Margaret Folsom Cleveland
South Portland-Margaret Folsom Cleveland, died early Tuesday evening, August 3, 2021,
under a warm summer sky at Gosnell Hospice House in Scarborough, Maine. She
died from complications brought on by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better
known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Margaret, whom much of the world knew as Muzzy, was born March 10,
1956 in Baltimore, Maryland to Richard Folsom Cleveland and Jessie Maxwell Black Cleveland.
Like all her siblings and her mother, she attended Roland Park Country School in Baltimore,
forming relationships that lasted long after the blue uniforms were hung up. She
attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.
She set off to conquer the world starting in Cambridge, Massachusetts as office
manager for the NBC Boston bureau, where she tackled everything from
finding dry cleaning for reporters to attending a G7 Conference in Ottawa.
Muzzy chose a career path that always challenged her, often by challenging
others. She was a writer, an editor, a personal coach and developed a coaching
program for ADHD. She worked in HR at Martin’s Point Health Care in Maine
assisting in structural and systems organization to benefit customers. She was
an adept facilitator for the University of Southern Maine. At the end of her
working days, she was working with the Fedcap Group helping those with non-
traditional learning abilities, a wide ranging undertaking in which she
prospered.
For years Muzzy helped steer the Portland YWCA, and she spent many years
on the board of her beloved Barnstormers Theatre in Tamworth, NH, only
recently stepping down as board chair.
Muzzy was the youngest granddaughter of former President Grover Cleveland
and Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston. She enjoyed traveling the country
speaking about her grandmother’s life as well as the life of her great aunt Rose
Cleveland, author, scholar and White House hostess during the first half of
President Cleveland’s first term. She loved learning and she loved sharing what
she learned. Through her illness, she would remind her visitors that “life is a terminal
diagnosis”. On particularly challenging days, she would say, “I’m just diving for
pearls”; that sometimes we need to swim through the murky depths to find the
pearl at the bottom. Muzzy wasn’t afraid to face the end, but she loved being
alive.
Muzzy loved fiercely, she loved her family. She loved her friends and she loved
being a friend. She loved fairness, stories, swimming at Bearcamp, justice,
chocolate chip cookies, peepers, BLTs at The Other Store, owls, giraffes,
chocolate mint chip ice cream, rain, singing, theater, poetry and all kitties.
Muzzy leaves her sons, Alex Lyscars and his wife, Samantha Galligan of
Portland, Maine; Jake Lyscars and his partner Nicole Colby of Saco, Maine; her
sister, Frances Cleveland and her husband, Christopher Igleheart, of Portland, Oregon;
her brother, George Cleveland of Tamworth, NH. She also leaves her
companion, Howard Trask of Tamworth and her former husband, Alan Lyscars
of Manchester, NH. Also, many loved nieces and nephews, great nieces and
nephews and great, great nieces and nephews. Muzzy was predeceased by her
maternal grandparents, Captain George C. Black and Jessie Maxwell Black of
Baltimore; her parents and three siblings, Ann Cleveland Robertson, Thomas
G. Cleveland and Charlotte Cleveland Look. Her much loved cats, Bama and
Pepe, are now torturing the humans in the new homes they have chosen.
A Celebration of Muzzy’s life will be held at The Barnstormers Theatre in
Tamworth, NH at noon on Sunday, August 29th. If you wish, donations may be
made in Muzzy’s name to The Barnstormers Theatre, P.O. Box 434, Tamworth,
NH 03886 or via~www.barnstormerstheatre.org
Online condolences may be expressed below.
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