The arc of her life in between took her all over the Orient and Europe and US -- into cutting rooms as a designer, boardrooms as a director, and classrooms as a teacher.  In her travels around the world, Maggie was an informal ambassador for South Pasadena and the Pasadena area she loved.

She graduated from South Pasadena High School in 1974 and excelled at Parson’s School of Design in New York. She went on to design clothes for top designers Charlotte Ford, Diana Vreeland, and Herman Geist.  She also created fashions for Mary McFadden Knitwear, Albert Nippon Knitware and her own line, “IQ by Maggie Veir.  She traveled widely on merchandising and production trips.

From 1976-1982, she also performed costume restoration work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and she helped design and produce shows for the Costume Institute of the Museum. She was in the Who Who’s of American Women.

While based in NY for her successful fashion career, she also volunteered for civic improvements and was elected President of the Christopher Street Board Association.  She came “home” to South Pasadena for Christmases, to see her parents and work on the Rose Parade Floats. Her father, Robert Veir, was a City Councilman in South Pasadena and President of the Rose Parade Association.

She married Curt Hettinger right at Niagara Falls in New York on September 18, 1989,  and became Maggie Veir-Hettinger. They moved to Pasadena in 1993, and she turned to community and educational passions. She was a founding Board Member of the Arroyo Heritage Foundation, and she was a member of the Board of Directors of the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation.

She was the Program Director of the Children’s Center for the Arts in Pasadena from 2001-2004, touching the lives of thousands of kids with art. She also aided television production work to help fund the Center.

At the time of her death, she was due to be teaching at the Chouinard School of Art, and was an active elder in the Calvary Presbyterian Church in South Pasadena.

She was a consummate story-teller, a gifted cook & gardener, talented flute player, avid mystery reader and a great friend and daughter. She was a creative, multi-talented, loyal, compassionate person who helped injured animals, lost people, and good causes.

A month before her sudden passing, she attended her 30th High School Reunion at SPHS, where she greatly enjoyed talking to her old band friends, Camp Fire Girl buddies, and fellow alums.

Veir designed the great mobile and other set creations for her Senior Class play, Auntie Mame.  In it, the main character, Auntie Mame, laments, “Life is a banquet and most people are starving to death.” Maggie ate well and shared the feast generously.