Keeping the memory of Margery Magill alive
Family and friends plan to make sure that the memory of Margery Magill lives on.
The Yuba-sutter native was murdered in August while walking a dog in Washington, D.C. A memorial is planned for Oct. 19 in Yuba City.
“The fact that she’s reached so many more people than you realized and, at 27 years old, is amazing,” said Bonnie Magill, her mother. “Because of her travels and the fact that she’s stayed in touch with all these people internationally, we got calls from India and London and got cards from all over the world.”
Traveling abroad and moving frequently made it difficult for Margery to keep a dog, so she helped others when she could by walking their dogs as a second job wherever she lived.
“That was her thing – she always loved dogs and working with them even at a young age when she was working with seeing eye dogs,” Bonnie Magill said. “She even walked the lab of Prince Harry and the beagle of Meghan Markle together but she couldn’t say or post anything about it because of secu
rity.”
Her father, Jeff Magill, since his daughter’s murder, has been writing about the importance of mental health funding and awareness and has received attention from and some traction with state and federal elected leaders.
“She was my darling daughter. My first daughter. She was the daughter any dad would love to have,” Jeff Magill wrote in a letter. “I miss her so much and decided that my crusade would be to change the mental health system. If the person who killed her had had help, maybe this would have never happened.”
Bonnie Magill said her husband’s letter has been well-received by U.S. Reps. John Garamendi and Doug Lamalfa, Assemblyman James Gallagher and state Sen. Jim Nielsen.
“He’s been writing and writing and that’s been helping,” she said. “This campaign is going to be his passion – he wants to change the laws and legislation and Garamendi,
Lamalfa, Gallagher and Nielsen are all for it and supporting him.”
Magill said some of the elected leaders are scheduled to attend her daughter’s memorial service.
The family is asking that attendees wear purple outfits, dog-themed clothes or converse shoes.
“Purple has always been her favorite color but it had to be the right shade of purple and all her linens in college were purple. When I retrieved her things from college, she still had the purple monogrammed towels with her initials on them,” she said. “Her room at home is painted purple, the clothes she wore were purple. She had Carhartt
overalls and a jacket that she used to get up and feed the goats with when it was raining and those were purple too.”
Another item Magill found was a blouse with a pattern of a woman walking dogs that she said was emblematic of her daughter’s passion for dogs.
“She always wore Converse tennis shoes as well,” she said. “There are pictures of her on Facebook and she might have a nice dress on at an event and she still has Converse shoes on.”
There are several ways the Magills are encouraging people to help keep the memory of Margery alive: the U.C. Davis Arboretum Tribute Fund, donations
for a Yuba-sutter area scholarship fund (through Mechanics Bank), a donation to the National FFA Center, donations to an animal shelter; or a loan to a woman entrepreneur in a third world country.
“In her international relations masters program, there were 30 people and only two were American, including her,” Bonnie Magill said. “It wasn’t typical because they went to five different countries, lived with the people, specifically the indigenous people, studied the economies and problems of these countries and tried to help.”
Magill said her daughter slept on goat hides with the Maasai in Africa and got sick, but wasn’t deterred.
“Most people go to New Zealand to see the flora and fauna, but they stayed with the indigenous tribes – that was the uniqueness to their trips and her studies,” she said. “All of her fellow students were all similar and desired to travel the world and see what they could do for the world.”