Margit Naomi Eisenhut

Margit Naomi Johnson Eisenhut was born on May 18, 1930, in Chicago to immigrant parents from Sweden. Her father was a bricklayer and her mother a seamstress. They met in a musical group in which Frieda played the mandolin, and Gust played the violin. 

Margit lived in the Chicago area until age ten. When she was five years old, both she and her older brother, Eugene Howard, contracted pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. Margit survived, but Eugene died at age 8. She spent the rest of her childhood as an only child and always grieved the loss of her older brother. 

During that same year, her parents purchased a home on the Rock River near Chicago. As former tenant farmers in Sweden, they were excited to own property. But when Margit was five, the river flooded, and the family lost everything. Margit’s father built a brick home in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago. 

At age 10, the family moved to Wisconsin, where they purchased a dairy farm. Unfortunately, that farming experience ended in bankruptcy. Everything the family owned was auctioned off, including Margit’s few possessions. They purchased a second dairy farm, but that ended the same way.

During this time, Margit attended high school in Ogema, Wisconsin, and then in Prentice, Wisconsin, where she graduated.

At age 15, Margit’s godly grandmother, Hannah Cristina, led her to the Lord. Margit wanted a Bible, but the only Bible her grandmother had was her own. She gave it to Margit.

From that point on, she was a student of the Word and studied it diligently. Her Bible knowledge was encyclopedic. And she lived it out in her life. Her faith had feet and hands.

After Margit’s high school graduation, the family moved to Spokane, Washington, where her father built another brick home. He also did some itinerant bricklaying, bringing his family along with him while following jobs and living in a travel trailer.

Margit did very well in high school, earning a full-ride scholarship to the University of Wisconsin to become a dietician. However, her parents were planning to move to Spokane and felt she would be too far from them. So she had to decline the scholarship. Once in Spokane, her only choice, given by her parents, was to study education at what is now Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

Margit studied hard and became an excellent elementary school teacher. In spite of the fact that the field was not her first choice, she made lemonade out of her lemons. During her college years, she roomed with four other young women. They kept in touch all their lives with letters, visits, and Christmas cards until they all died one by one. Margit outlived them all.

After graduating from college, Margit began teaching first grade in the Spokane public schools. She remarked that the unwritten rule was that the teacher was not to smile until November. She was a strict but effective and well-liked teacher. She also said that she would never, ever name one of her own kids Raymond, as that was the name of a very naughty boy in one of her classes.

While in Spokane, she attended First Baptist Church in the downtown area, where Dr. Paul Bridge pastored. The Korean War was just beginning, and some of the servicemen from nearby Fairchild Air Force Base attended the church. One of them, a new believer, was being discipled by Pastor Bridge. He caught Margit’s eye—and she caught his. His name was Van Eisenhut. He was training to be the pilot of the B-36 bomber that was to drop the atomic bomb on the Soviet Union if needed. It was never used in combat. Later, Van was transferred to another base to begin training on the F-86 Sabrejet, which he flew in Korea until the end of the war.

But before he was transferred out, Van and Margit were engaged to be married. They wrote to each other often during his time in Korea. 

When the Korean War ended, Van and Margit were married in the First Baptist Church in Spokane. They honeymooned at Glacier National Park in Montana. 

They had no home to go to afterward. Van majored in journalism in college but had to leave school to go to war yet again in Korea, his second war, even though he was only three credits short of his degree.

They did some research and decided that they wanted to live in either Missoula, Montana, or Salem, Oregon. They drove to Missoula, but neither was impressed. So they headed to Salem.

In Salem, they rented a small apartment. Van sold magazines until he got a job as a cub reporter with the Oregon Statesman. He worked there throughout his career, retiring as senior editor in his late 60s.

Margit taught second grade at Highland Elementary School until she gave birth to their first child, David.

Van and Margit purchased property near Aumsville and, over the course of many years, built a home with the assistance of Margit’s father. It was a brick home, of course! 

They attended Salem First Baptist Church until a young pastor from there, Bob Luther, went to serve in a small church in Aumsville. Van and Margit attended church at Aumsville Bethel Baptist for the remainder of their lives, serving in many roles there. Both taught Sunday School for years, Margit for over 50.

Until their new home could be occupied, they lived in the travel trailer owned by Margit’s parents. After they moved into the house, Margit spent the rest of her life finishing and fixing it up.

Van and Margit had four children: David, Deborah, Daniel, and Abigail. They were very forward-thinking, reading a lot and staying informed about the news and the latest developments. For instance, Margit wanted natural childbirth for her children. Her first obstetrician promised this but gave her anesthesia against her will. She changed doctors and had the following three naturally.

They wanted to have Van in the delivery room, but the hospital did not allow it. They protested because Governor Hatfield was allowed to do this. However, while awaiting the arrival of one child, all the nurses went on break. When they returned, Van had delivered the baby! The nurses were afraid they would get into trouble, but Van and Margit were delighted!

Van and Margit sent their kids to public school, but Margit also homeschooled them—long before it was fashionable. They made a yearly pilgrimage to a textbook warehouse in Portland to get the books. The schoolteachers were not very happy about this, but Margit did it anyway.

