Billie Marion MacGregor, born Jan. 1, 1934, in Jersey City, N.J. to her parents Agnes (nee Szott) and William B. Smith. Billie attended Saint Anthony’s Grammar School and Ferris High School in Jersey City. After graduation she worked at the New Jersey Window Cleaning Company as a bookkeeper, office administrator, and manager.
Billie was married to Thomas H. MacGregor on Aug. 25, 1956. Their son, Thomas W. MacGregor, was born Dec. 18, 1958 in Camden, N.J. while Thomas completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. While living in Philadelphia, Billie was a bookkeeper and salesperson at Newman Art Gallery from 1956-1958. In Easton, Penn. where the family lived for almost a decade, when Tom taught mathematics at Lafayette College, Billie was a volunteer in charge of hair, makeup, and costumes for the Lafayette College Theater. She was also a volunteer at the New Opportunities Workshop, a tutoring service for at-risk students in Easton.
In 1967 the family moved to Albany when Tom became a professor of mathematics at the State University of New York until his retirement in 1998. Billie completed her bachelor’s degree in art history and classical archeology in SUNY Albany in 1974. She was a fellow at the American School of Classical Studies, in Athens, Greece in the summer of 1974 and in Rome during the summer of 1975. At SUNY, Billie was assistant to the chair of the theater department, in addition to working at the New York State Education Department.
A committed supporter of the landmark house museum at Historic Cherry Hill, Billie served as a longtime volunteer, docent, and member of the board of trustees. At the New York State Legislative Forum, Billie served as a member and as chair in 1985.
At the Albany Center Galleries, Billie was project and grant coordinator for the exhibition “Crossroads, An Exhibition of Art by Women” in 1989. She was also guest curator of the exhibition “H.M. Mott-Smith: A Retrospective at the Schenectady Museum,” 1990.
Billie was also a committed supporter of the visual arts in Maine, where the family spent summers on Biscay Pond in Bristol for almost four decades, beginning in 1961. The MacGregors retired to Pemaquid in 1998. In the almost two decades the MacGregors lived in Pemaquid, Billie was a volunteer and member of the board at the Bristol Area Library. She was a volunteer and docent at both the Bowdoin College Art Museum in Brunswick and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland.
In addition to her love of the visual arts, Billie enjoyed fishing (particularly for striped bass and bluefish off their dock on John’s Bay) and all kinds of boating (she guided her small sailboat around Biscay Pond every summer for decades). From her childhood she enjoyed ice skating and was a life-long lover of theater, regularly attending performances in New York City with her brother, Lawrence J. Smith.
Billie and Tom returned to New York, settling in Athens, N.Y. in 2016. Her son, Thomas; and her brother, Lawrence predecease her. She is survived by her husband; and her granddaughter, Elizabeth Marion MacGregor, who resides at Triform, a Camphill Community in Hudson, N.Y.
