Margaret Virginia Davis was born in 1924 in Alma, Michigan, the daughter of Earl Bennett and Laura Lenora (Elliott) Davis. In 1930, Earl, Laura and their children Don, Max, Madeline and Margaret were living in Alma, Gratiot County, Michigan, where Earl was working in retail sales. Margaret was in the National Honor Society at Alma High School in 1939, according to the school’s Panther Tales yearbook. The 1940 census located the Davis family still residing in Alma. Earl reported he was in retail sales promotion. In 1942, Margaret was a freshman student at Alma College in Alma, Michigan. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology at Alma College. Margaret was married in 1947 in Wayne County, Michigan to Lawrence Eugene Handren, a native of Massachusetts. Margaret’s father, Earl Davis, died in 1948.
Lawrence, Margaret, their daughter Heidi, and Margaret’s mother Laura Davis were living together in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan when the census was taken in 1950. Lawrence was a public accountant with an accounting firm, and Margaret was housekeeping. Margaret’s mother, Laura Davis, passed away in 1961. Then, in 1965, Margaret’s husband died, leaving her a widow when she was still quite young.
Detroit Free Press, 3 May 1965: “Lawrence E. Handren. Services for Mr. Handren, a certified public accountant and partner in the Detroit office of Arthur Young & Co., will be at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at St. James Episcopal Church in Birmingham. Burial will be in White Chapel Memorial Cemetery. Mr. Handren, 45, of 1688 Mark Hopkins, Bloomfield Hills, died Saturday night at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. A native of Lynn, Mass., Mr. Handren was an Air Force veteran of World War II and a 1948 graduate of the University of Michigan School of Business Education. He was a member of the St. James Episcopal Church, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Michigan Institute of CPAs, National Society of Cooperative Accountants, Recess Club, Oakland Hills Country Club, and University of Michigan Alumni Club. Survivors include his wife, Margaret D. Handren; a daughter, Heidi; two sons, Kirk and Gregory; his mother, Alice Sharpe Handren; his stepmother, Mrs. Arthur V. Handren; and one brother, Arthur V. Handren Jr., of Bay Village, O.”
Mrs. Handren was listed as a teacher and the junior class advisor at Avondale High School in 1978. I don’t know for certain that year was when she began teaching. Margaret gained a Master of Education degree in Guidance and Educational Psychology from Wayne State University, sometime before 1988. When I met her in the fall of 1988, she was my Biology II: Anatomy and Physiology teacher in my sophomore year. She was about sixty-four years old, and she retired at the end of the following school year. She was smart and kind, and she was tired. Our teachers, almost entirely Boomers, rarely shared anything of their personal lives with us, and she, too, subscribed to that philosophy. She didn’t talk about her children; we didn’t know she was a widow; she didn’t show emotions in the classroom. It might not have helped. Given that Biology II was not a required course to graduate, and our class was mainly made up of college-bound kids - serious students - she didn’t have any discipline problems with us; but most other groups would have run right over her. I remember very little of what I must have learned in her class – doubtless because I could not imagine that in just six years I would be teaching some of the same material myself.
Mrs. Handren knew and understood the material well, conveyed it clearly and took us through the same curriculum she must have been teaching for more than ten years, but none of it stands out to me. Except one thing – which wasn’t curriculum-related at all. She had obtained a VHS copy of The Princess Bride (released in theatres the year before) and took two days out of our class to show the whole movie. Since then, I have seen the movie probably fifty or more times…but that was the first. I did think it was silly to watch this movie – which clearly had nothing to do with Biology – when I could have been doing something way more productive. (Even then, I was obsessed with efficient use of my time, and I was super overscheduled as a teenager.) But watch it I did, and I fell in love with that movie in that classroom and it has been my favorite film my whole adult life. There were multiple jokes I didn’t get for many years, and I didn’t recognize any of the actors who would grow to be iconic faces on our screens, but I loved that story from the first time I saw it in a dim but not dark classroom, shown on a TV on a cart in the front of the room behind the lab counter. I can’t think of any reason for Mrs. Handren to show it, other than that she must have loved it herself, which speaks to me more highly of her than any educational accolades she might have received.
Detroit Free Press, 5 November 2009: “Handren, Margaret D. October 10, 2009. Age 85. Beloved wife of the late Lawrence. Dear mother of Heidi (James), Kirk (Linda) and Greg. Grandmother of Chelsea, Spencer, and Courtney. Sister of the late Madeline, Max (Alice), and Don (Lois). Memorial service Saturday, November 7, at 1:30 p.m. at St. James Church, 335 W. Maple, Birmingham, MI 48009. Memorial contributions suggested to Alma College.”
Rest in peace, Mrs. Handren. As you wish.
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