Margaret Ashelman

On Saturday morning, November 28, 2015, just shy of her 99th birthday, Margaret Peter Ashelman of Fairfield, Iowa passed peacefully and gracefully from this life.

Margaret was born December 18, 1916 in Shanghai, China to two medical missionary parents. She spent her first 9 years there living in a small compound with other missionary families. Welcoming visitors and immigrants from all around the world, Shanghai was a fit beginning for Margaret’s lifelong interest in other cultures.

In 1926 the family, including an older brother and sister, left China and toured the great art galleries of Europe on the way to America. “I was always the last one out of the various rooms,” she recalled. “They practically had to drag me away.”

The family moved to New Haven, Connecticut where Margaret completed her pre-college schooling. In high school, Margaret was given the honor of presenting flowers to Amelia Earhart, one of her heroines who, she said, inspired the young girls of the day to expand their choices in life.

While attending Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, Margaret spent summers on a Navajo reservation, where her father was Medical Director of 11 hospitals. She married Sam Ashelman before her senior year and the couple lived above the small consumer food cooperative they founded in the town of Swarthmore. Margaret graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1938.

In 1944 the couple and their children, Peter and Eric, moved to Greenbelt, Maryland where Sam worked in the Greenbelt Co-op through 1962. During those years Siri, Randall, and Lisa were born. The family lived on two different farms in the Sandy Spring, Maryland area, and Margaret was called upon “to learn many things farm wives learn,” such as how to milk cows and take care of chickens.

In 1961 the Ashelman’s bought 1100 acres just outside Berkeley Springs, West Virginia and slowly built Coolfont Resort, which became a popular mid-Atlantic destination.

After learning Transcendental Meditation in 1971, Margaret taught TM in West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania . She attended the TM teacher training course in Italy, and took Governor training in Switzerland in 1975 and 1976.

In 1977 she moved to Fairfield as a member of the university Council of Executive Governors and was in charge of housing and the housekeeping department. She also worked in the University library for many years.

After completing advanced teacher training in South Fallsburg, New York, she taught the TM program with a team in San Diego for more than two years. She subsequently studied the holistic healthcare system of Maharishi Ayur Ved in Switzerland, and completed courses in Maharishi Vedic Science in Delhi, India, and Maharishi Jyotish, the ancient science of life planning, in Hawaii. She also made several trips to India, and attended numerous World Peace Assemblies.

In her later years in Fairfield she was an active member of the Peer Group for seniors, and one of the authors of “Being Our Own Heroes,” a collection of short stories published by the writing group.

Margaret is survived by 5 children, 8 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at Phoenix Rising Church on Saturday, December 12, 10:00 am, 207 West Burlington, Fairfield.

Contributions in her name may be made to Maharishi University of Management or Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment.