Margaret Susan Sterling

Margaret Susan Sterling

Cedar Rapids

Margaret Susan (Bailey) Sterling, 76, of Cedar Rapids, passed away Saturday, December 7, 2024, at Dennis and Donna Oldorf Hospice House in Hiawatha. As per her wishes, a private family services will be held at a later date.

Margaret was born in a little house outside of Grundy, Viriginia, on April 4th, 1948. There wasn’t a hospital built there until two years later. When she was two, the Bailey family made a trip across the country in a station wagon to live in an old barracks outside Ottumwa, Iowa. She graduated from Ottumwa High School in 1965 and met her husband, Jim. They later married October 8, 1966. As a couple they lived at the Sterling farm in Eddyville and moved to Cedar Rapids in the Spring 1969. They were married for 58 years.

She worked for Square D Company for 37 years. Devoted and always coming home covered in graphite on the work shirts she or her mother made. She was always sewing, loved growing the vegetable garden, canning, feeding anyone coming through the door, and most of all, her grandchildren were the love of her life.

Her family included her husband, Jim, her daughter Elissa (John) and son Eric. Seven grandchildren; Elizabeth, Bailey, Katelynn, Olivia, Sydney, Isabelle, and Brock. Brothers Jim Bob Bailey, of Maryville, Missouri and William Bailey of Mystic, Iowa, brother in-law Jerry (Georgia) Sterling of Mission Viejo, California, along with several nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Paul & Ruth Bailey, a sister Jane Kroupa, two sister’s in-law, Velma Powers and Donna Sereg and a niece, Cathy Deevers.

Memorial donations may be directed to the family.