DESPERSONAGE 8 – MARGARET JOYCE

…And then there is one of my best friends, Peggy Joyce!  Peggy is a tall redhead with more spunk than anyone I have ever met!  She has definite opinions about everything and will tell you without you asking for them.  I have learned more about how to make my way through this complicated world from her than from almost anyone else. We became friends through an odd circumstance when I lived in Portage, Wisconsin in the 1990’s. We were known to have Peggy and Pat adventures almost every Saturday while I lived in Portage…those days will not be chronicled here!

Peggy was born in Long Beach, Orange County, California, (could have been one of the housewives), and lived on Orange Street. She is a third generation Californian with three sisters and a brother.  She graduated from Orange County High School and graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Marketing.  While in high school she met Peter Joyce, a military man stationed nearby and after graduating college she and Pete moved to his home state of Wisconsin.

She had only been to Wisconsin once before and loved it – it was a summer visit. So when she and Pete got into his old pickup truck, complete with a camper shell and drove across country in April of 1976, they arrived in Briggsville, (p. 200), and they stayed in a camp ground in the snow. This was unsettling to Peggy who was raised in sunny California with a nanny, so quickly they built their first house in 1977 and had a daughter in 1980.  Wisconsin wasn’t working for them so they moved back to California and bought a house in Chino Hills – Peggy working for a travel agency and Pete worked for a plumbing company as he had completed seven years of training making him a licensed master plumber. Pete didn’t like California and he moved back to Wisconsin, to Portage, and Peggy and her daughter followed in 1984. By then, Pete had opened his own business and there were no marketing jobs that paid well open in Portage so Peg became a realtor!  She has been a very successful Wisconsin realtor for 37 years! It was a perfect fit for Peg, a flexible schedule, and was able to utilize her marketing skills to make her one of the top realtors in the area.

Peggy has won real estate awards for sides (60 homes in one year) along with being named the Realtor of the Year in the South Central, Tri-State area of Wisconsin.

Peggy got divorced just before I moved to Wisconsin and she and her friends were very welcoming to me! There were five of us women, all working and successful business women and none of us were from Wisconsin. (MO, CA, NC, ID & MI ) I like to think of it as a real housewives of Portage situation because it was!

While working as a realtor, Peggy took coursework at Madison Area Technical College and gained the working skills needed to be a chef.  After her time at MATC she trained and worked with Chef Don Blanc and became a chef, working at restaurants in the Madison area. It was really hard work, a very hectic schedule, and she was still raising her daughter so Peg returned to real estate full time. She still treasures the time she took to gain the practical skills necessary to be self-sufficient and have skills in another great profession.

Today, Peggy has been married to Leroy Swiecichowski for nearly 26 years – he is a successfully retired bank examiner, having worked in the position for over 30 year for the State of Wisconsin.  Peg’s email address was Switch A House Key – when she was a realtor!  How fitting is that?

I asked Peggy what she would tell her 20 year old self and she answered quickly with don’t get married until you realize who you really are and learn that when you think you have got everything figured out, think again. She says she is known for her confidence and upbeat and positive personality even when she isn’t feeling that way. She never thinks about failure. She attributes her success to being one step ahead of the competition, working smarter and never looking back. She moves forward because, “half-assed doesn’t work in the real estate world”!

Peggy is retired from being a full time realtor but she may begin teaching real estate soon as she has been an instructor for the past three years. She has mentored many beginning real estate agents and they are happily now multi-million dollar producers! She and Leroy now live in Madison and there are always young people who definitely could learn real estate skills from her.

Personally, she has been the best friend I could have ever asked for.  I have learned so much from her about confidence, speaking from the gut and the heart, and being ever persistent even if the world knocks me back at times.  Thank you Peggy!

…and she makes the best spaghetti and garlic bread in the world along with her very famous nine vodka chicken!  …and she would like to run for Mayor in Madison “to clean things up” but she would be pissed off if she lost!  She should run for Governor, maybe…