Margaret M (Rappaport) Williams

Dr. Margaret M. Rappaport (Williams) passed away on January 31, 2026 at the age of 84, which may be the first time her real age has ever appeared in print. A singular figure who evaded any attempt to define her, Margaret was brilliant, spirited, elegant, and nurturing. She wore all-black clothing, planted all-white gardens, and cultivated a life of distinction, ambition, and daring adventure.

Alongside a career as a clinical psychologist in private practice, Margaret was a collector of expertise, credentials, and deep relationships. She was a serial entrepreneur, a global speaker, a pilot, an author, a deacon, a Master Gardener, and a near-astronaut. Though drawn to the awe-inducing realms of science, nature, and religious contemplation, she reserved her fiercest awe for her descendents, her two children and four grandchildren, whom she revered as the universe’s greatest accomplishments.

Margaret Williams was born November 16, 1941, the first of four children, in Buffalo, New York. After a difficult childhood, she left home for New York City at age 16 and found success modeling, most notably as the “Black Velvet Girl.” Her stories from that time include dating Joe Namath and giving Thelonius Monk a ride to Niagara Falls, just so he could hear them.

It was in the psychology program at SUNY Buffalo where she found her true vocation and her first love, Dr. Herbert Rappaport. As Herb finished his degree, she taught fourth grade and was active in civil rights issues, organizing and marching alongside national figures to desegregate housing. Internships took Herb and Margaret to Hartford, CT and ultimately Boulder, CO, where she completed her Ph.D. They married in 1967 and moved to Tanzania to fulfill Herb’s Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Dar Es Salaam, where Margaret also held a lecturer position. It was the strength and grace displayed by Tanzanian mothers that ultimately inspired Margaret to have children of her own. Her daughter, Amanda, was born in 1972 in Dar Es Salaam.

The family then moved to Philadelphia, into a sprawling home in Mount Airy, where Margaret and Herb saw patients from a shared office and filled their many spare rooms
with graduate students, exchange students, boarders, staff, and the occasional traveling sports team. From 1976-1983 they fostered an orphan of the Vietnam War, and later took in a refugee of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Dinner parties, holidays, and seders at the Rappaport house included visiting professors, students, dignitaries, and diplomats, all corralled by Margaret’s magnetic charm and hospitality.

It was into this home that her son Alexander was born in 1980. At a time when home birthing and nursing were unpopular, Margaret’s conviction to nurse Alex through the
repair and recovery of a cleft lip inspired her to become an ambassador for La Leche League and begin a speaking tour. This eventually led her to create several nonprofits focused on parents and children, and a company that taught meditation and mindfulness decades before it was trendy.

A river trip down the Amazon led her to a religious awakening and another new life path. For her next act, Margaret earned her pilot’s license and was soon flying the family
to ski mountains in single-engine prop planes, before she moved on to seaplanes and gliders. Her proudest possession was her glider, Silvergirl, in which she soared on solo journeys around the U.S.

In 1994, Margaret and Herb separated and Margaret moved to Cape Cod, where she continued her psychology practice, fundraised for the Visiting Nurses of America, took up gardening, writing, and churchgoing, and went on daily nature walks in her favorite place: by the wild sea. Margaret loved parties at the Orleans Yacht Club, boat rides to the outer beach, and volunteering in the annual tagging of horseshoe crabs, always in head-to-toe sun-protective gear. She spent money lavishly, on herself and on anyone she met who was deserving or in need, supporting others through major life events and educational pursuits. One of her mantras was “Show up,” which she made great efforts to do, whether for a dying friend, the birth of a grandchild, or for the hundreds of people she helped and healed in her therapy work.

In her late 60s, Margaret had a second marriage to Cape Cod restaurateur Arthur Duquette. In that time, she launched a media venture, At Sixes and Sevens, to help people in their senior decades navigate aging with dignity and generativity. She also became ordained as an Episcopal deacon, received her Master Gardener certificate,
self-published books on angels, prayer, and labyrinths, and began training for space travel. She was determined to be “the first old lady in space” and, as her final act, earn a seat on NASA’s inaugural one-way mission to Mars. She was pretty far along before underlying conditions derailed her plans and, eventually, her health.

True to her convictions, Margaret chose to face nature and decline without intervention. Margaret’s extraordinary spirit of courage, confidence, and curiosity lives on in those she loved. She is survived by her sister Kathy and her brother David; her children, Amanda Rappaport Dobbins and Alex Rappaport; her children-in-law Matthew Dobbins and Lisbeth Kaiser; and her grandchildren, Julia and Charles Dobbins, and Winona and Evangeline Rappaport.