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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Margaret Maggie Anderson 
April 29, 1985 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  00:03 
This is Kristen Boughton-Morin. It is April 29, 1985, seven o'clock PM, Seattle, Washington. I 
am on my way to interview Margaret Anderson. This is interview number one, tape one, side A. 
Okay, Margaret, let's start talking about your grandparents.  
 
Margaret Anderson  00:38 
Okay. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  00:39 
You told me that they immigrated from Iceland and from Scotland. 
 
Margaret Anderson  00:44 
Right. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  00:44 
Can you start out with that? 
 
Margaret Anderson  00:45 
[Coughs] Excuse me. My, my Scotch grandparents, I think, were married in Scotland and then 
came out to Winnipeg, probably shortly after their marriage and all the children were born. 
[Inaudible] with their children. I don't know what brought them-- Oh, I do, I think my, my 
grandmother's sister was married to my grandfather's brother. Or was it the other way around? 
Anyway, there was some-- No, maybe my grandmother's sister was married to somebody else, 
but she was also there, and I think that's probably what brought them out. I hadn't thought about, 
um, it was my aunt Ellen, I didn't like her very much, but I loved my uncle Hugh. [?Then, what 
was his name? He was a clown, it was fun?]. His hobby was making wedding cakes. He was the 
postmaster, actually, at the time he retired, he was postmaster at the [inaudible], which was quite 
a job. So anyway, the Scotch grandparents came out after the marriage, [?and are still there?]. 
My Icelandic grandmother came over when she was 10 from Iceland with her parents. And um, I 
guess it was a steam-- steamship that moved to New York and then across the country. And 
actually, they originally were going to settle in Duluth, Minnesota. And when they got there, the 
sister, my grandfather's sister, had left; and she lost, I think, a husband and a son, probably 
drowning in Lake Superior, it was a lot of people [?there?].  
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Kristin Boughton-Morin  01:30 
She had left Duluth?  
 
Margaret Anderson  02:44 
Yeah, and she had left Duluth and gone to live with somebody, some other relatives, in 
California. But, you know, with the length of time it took for news to travel, they didn't know 
that, and they were originally going to settle in Duluth. And so then they went on up to 
Winnipeg, and north of Winnipeg to Selkirk, where my great grandfather, had an uncle. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  03:04 
Now that's Selkirk, Manitoba. 
 
Margaret Anderson  03:05 
 Right.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  03:06 
Canada.  
 
Margaret Anderson  03:07 
Now, I don't know-- you know, I don't know about my grandfather, my Icelandic grandfather. I 
don't know when he, he came over with his family, and I know he was born in Iceland, he came 
over with his family, probably [inaudible] also. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  03:23 
What were their names? The ones from Iceland. 
 
Margaret Anderson  03:27 
Well, my grandfather's name in Iceland was Arneson, and then the family changed it when they 
came over. So, he was called-- he was known as Samuel Anderson. For some reason they 
changed the Arneson to Anderson. Probably because it sounded more Scotch, more acceptable in 
the community. And my grandmother's name was Olina Nordal. Her family was Nordals, N-O-
R-D-A-L. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  04:05 
And your Scotch grandparents? What were their names?  
 
Margaret Anderson  04:08 
Oh, Howat. Hugh Howat was my grandfather and Margaret Buchanan was my grandmother.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  04:15 
What was your relationship to the two pairs? 
 
Margaret Anderson  04:19 
I never knew my Icelandic grandfather, because my father never knew him, because he died. He 
was a cattle dealer and he was stomped to death in the cattle pens well before my father was 
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born. Kind of a real tragic, kind of a thing, there was nothing of [?something happy?]. But my, I 
love my Icelandic grandmother the most. Loved her dearly. I spent a lot of time in her home, it 
was a home that my father was born in. And actually, my nephew has now purchased it and lives 
in that same home. When my aunt died, he bought it from the estate. So, just kind of neat. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  05:08 
She was your favorite grandmother? 
 
Margaret Anderson  05:09 
Yes. My, my mother's mother was kind of a hard woman, a very unhappy woman, I think, kind 
of angry. She was nice to me, I mean, not that she wasn't nice to me, but she just didn't have-- 
she was, well, actually, my grandfather, my Scotch grandfather, was an alcoholic, and I think he 
was a binge drinker. So, he was a kind of drinker that only drank maybe two or three times a 
year, but he dis-- he'd disappear for a week or two at a time, and then would be brought home. 
Somehow they'd find him and he'd come home. So, I'm sure that that contributed to, to her 
unhappiness. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  05:58 
And so did you spend more time with your, your father's mother? 
 
