In devotion to Marge Monaghan (1940 - 2023)

Legatus founder Tom Monaghan once said, “A loving wife and family are, to me, essential for a happy and productive life. My wife, Margie, was in my corner through all those tough battles … [and] to say I couldn’t have succeeded without her would be a tremendous understatement.”

Tom met his wife-to-be, Marjorie Zybach, in February 1961, right after he’d gone into the pizza business. She was a college student at Central Michigan University. Tom had just arrived with a pizza delivery there, while she happened to be working on the front-desk switchboard.

He recalls, “She was cute,” but in his shyness he struggled to make conversation. So instead he’d asked her what other pizza companies made deliveries there. “I was smitten with her right off the bat,” he says.

“I sang and hollered as I drove back to the pizza store,” he recounts. He called her back at the school that same night for a movie date. By their third date, he was sure she was the one. They were married the following summer, August 25, 1962.

Long before Tom made it big in business, he and Margie lived very frugally and simply, and he credits her with being the one so good at saving money. Even with their young daughters as toddlers, Marge helped him in the Domino’s Pizza stores with bookkeeping and customer service.  Marge worked in the Domino’s accounting department for decades, in fact, and their four daughters “grew up in the business,” working in various facets there as well.

Margie had a profound effect on Tom, not only when they first met, but continually. Though he had many business colleagues, partners, and associates over his decades-long successes, the one he most wanted to please was Marge.  His years growing up in a Catholic orphanage after the death of his dad planted the lifelong seed of his wanting to serve Christ. And then once he made Marge his life partner, he prioritized serving her and his family as a foremost part of the Lord’s will.

In recent years as Marge’s illness worsened, Tom stayed by her side, often bringing her with him on business engagements. At other times he’d bow out of appointments to be with her instead.

As his biographer, Joseph Pearce, says in Monaghan: A Life, “[Tom’s] love for Margie is unabated, the abiding love of his life, rising above all other passions except for his love of God.” Very family oriented, the Monaghans relished in time with each other, and with their children and grandchildren. Tom once said, “The best reason to have kids is because they have kids!” And Marge’s love for the family manifested in her doing so much with them, and for them. Up until recently, she still cooked all the family holiday and special dinners herself, sometimes for days.

And they continued to attend Mass together at the same church where they were married, St. Thomas Church in downtown Ann Arbor. Margie was called home to the Lord on July 3 – the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle.


Visitation and funeral details: 
https://www.niefuneralhomes.com/memorials/Monaghan-Marjorie/5225279/