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Margaret - ‘The German China Woman’ - loved adopted town
SHE was known far and wide as the “German China Woman” after she came to live in Drogheda from Hamburg and set up a successful China business that spanned more than four decades.
But when she passed away last year, Margaret Weber Hoey said she wanted
“no fuss” and chose to have a small and private funeral with very few people even realising she had died.
Her funeral arrangements, which she organised herself, was her last wish that brought the curtain down on her colourful and eventful life.
Mrs Hoey, 76, established herself as a hard-working business woman who pulled no punches during her 40 years in Drogheda.
Married to the late Dr. Andrew Hoey from Drogheda, the couple settled in Drybridge in a home they enjoyed together for many years.
It’s a year since Margaret the “German China Woman” lost her battle with cancer and passed away in the Louth County Hospital.
Speaking before her death, Margaret, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in October 2016, said she would have “given anything to live just one more year”.
She said: “I just want one more year, I have a couple of things I want to do and I would like another year now that I have been given a short term left to live”.
Margaret did in fact defy all odds and almost lived a full year before eventually succumbing to cancer on 17th July 2017.
She fought a tough battle but successfully fulfilled most of her wishes before she passed away.
Born in Hamburg in 1940, Margaret’s childhood was surrounded by the affects of World War II - her late father was part of the German army.
She often spoke about her tough home life in Hamburg and recalled how she was terrified of her father Edmund who was often physically violent towards her.
Her memories of her late mother Edith who died from cancer when Margaret was 8, were something she often reflected on.
Before she died she gave a recorded interview of her life and said: “I had a horrible childhood. I never felt love and I always felt the world was a horrible place. I really don’t know what life is all about. I worked so hard my whole life, I never understood why I never had peace.
“I probably did suffer with depression but I never believed in psychiatry and that is why I never did anything about it. I don’t believe in god and I don’t believe I am going anywhere when I die. But I do wish to see my mother again, who knows.
“I remember seeing my mother dying in the living room sofa, there was no medication, no food, we had absolutely nothing, we were starving and we were freezing. My mother had a terrible death you know. The poor woman she was only young too, she didn’t deserve that but in those days and with the war there was no pain relief. My god she suffered.”
Margaret recalled how her father re-married a year after her mother’s death and she struggled to have a good relationship with her step mother.
“I never liked the woman, she knew it and I knew it. Me and my brothers and sister we just wanted to leave”.
She recalled how the difficulties in her relationship resulted in regular arguments with her father and he often made her sleep in a car when she was just 14.
“I hated my father” she said openly. “If there is a hell I expect he is there, but my mother will be in heaven”.
Margaret had little or not contact with her family in Germany and according to her great grandniece, Vanessa, this was a common trait in their family.
She said: “Many of my family went out in to the world and never came back, I tried to have some sort of relationship with Margaret. I know she had a very hard life and I hope wherever she is she is at peace now. I feel very sad that she’s gone”.
But ever the resilient woman, Margaret pressed on with hopes of leaving her childhood life and Germany for good.
During her teenage years, she was trained by a Baroness in Germany in domestic work and after her father refused to let her move to Australia, she decided to go to London instead.
While there, she began to work for Dr. Andrew Hoey’s mother as a Housekeeper until he decided to move back to his hometown of Drogheda.
“He asked me if I wanted to go with me and I said I would” she said. “We were friends for many years. Andrew was a gentleman, a kind man who cared for me so well. In the end we married”.
Dr. Hoey and Margaret moved to Drybridge on the Slane Road and he helped her set up her China business.
She first opened a shop in West End Gate before operating her business from her home. Margaret soon fell in love with her work.
“My china was the only thing that made me happy. Everyone knew me as The German China Woman, it just stuck. Everyone knew me” she said at the time of her death. “I loved picking the colours and designing my plates and cups and crockery. It was wonderful. It was such an exciting thing for me to do. I loved every minute of it. I knew everything there was to know about the China business. Putting those designs together made me very happy.
“It was very hard work, I had to carry so many heavy boxes, moving crockery and unpacking it. I would go to London and see my plates and cups when they were just white and plain. Then I would see in my head what design I wanted and I would order my colours and paints.
“I loved to see the finished design and I loved to see the work being finished. My home was so important because I kept all my things close to my heart”.
After Dr Hoey’s death in the nineties, Margaret carried on with her work and was a regular face at auctions around the area.
She became friends with local auctioneers Oliver Usher, Lev Mitchell and Joe Lennon and enjoyed every minute of the auctions.
Drogheda became Margaret’s home and one of her final wishes included walking across West Street for the last time and to enjoy a cup of coffee in the Esquires – which she did.
Speaking in the café she said “I just wanted to sit here and look out at West Street and the people passing. This was my life for so long and now I’m dying. The world just carries on and we forget the dying”.
Not one for ever failing to pay her bills, Margaret wanted to make sure the Irish government knew she was a woman who “always paid her taxes”.
Comparing Ireland to Germany she said: “The Germans came through a war and the worst kind of poverty only to rise up and make things happen. Things are so much better there, the infrastructure and getting things done. The Irish Government has a lot to learn and I don’t believe they look after their people properly”.
Offering advice to the young people of today Margaret said: “Go out and work, work hard, achieve your goals, no one will ever hand you anything on a plate. Don’t be lazy, it doesn’t matter where you come from, you can achieve anything if you work hard. Too many people fall into a hole of not wanting to succeed or make something of their life, but you’ve got to go out and do it yourself. I came from the gutter, I came from nothing I had the worst childhood. I was starving. I succeeded and so can you”.
Margaret wanted to thank her friends and great grandniece in Germany and former business colleagues for all their support and kindness over the years.
Special thanks goes to Paddy Townley Undertakers for their compassion, patience and understanding, and to St. Luke’s Hospital in Rathgar, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and to all the staff in Louth County Hospital – who cared for Margaret in her final year.