Margaret A. Targett M’98

Source: https://www.rutlandherald.com/obituaries/margaret-ann-dicesare-targett/article_0dc6a467-3819-5728-9495-bb3ae01fa3f1.html

Margaret Ann (DiCesare) Targett HAINES CITY, Fla. — Margaret Ann (DiCesare) Targett, 71, passed away peacefully at her home in Haines City, Florida, Sept. 26, 2020, following a long illness. She was educated in Vermont at Christ the King elementary school, Mount St. Joseph Academy, Castleton State College (B.S. Nursing) and Saint Michael’s College, Rutland Extension, (M.P.A). She was the youngest child of Tony DiCesare, an Italian immigrant U.S. Navy serviceman and then carpenter, and Georgia Stapler. They predeceased her, along with her beloved siblings, Francis “Fred” DiCesare and Joyce Hardy. Ann’s three defining character traits were sensitivity, loyalty and creativity. At MSJ, she was an actress and the editor of the yearbook her senior year, class of ‘67. There, she made two friends who were fellow book enthusiasts, Chris Anderson and Marcia Candon, and the three remained close throughout their lives. Approaching graduation from Castleton, she met William P. Anderson at a dance and fell in love with him. He was already committed by then to a Peace Corps posting in Ethiopia but she was undeterred and followed him there after she graduated. A strong-willed, lifelong feminist, she worked in a hospital in Addis Ababa while he vaccinated villagers in the countryside. Once when he was off in the bush, she hitchhiked approximately 900 miles to Nairobi, Kenya, to sightsee – 5’1”, 105 pounds were just numbers to her. They were married there with a daughter of Emperor Haile Selassie serving as a guest of honor. Upon repatriation, Ann left nursing to be a mother full time in the mid-1970s. Fiercely loving, with the soul of an artist, she poured herself into her children and art in those years – doll and dollhouse making, needlepoint, quilting, furniture making, folk painting and dress making – and was successful at all of it. The doll making became a successful business that employed several and contributed material financial sustenance following her divorce from Bill in 1993. Her creativity also manifested itself in her talent for growing things, including cannabis before her children were born, vegetables and houseplants when the children were small, and most passionately in her last 15 years, orchids, with approximately 100 surviving her at the time of her passing. On Sept. 30, 2007, she met the love of her life, Terry Targett, and they married the following year. Together, they shared their mutual love of reading and gardening and became an inseparable team. As her health began to decline in 2014, they moved to Florida where Terry took loving care of her up until her death. Ann’s children, Matt Anderson (wife Angela) of Pittsford and Katie Bentley (husband Jeff) of Cambridge, New York, are eternally grateful to Terry for the loving care he gave their mother. Ann also leaves behind four grandchildren whom she lavished with love, books and art trinkets whenever she saw them – Chloe, Isabella, Lillian and Lucie. In lieu of flowers, the family would prefer that mourners buy themselves an orchid in Ann’s honor.