Margaret Brown

Margaret Brown passed away on Tuesday, September 12, 2023 and services will be held 10:00 A.M. Saturday, September 23rd at the New Hope Christian Fellowship, 980 S. Cheney Ranch Loop, Show Low. She was a 38 year resident of Show Low, where she retired as a fourth grade teacher from Show Low District 10 in 2010. 

Margaret was born Margaret Heffner in Glendale, California, November 8, 1947. She grew up in Sunland, California at her parents home, Lee Roy and Ruthalie Heffner. Margaret graduated from Verdugo Hills High School, Tujunga, California in 1965 with honors. 

She was saved and baptized as a youth in the First Baptist Church of Sunland, where she met her to be husband, Tom Brown, when they were children. Margaret started dating Tom when she was eighteen, but their romance was sidetracked when she went to the University of Redlands in 1966, majoring in Spanish with a Math minor. 

In 1966, she took a train trip to San Luis Obispo to visit Tom, where he was attending Cal Poly. He proposed to her at Moro Rock, and they were married in 1968. Tom withdrew from Cal Poly, and he enrolled in the University of Redlands. They lived in married housing on the campus until their graduation in 1969.

After graduating from college, Margaret and Tom joined the Peace Corp and were sent to Brazil. While there Tom got a call to Christian ministry, and they came back to So. Cal. To attend seminary. As Tom took his course of study, Margaret worked for Winn Oil Co. in Azusa, California. 

Upon Tom’s graduation from seminary, they were called to the First Baptist Church of Cambridge, Idaho where Margaret worked as a librarian. While in Cambridge, the Lord gave them Angela and Clinton. Later they moved to Darby, Montana to pastor the First Baptist Church, and Margaret opened a Christian Book Store, while at the same time serving in her duties as a pastor’s wife. Jesse was born to them while there in Darby. 

When Tom’s mother fell ill, they moved back to So. Cal. to pastor the First Baptist Church of Crestline, California. At that time Andrew was born. They prayed for direction, and later received a call to Calvary Baptist Church of Show Low, Arizona in 1985. They pastored Calvary Baptist Church for seven years. Later they founded New Hope Christian Fellowship in 1992, where Margaret served until her passing. 

Margaret got her master’s degree in teaching from NAU and was hired by the Show Low Schools to teach fourth grade. She retired after twenty years, but she never retired from serving the Lord Jesus, in whom her whole life was blessed. 

Throughout their five church ministries, Margaret has served faithfully along side Tom, and she has exercised her talents of teaching, singing and playing the piano, being a friend and counselor to many, and courageously living out her destiny.

Margaret leaves behind her husband, Tom; four adult children and their spouses, Angela and Dan, Clinton and Jenny, Jesse and Juantia and Andrew and Charli, along with ten grandchildren and many friends.