Margaret Anderson  06:03 
Yes, my, my parents were separated when I was about four. And then, actually, then they were 
divorced when I was about 10. My brother and I spent almost, as children, all, all, almost all 
school holidays at my grandmother's home; a lot of weekends. So, from the time I was about six 
or seven, so, I remember spending a lot of Sundays and weekends with my grandmother's home, 
and then spending a lot of vacation time there, holiday time there, summer vacation, maybe the 
whole two months almost. I had three maiden aunts that lived there, in the home. So, it was a 
pretty nice home with my grandmother, my three maiden aunts, and they sort of doted on my 
brother and I. And my uncle who lived in town, my uncle Sam, I remember, built us a playhouse, 
and they had a huge back area and a huge back garden. So, memories of childhood are like 
picking potato bugs off of [?big?] plants and getting a penny a bug from by uncle, playing in this 
playhouse that uncle Sam built, either on top of [inaudible] or a [inaudible] inside, or swinging-- 
reading and swinging in one of those lawn swings. You know that's still, you know [inaudible] 
happy memories from childhood. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  07:44 
Let me interrupt you for a moment. Okay, I'd like to ask you a question about the maiden aunts. 
What does that mean?  
 
Margaret Anderson  07:56 
Maiden aunts? 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  07:56 
Single, are those single women?  
 
Margaret Anderson  07:58 
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Oh, yes, those were three aunts that never married. And my Aunt Margaret, who was my 
absolute favorite aunt, was a very, kind of, reserved person. She, at the time she retired, she was 
an Assistant Principal of the high school, and she'd been an art teacher; I have some of her oil 
paintings and drawings, they're kind of old fashioned, but it's just nice to have, I always liked 
that. She was very, very, she loved her garden and she, she was a quiet person, she didn't talk 
much. She had a wonderful garden; she spent most of her time in the summer with her garden. I 
remember, she would have like, 7[00], 800 gladiolus bulbs in a bed. You know, it was just, her 
gardens were just a wonderful thing. That's another memory of childhood. My Aunt Margaret 
and I were real close, and we didn't talk much. And I've always thought that if she had lived in a 
different time, a different place, she might have been, you know, a lesbian. Just have that feeling 
about her. My Aunt Anne had been a nurse. And during the flu epidemic of 1919, she was a 
young nurse, and she was nursing in a TB sanatorium. And she developed, she told me, one time 
TB of the eye, which is very, very rare, very unusual. She said that they it was so rare that she, 
she was seen down at Rochester and down at John Hopkins, but she went blind. Anyway, she 
went blind and then she never had when she never tested positive for TB again. But she had been 
engaged to a young doctor at the sanatorium, whose name was Duncan McRae, and they never 
married, and I think partly because, Auntie Anne being blind, and because Duncan also 
contracted TB working in sanatorium, and he had lost one lung. And so he used to spend the 
winters, sort of in a TB Institute in Winnipeg. I never, sort of did research and sort of rested. And 
in the summer times, he would go out and be the relief doctor and the various sanatoriums 
around Manitoba. I mean, they don't have TB sanatoriums anymore, but this is-- and Duncan was 
always a part of the family, I remember calling him uncle Duncan, and, and he and Auntie Anne 
carried on. They would talk a lot on the phone and wrote letters a lot, and he would come down 
and be there on family holidays and-- or come up really, you always say down, but it was really 
up, it was north of Winnipeg, and he was, he was part of the family. So, it's just circumstance, I 
think, that she was unmarried, whereas Aunt Margaret, it was clearly a choice. And my Aunt 
Babes, who was the youngest one in the family, and whose name was actually Bjorg Briet, but 
always known as Babes. She was kind of a feisty little devil and but I think pretty dependent and 
not able to [?recall?]. Well, not, none of them did, but I think Margaret reasons were probably 
different than Babes's. I'm sure Babes's reasons were because she didn't want to leave her 
mother, and she's the one, she was, the one who finally ended up alone. Everybody else died. My 
grandmother and my Aunt Marg died within days of each other, and then a year later, my uncle 
Sam, who lived in that town, died. And then Auntie Anne and Auntie Babes were left in the 
home, and Auntie Anne became sick. And then, when Auntie Anne died, by that time, they had 
taken having a little nip, you know, a little drink in the evening, or something. By the time 
Auntie Anne died, I think Auntie Babes was on her way to becoming an alcoholic-- and within 
15 years, I mean, she really had a serious, serious alcohol problem, and that's how she wanted it. 
She didn't want to, she would sometimes ask me to come and live there, but I really wasn't in a 
position to do that. We all worried a lot about her. And she died, let's see, she died, I got out here 
in October, she died that April.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  12:58 
And how old were each of the Aunts when they died?  
 
