Minneapolis, MN - The Rev. Dr. Margaret Mathews McCray-Worrall, 77, of Minneapolis, died peacefully August 28, 2025, in Zürich, Switzerland. After being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease she elected to end her life with the help of Dignitas, a Swiss organization that provides medical assistance in dying to individuals with grave medical diagnoses. She died peacefully while surrounded by friends and loved ones.

Margaret was born December 2, 1947, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Dr. Glen and Maurine Mong McCray. The family soon moved to Neodesha, Kansas, where Margaret attended grade school and early high school. Her family later relocated to Shawnee Mission, Kansas, where she finished high school, studying music, French, and literature, graduating with honors in 1965.

After high school, Margaret attended Vassar College, continuing her studies in music and French and majoring in English literature. While at Vassar in 1967, she met her future husband, Charlie Worrall, a student at Williams College, whom she married in 1969 after her graduation from Vassar.

They moved to the Boston area and gave birth to their two sons, Charles in 1971 and Tom in 1974. After relocating to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1974 they joined First Presbyterian Church, making life-long friends with other congregants. Margaret remained close with a group of women friends from the church throughout her life, who gathered yearly in various locations for fun and conversation, support, and adventure.

While attending First Presbyterian, Margaret experienced a call to ordained ministry. She commuted to McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, receiving a Master of Divinity in 1981 with the second-highest grade point average in her class. She credits the invaluable support of her husband, family, and friends as enabling her to complete this degree.

Margaret was ordained on October 4, 1981, as a minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Her first call in ministry was as Campus Minister at Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne, where she counseled students and faculty while also teaching in the women's studies department.

As Campus Minister, she developed an interest in becoming a marriage and family therapist. Again with the support of her family and friends, Margaret commuted to attend classes at Garrett Evangelical Methodist Seminary in Chicago while continuing her work as Campus Minister. She graduated in 1987 with a Doctor of Ministry degree in Pastoral Counseling, later becoming licensed as a marriage and family therapist.

In 1990, Margaret and her husband amicably decided to dissolve their marriage. They remained supportive of each other and their sons, maintaining contact throughout their lives.

In 1994, Margaret moved to Minneapolis, where she served Westminster Presbyterian Church as a marriage and family therapist at the Westminster Counseling Center. During her thirty years at the Center, Margaret helped many individuals and families with compassion, empathy, and insight. As its executive and clinical director, she guided the Counseling Center through decades of growth and redesign. She retired shortly after the pandemic, although she continued to help people well into her last year of life. She both worshipped at Westminster and served as Parish Associate for the congregation.

Margaret loved gardening, flowers, mountains, and the beauty of nature. Mountains were a central part of her life story. As a child she and her family regularly visited the Rocky Mountains, and before moving to Minneapolis in 1994 she trekked the Himalayas in Nepal for five weeks with the Sierra Club, hiking to 17,000 feet. During the last week of her life she explored the Alps around Mürren, Switzerland, enjoying the extraordinary peaks and multitude of waterfalls.

She started piano lessons at age five, studying with various piano teachers over the decades. Throughout her life, she played piano with joy and facility, accompanying numerous choirs, singers, and instrumentalists. She sang in choirs, most memorably the Tanglewood Festival Chorus of the Boston Symphony, singing Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "The Resurrection," conducted by Leonard Bernstein in July 1970. Margaret continued her love of music by supporting and serving on the Bakken Ensemble (Minneapolis) board of directors for ten years.

Long before her diagnosis with Alzheimer's Margaret supported efforts to expand end-of-life options in this country, including increased access to patient-directed medical aid in dying. She was a longtime supporter of Compassion & Choices, an organization dedicated to such efforts. Margaret said, "I lived a happy, challenging, and rewarding life. I have much to be grateful for. . . . Thanks be to God and to all family and friends who continue to support and grace my life with love."

Margaret is survived by her two sons, Thomas McCray-Worrall and Charles Worrall, granddaughters Clara Worrall and Rose Worrall, sister Molly McCray, brother Allen McCray, former husband Charlie Worrall, and her partner of love and life of the past 22 years, the Rev. Dr. Jann Cather Weaver of Saint Paul.

A memorial service for Margaret was held on September 20, 2025 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. A recording of the the service is available online at https://vimeo.com/showcase/5294715?video=1120497317.

In lieu of flowers, Margaret requested that donations be made to Westminster Presbyterian Church (https://onrealm.org/westminstermpls/-/form/give/tributes) and Compassion & Choices (https://candcactionnetwork.org/ways-to-give).