The family didn’t have much money, so Margit pinched pennies in every way possible. She cut coupons and followed the sales. She also made many clothes for the family and taught her daughters to sew. She cooked everything from scratch, including bread and any sweets the family ate. All four of her kids learned to cook and bake well. She gardened, froze, and canned vegetables and fruit for the coming year.

Margit continued to serve in the church as a Sunday School teacher, a deaconess, in the church nursery, and in multiple other roles.

Margit’s faith was not just in her head. She lived it. Her life was lived with absolute integrity. Her children remember her returning to a store if the cashier gave her just a few cents too many in change. With four young children, being in the Word was a challenge. But she read her Bible. Her children remember her praying over her prayer notebook even amid the chaos around her. She further learned the Word by tuning in daily to Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s Bible teaching on the radio. With him, she went through the Bible in expository teaching every five years. She kept the radio on to listen to Back to the Bible and the Radio Bible Class broadcasts.

She diligently taught her four children the Word with nightly devotions. In the morning, during breakfast, she read a passage from the Bible. As the children left the house, she prayed with each individually before they headed up the driveway to catch the bus.

Each of her children memorized the entire Navigator’s Memory verse program. She rewarded each verse with a candy bar, carefully hoarding money from her scant grocery money to provide the treats.

Margit was a prayer warrior, praying daily for each of her family members until her health no longer allowed it. She also attended Bible studies until just a few months before her death, when she became bedridden.

Van and Margit husbanded their finances biblically. They faithfully tithed their gross income beginning in the first month of their marriage. They also gave over and above that. Mom gave her last tithe to Bethel Baptist the month she passed away. They taught biblical finances to their children as well. Everything that the children learned, beginning with berry-picking money from age five, was divided. Ten percent went to the church, and fifty percent went to the bank for college. The kid could keep the rest. We all learned how to handle money from Mom and Dad. Give sacrificially and generously, save faithfully and spend responsibly.

When her parents could no longer care for themselves, she lovingly cared for them until they passed away. She had to put her mother into assisted living for a few years, but took her into her own home during the last few weeks of her life.

Her last surviving aunt in Sweden lived until age 94. Margit never learned Swedish as a child because her parents wanted her to learn English. But in her 50s, Margit went to Portland State University for three years to learn the language. She drove up and down I-5 to take the classes. Her motivation was to talk with her aunt in Sweden and share the Gospel with her. She had many phone calls with her and visited her in Stockholm multiple times before she died.

At age 50, Margit went to nursing school and became a registered nurse. She worked for about 8 years as an intensive care nurse at the Veterans Hospital in Portland. This provided her with a retirement fund and a pension. Both proved to be very helpful in her later years.

Margit was very proud of her Swedish heritage. She taught her family to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve with a Swedish smorgasbord that included pickled herring and other traditional dishes! She sewed a Swedish national costume for herself and wore it to Swedish heritage functions. She was a member of the Tre Kronor Lodge in Salem, Oregon, and enjoyed many functions with them.

Margit excelled in everything she did. She made wonderful pies, and one year was the Champion Pie Maker at the Oregon State Fair. Her family remembers her delicious cinnamon rolls. She was an excellent baker and cook.

She did beautiful calligraphy, enjoyed the local club, and entered many projects in the Oregon State Fair.

Mom was an avid bird-watcher. She kept a Roger Tory Peterson bird book and a pair of binoculars at the kitchen window. She could identify all the birds that came to her bird feeder.

Margit was a keen supporter of missions. She and Van supported a missionary family in Japan from the time they were commissioned until they retired. She prayed for missionaries and helped spread the Gospel by contributing financially.

When Van’s health declined, she lovingly cared for him in their home until it became impossible. But even while he was in memory care and then a nursing home, she attended to his every need. Van went to be with Jesus in August of 2001. He was 79. They had been married for 48 years.

When Margit was in her 80s, she traveled to Pakistan to visit her daughter, Debbie, who was working at a hospital there. Nothing about the trip seemed to faze her.

Margit’s health slowly declined. Yet, she competently drove her beloved Ford pickup until she was 93. Even as her health declined, she studied the Word, prayed for others, and attended church and Bible studies.

The last two months of her life, she was almost completely bedridden but was able to stay in her beloved home thanks to wonderful caregivers from First Light Home Care and a team of lovely ladies from Salem First Baptist and Bethel. Thank you, Christine, Tina, Megan, Madelyn, and Jessica!

We also want to thank her wonderful care team at Salem Clinic, including Dr. Greg Lackides and Dr. Mark Fischl, and the team at Oregon Oncology Specialists, including Dr. Bud Pierce. We also appreciate the attentive care from Willamette Vital Health.

She is survived by her four children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

On May 30, 2026, at 7:40 am, Margit slipped into the presence of Jesus. No doubt she heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master.” She is missed on earth, but we know that we will see her again. Her hope for eternal life was not based on her own works but solely on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for her sins. She is now safely in His arms.

(Memorial contributions can be sent to Aumsville Bethel Baptist Church, Building and Grounds Fund, PO Box 167, Aumsville, Oregon 97325. Or to Union Gospel Mission, 777 Commercial Street NE, Salem, Oregon 97301.)