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Dr. Margaret "Peggy" Wheelock
Visitation: Saturday, February 21, 2009 1:00 PM until 2:00 PM First Lutheran Church Trimont, Mn Service: Saturday, February 21, 2009 2:00 PM First Lutheran Church Trimont, Mn Special Services: Pastor Joel Xavier will be officiating	VIEW/SEND CONDOLENCES
Margaret Jean (Peggy) Wheelock was born in Webster City, IA on November 14, 1945, the second child of Daniel and Mary (Morrel) Wheelock. The family farmed outside of Webster City where Peggy attended kindergarten. Prior to starting first grade, the family moved to a farm west of Cresco, IA. Peggy attended Assumption Elementary and Notre Dame High School in Cresco, graduating in 1963. In the fall of 1963, Peggy began working as a laboratory technician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She left in 1967 and moved to St. Paul, MN where Peggy worked as a technician in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Attending college was one of Peggy’s dreams. She finally started realizing this dream in 1973 by enrolling in classes at the University of Minnesota and met her future husband, Keith Johnson, at almost the same time. Peggy graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BS in Microbiology in the spring of 1977. On June 11, 1977 Peggy and Keith got married. Peggy started graduate school in the fall of 1977 and graduated with a PhD in Cell Biology in 1982. She then did brief postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota before she and Keith moved to Philadelphia, PA in 1983 where she spent 4 years at the Wistar Institute. It was there that Peggy started working on the cadherin family of proteins, the focus of the rest of her scientific career. In the fall of 1987, she and Keith moved to the University of Toledo in Toledo, OH as assistant professors in the Department of Biology. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992 and then to Professor in 1995. In May of 2001, Peggy and Keith moved to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, NE where they joined the Department of Oral Biology in the College of Dentistry. They also had a close relationship with the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases. Peggy was a doer, not a spectator. Peggy authored or co-authored over 100 published papers, many of them with Keith. In 2003 Peggy initiated and obtained a 5-year, $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence Program that in 2008 she renewed for another 5 years and $10 million. With these grants, Peggy set up the Nebraska Center for Cellular Signaling whose purpose is to mentor junior faculty. With her guidance, Peggy’s center is one of the most successful such programs in the country. Peggy was a strong supporter of women in science. She and Keith rode across Iowa four times with the RAGBRAI, the last time in July 2008. Peggy loved life and loved nature, especially wild flowers and young animals. She also loved to cook, to ride bicycles, to walk, and to plan for the future. Peggy was preceded in death by her parents and her older sister Patricia Myers. She is survived by her loving and devoted husband, Keith Johnson, sisters Linda Lahme, Mary Beth Kaulahao and Charlotte Wheelock, and brother Joseph Wheelock;mother and father-in-law, Allan and Gladys Johnson of Trimont, Minnesota; brothers-in-law, Russell and his wife, Cristina Johnson of Florence, Italy and James Johnson of Lauderdale, Minnnesota; sister-in-law, Eileen Stoffels of Cedar, Minnesota an and other relatives and friends. In lieu of flowers, please send contributions in Peggy’s name to the Eppley Cancer Center. Interment will be in First Lutheran Cemetery, rural Trimont, Minnesota.