Marguerite Peyser

May 11, 2020

Marguerite Peyser, an artist and former homemaker, died on May 11. The cause of death was COVID-19. Mrs. Peyser’s paintings were exhibited in galleries in Westchester over a period of decades, most recently in a retrospective exhibit at the Irvington Public Library in 2019. She painted Hudson River landscapes, portraits and still lifes. Her late husband, Peter A. Peyser, served as a Member of Congress from Westchester and the Bronx and as Mayor of Irvington, NY. Together they raised five children who all attended public school in Irvington – Penny, Safi, Peter, Jim and Tom. She was a devoted parishioner at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Irvington where she sang in the choir. Mrs. Peyser was born in Monroe, Louisiana on September 5, 1930. She went to high school in Baltimore and moved to New York City after that to attend the Parsons School of Design to study fashion illustration. She left Parsons upon her marriage in 1949. She moved to Irvington with her husband in 1951. She lived there until shortly after his death in October 2014, whereupon she moved to Kendal-on-Hudson in Sleepy Hollow. She is survived by her five children and five grandchildren. There are no plans for public services at this time due to the pandemic. In lieu of flowers the family requests that well-wishers give to the Marguerite Peyser Fund for New York Presbyterian Westchester Behavioral Health Center at http://give.nyp.org/goto/Peyser.