Children of Garth and Edna - Margaret

Finally, a girl!  My mother, Margaret Edna Beckington, was born on May 1, 1913, at the family home on Whittaker Road in Willis, Michigan. All of Edna's children were born at home, as most children were in those days. Edna had taken a 2 1/2 year break from having children. Margaret was named after a dear friend and cousin-in-law of Edna's, Margaret Mavity Childs, who lived near Edna's family in Ypsilanti which was on Congress Street. Being the first girl, Margaret was cooking and cleaning at an early age - usually breakfast and lunch was served for all the farm hands AND the family. Sometimes as many as 15-20, depending on whether they were harvesting or not. I think this is why, when mother got older, she didn't do much cooking. My dad grew up knowing how to cook, as his dad did, and he did a lot of it. Of course the three of us girls helped as we got older too. But, my mother was a natural cook and when she did make something special like chicken and dumplings on a Sunday - it was wonderful.

She graduated from Lincoln High School in 1931, she did attend Eastern Michigan University (Normal College) for about a year. She was sometimes called Peggy or Marge by people she went to school with or worked with, but mostly she was Margaret. She and my dad, Grover Kenneth "Ken" McDougall, Jr., dated for about a year, and knew each other in high school. He graduated a year ahead of her from Lincoln. They married in Angola, Indiana (remember the gretna green?) on September 15, 1933. Despite their eloping, her brother Card, went with them. My mother almost immediately contracted TB after their marriage (as brothers Mark and Thomas also did during their younger years). This was probably the result of unpasteurized milk and living on a dairy farm!  She spent a year in the Sanitorium in Battle Creek. Because of this, they waited for children as they didn't know if it would even be possible for my mother to have children, or if it would prove a problem for her. She did fine and had three daughters from 1940 to 1947.

Margaret died of lung cancer on March 11, 1978, having been a smoker from the time of her marriage. My dad, Ken, survived another 18 years, dying on October 29, 1996. Ken died of complications from colon cancer. He quit smoking after watching Margaret die. They are both buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Saline, Michigan.