Margaret M. "Marge" Cannington, a retired secretary and avid boater and dancer, died of Alzheimer's disease May 15 at an assisted-living facility in Jennersville, Pa. The former longtime Gardenville resident was 88.
Margaret Mary Tenley was born in Baltimore and raised on Washington Street. After graduating from Eastern High School in 1939, she went to work as a secretary at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River.
Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was married to Gordon Eugene "Ken" Cannington, a Marine.
During World War II, Mrs. Cannington continued working at Martin. After the war, the couple moved to Dundalk and then to Gardenville.
In 1955, Mrs. Cannington returned to work when she became a secretary at Western Electric Corp.'s Point Breeze plant. She retired in 1983.
"She had a reputation for being a blazing-fast typist," said a daughter, Mary Jane Becker of Landenberg, Pa.
Mrs. Cannington enjoyed dancing and was "given to springing to her feet and dancing any time the music started," Mrs. Becker said.
She also enjoyed entertaining aboard boats that her husband constructed or rebuilt.
Her husband of 47 years, who was a retired Western Electric Corp. auto mechanic, died in 1988.
Mrs. Cannington, who had lived in Jennersville since 2003, was a former parishioner of St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church on Frankford Avenue.
A funeral Mass was offered Tuesday at St. Gabriel Roman Catholic Church in Avondale, Pa.
Also surviving are another daughter, Regina C. Gadd of Havre de Grace; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
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