Sunday morning, March 26, 2023, at the age of 93, just three years and three days after her husband, Billy Chafin passed to a much better life.
Born Margaret Ann Knox to Robert Peter (Pete) Knox and Mary Ethel Patton Knox in the early hours of June 12, 1929, just a short time before the world entered the great depression in November of that year.
She was born in a small house just across the street on the south side of West Clayton Street across from what is now Hugo Middle School, while her father (Pete) was building the home where she and her sister, Patsy Ruth Knox Payne Leonard grew up and her parents lived out their lives (across from Roma Restaurant on West Jackson St.).
She met the love of her life, (Billy Chafin) at the bicycle rack of the same junior high school across from her birth place. In her senior year she was elected Hugo High School’s Football Queen.
She attended College at Oklahoma A&M for a few years (now Oklahoma State University) before she and Billy Chafin married on Aug. 4, 1950 when he was put on active duty and sent to Camp Polk in Louisiana, before shipping off to Korea.
Her first child, John was born just a few months before Billy returned from Korea. They moved to Borger, Texas, where Margaret and Billy built their first home themselves (literally), and she was up on the roof nailing on shingles just before a huge dust storm only a few months before she gave birth to her first daughter (Ann) in 1954. After deciding to further their education on the GI Bill, Margaret and Billy moved back to Stillwater to finish school and she gave birth to her second daughter (Cindy) in 1956.
After graduating in 1958, Margaret and Billy moved to Cushing, Okla., and Margaret gave birth to her youngest son (Scott) in 1959. Margaret was a stay-at-home mom while living in Tulsa, Salt Lake City, and the greater Saint Louis area (across the Mississippi River in east Alton, on the Illinois side).
When the family moved to Arlington, Texas, in 1969, she decided to teach school where she had the time of her life teaching and keeping up with two classes of kindergarteners per day until she retired in 1994, and then spent the next 10 years volunteering to help her best friend teach kindergarten. She loved teaching and she loved those kindergarteners and it showed when one year she was voted Teacher of the Year for the Arlington School District.
She loved to go to church and was a lifetime member of the Church of Christ She taught Sunday school for most of her life until moving back to Hugo in 2005.
After returning to Hugo, she read books to kids during the summer break library programs for kids, and was active in the conservative movement until her death.
Margaret also loved to swim and would swim weekly while in Arlington, and then in Paris any time she could after moving back to Hugo.
She loved westerns, especially “Gunsmoke” and watched it weekly before it went into reruns, then watched them too, right up to the last.
Margaret is survived by her son, John Chafin and daughter, Cindy Chafin of Hugo; daughter, Ann and husband, Brooks Stratton (West Virginia); son, Scott Chafin and Pam (south of Raton, N.M.); grandsons: Eric and wife and Joshua Stratton and wife (West Virginia); granddaughters: Jordan Hamon and husband (Houston area) and Erica Davis and husband (Richardson, Texas); great-granddaughters: Haley Hutchison, Sierra Bragg and husband (West Virginia); three great-granddaughters from Jordan Hamon (Houston area); great-grandson and great-granddaughter from Erica Davis (Richardson, Texas); great-grandsons: Dustin Stratton and Seth Stratton and wife (West Virginia), Austin Stratton (deceased), one step great-grandson, Tyler Stratton, West Virginia; and step great-granddaughters: Sandy and Jennifer Mills (West Virginia); two great-great-granddaughters: Aspen Spearing and Chessie Bragg (West Virginia); and two step great-great-granddaughters: Leanna and Zhara (West Virginia); nephews: Joe Braudrick (Hugo), Bob Payne and wife (Farmerville, Texas); nieces: Patti McFadden and husband (Paris, Texas), Judy Bevins and husband (both deceased); grandnephews: Bradley, Tim and Brian Bevins and wife (Perry, Okla.); great grand-nephew, David Payne (Farmerville, Texas); great-granddaughters: Marissa Bevins (Perry, Okla.), Stephanie Murtz and husband and Allison Kennedy and husband; great-great-granddaughters: Grace and Elizabeth; great-great-grandsons: Eli, Isaac, Sam and Aiden, and thousands of adopted children as she taught them over the years; and many, many good friends.
Family visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 31, 2023 at Miller & Miller on East Jackson St.
Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 1, 2023 at the 4th & Jackson St. Church of Christ in Hugo, followed by an informal graveside at the cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, contributions to: “4th & Jackson Church of Christ” with reference to Pre-School Dept. to support projects for the kids she so dearly loved to teach. Mail to: PO Box 549, Hugo, OK 74743.
Interment will follow the service at Mt. Olivet Cemetery with Ricky McFadden officiating, under the direction of Miller & Miller Funeral Home.
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