Renowned TOS member, Georgina Schwartz, has died

TOS Secretary Lynn Thompson wrote this lovely obituary about her good friend. Georgina will be missed by all who knew her.

 

Lifetime TOS member Georgina Schwartz passed away following a brief illness, on May 16, 2026, in San Antonio. She was 5 months shy of her 96th birthday. Her membership in the Texas Ornithological Society dates to the 1990's; she attended her last meeting at Lake Jackson in 2022. She served on the TOS board as Region 5 director from 2005-2008, later promoting the organization by encouraging membership and selling TOS merchandise at annual meetings and other events around Texas.

 

Born in Nebraska on October 27, 1930, Georgina Noble Rankin Schwartz was named after her grandmother, who emigrated to Kansas from Scotland. She was proud of her Scottish ancestry. Her father, William Rankin, Jr., was working for a railroad in Omaha when he got a job with the Public Buildings Administration (now the General Services Administration) and was sent around the country to oversee the building of post offices and public buildings. One such building was the United States Merchant Marine Hospital in New Orleans.

 

Georgina recalled moving fourteen separate times before she graduated high school. Her mother, Bernice, moved their household goods, Georgina and her younger sister, Martha, to different cities in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Omaha, Kentucky, and Texas, while her dad went ahead to begin work on the next building. One of her fondest memories was roller skating to flute lessons when they lived in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Due to moving so often, Georgina asked her parents to enroll her as a junior for the second time in Shawnee Mission, Kansas so she could spend her last two high school years in one school.

 

Upon graduating from Kansas State University in 1952 with a degree in biotechnology, she married Dr. Willard Schwartz, Jr., in 1953, and had two sons, Charles and Bob. The family moved to Pittsburgh and lived there for 13 years. In July 1973, they settled in San Antonio where Georgina resided for fifty-three years in the same house. She began birding in earnest after moving to Texas; although son Charles says she birded in Pennsylvania as well.

 

Georgina joined the San Antonio Audubon Society (SAAS) in 1973 and soon was in the thick of the group. Field trip committee member, Education committee chair, Christmas Bird Count section leader, Bexar County bird checklist committee, and President from 1987-1988 were just some of her volunteer activities with SAAS. Her name is on the “Birds of Bexar County Texas” checklist.