Margaret S. Howland

Margaret S. Howland, formerly of Newport Beach, died Aug. 9 in her apartment at an assisted-living facility in Hillsboro, Ore. She was 89.
Margaret was born in Santa Ana, Calif., to Frank Asa Snyder and Gertrude Loomis Snyder, who both originally were from South Dakota. The family moved to Pasadena when Margaret was a baby. She grew up during the Great Depression. Her father, a grocery clerk, died when Margaret was a young girl.
She attended Pasadena City College for two years and then majored in home economics at Oregon State University in Corvallis. A year after graduation, in 1944 during World War II, she married Warren Howland in Corvallis. They had met in junior high school.
She taught home economics in high school near Pasadena before starting a family. She raised five children. The family eventually settled in Newport Beach. Warren became a general contractor and developer. Warren and Margaret were partners with three other couples in the development of Rancho Santa Barbara, a 334-space mobile home park.
In her early 50s, Margaret became passionate about bicycling. She joined a bicycling club and went on tours with the club. Unhappy with dissension within the club, she started her own club, which grew to more than 700 members. With these clubs, she toured Ireland, England, southern France, Vermont and Florida on bicycle. She also wrote and published a booklet, “Bikers’ Paradise: A Bicycling Guide of the Newport Harbor Area,” illustrated by her daughter Peggy. She served briefly on a city bicycling commission.
Following a bicycle accident in Florida in which she severely injured a shoulder, Margaret gave up bicycling and driving. She continued to play bridge with friends and developed a new interest in watching movies on video tape. Later, as her eyesight failed, she enjoyed listening to books on tape. She moved from her condominium in the East Bluff neighborhood to Newport Beach Plaza, a retirement community on Superior Avenue. Later she moved to Rosewood Park, an assisted-living facility in Hillsboro, in 2001.
She is survived by children Jane Schock and Peggy Hobbie, both of Newport Beach, Lynn Krupa of Oregon, Richard Howland of Washington State and John Howland of Arizona; grandchildren Anne Schupak, David Schock, Scott and Todd Krupa, Molly Duran, Michael, Jeffery and Olivia Howland and Carly Irion; great-grandchildren Riley and Nolan Schupak and Zen Duran, and a sister, Genny Whitney.
A private memorial is planned in September in Portland, Ore.