Happy 95th birthday, Margie!

Isabella resident Margie Payton will celebrate her 95th birthday Saturday, July 30, doing the things she enjoys in her house on Rainbow Ridge overlooking Haskins Ford. 

The Times has written about Margie’s birthdays since she turned 90 and was honored with a surprise party at Theodosia United Methodist Church. She’s been celebrating every day since then, she said, thankful for a happy, busy life and good health. 

Margie was born July 30, 1927, and grew up in St. Louis as the only child of a stay-at-home mom from Yugoslavia and a father who traveled throughout the region setting up new Woolworth stores. 

She married Skip Payton in May 1952, and in 1978, the Paytons started coming to Theodosia to vacation on Bull Shoals Lake.

“We came every year and always stayed in room 201” at what is now Theodosia Marina Resort, she said. Driving down from St. Louis after work, “we came so often at midnight and would have to wake up the Cooks. They finally told us to just keep the key,” she said. “So then we would call and tell them when we wanted to come, and if the room wasn’t rented, we said, ‘We’ll be down,’ and that was that.”

Eventually they bought “a little house behind the marina, a little pre-owned home back in the woods. We loved it so much down here,” Margie said.

In 1996, they moved here permanently and bought a house on Rainbow Ridge near Haskins Ford. “It’s high up on a hill, so beautiful. The scenery is just gorgeous,” she said.

Skip died in 2017. Now longtime friend Judy Schnable lives in an apartment on the property. 

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423