Margaret Anderson  13:01 
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You know, I don't know offhand. Auntie Marg was the oldest daughter, so she was like 72 I 
know that. And that was back in '64, well, '64. And then Annie Babes just died, what, two years 
ago, actually, in April, two years ago, in April. She was the youngest, and, I'm not sure, I think 
she was 70, she also was like 72 or 73. So, actually, she-- so, she lasted a pretty long time, 
considering Auntie Anne was more like 76 at the time she died. Now my grandmother, my 
grandmother was 96 and she died in her bed. My grandmother never drank, never smoked, 
[inaudible] and she just worked hard.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  14:01 
What did she do?  
 
Margaret Anderson  14:03 
Well, she retired, yes, yeah, and had a lot of kids, and ran a house and ran a garden. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  14:12 
Was it acceptable, then, in your family for women to be single and just live their lives 
independently? 
 
Margaret Anderson  14:19 
Yeah, very much so. I think in, especially my father's family. Oh, I think my grandmother's a 
very strong woman, you know, and she'd been alone for many years, there was a, there was a real 
matriarchal system in my grandmother's home, it was real clear. And although my Uncle OT, 
Olifer, he was older than Sam or my father. And he had a lot of, oh, let's see, a lot of power, in 
some ways, in the family, because he'd been so successful. He was a professor of mathematics, 
and he ended up being the dean of this college that I went to, United College, he was the dean 
there. So he was, he was a clear success, and he made some money and stuff, investments. But 
even so, they didn't do what he said. I mean, they didn't really [inaudible] to him, I remember 
now. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  15:38 
Do you think they've sort of began a tradition that makes it easier for you to live.  
 
Margaret Anderson  15:44 
Yeah, I think, I think their example was very clear for me that I didn't have to get married. I can 
remember my Auntie Marg telling me not to become a teacher, and I think that was because she 
was a teacher in the days when female teachers didn't-- I mean, a male always somehow ended 
up as principal and stuff. And I can remember other Aunts telling me not to become a nurse. 
They didn't-- so, it was okay to put a social worker, which is just as bad, but I didn't know. That 
was my caretaking, social worker.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  16:25 
Did you talk with them about those kinds of things, specifically about things that women could 
do, besides the traditional jobs? Was that an issue between the two, the three of you? 
 
Margaret Anderson  16:36 
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No, I don't think so. No, no, you know, I wish I had talked more, and wish we had done more, 
but it wasn't, it was kind of just how that family was. It's not a very, not a family that talks a lot 
about feelings or expresses them a lot. And I still say, you know, when I hug my father, it's like 
putting my arms around a telephone pole, you know? I mean, that's just how he is. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:09 
About your parents. What are their names?  
 
Margaret Anderson  17:12 
My father's name is Harold, Harold Samuel Anderson, and he's still living, he's 83 and he lives in 
Ottawa, Ontario, in Canada. And he lives with my stepmother, Helen McDonald, and they've 
been married, well, between 45 and 50 years. I mean, they had their 45th anniversary two years 
ago.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:43 
Now, how, how old are you?  
 
Margaret Anderson  17:46 
Well, I'm 54.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:49 
So, your parents were divorced pretty soon after you were born, or-- 
 
Margaret Anderson  17:53 
Well, let's see,  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:54 
--45 or 50 years they were married.  
 
Margaret Anderson  17:56 
Well, let's see, they've had-- let's see, I was born in '31 and I think Helen and dad married when I 
was 10, so, they've been married since about-- 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  18:13 
that's about 45 years. 
 
Margaret Anderson  18:15 
--yeah, yeah right. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  18:17 
And your mother, what's her name? 
 
Margaret Anderson  18:19 
Well, my mother's name is-- her maiden name is Christina Lightbody Howat. And that 
Lightbody is important, because somehow I like that; she was named after, I think [?maternal?], 
someone in the, a woman, because I have a picture, photographs more, of a woman, and it says 
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Christina Lightbody on it. So, I think that she might have been my grandmother's mother. So, I 
think my great grandmother was Christine Lightbody. And I've often had thoughts about 
changing my name, and if I ever changed it, I would call myself Maggie Lightbody. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  18:56 
Did your mother remarry when they were divorced?  
 
Margaret Anderson  19:00 
She remarried when I was about 12 to a man by the name of Douglas Winston Williams, named 
after Winston Churchill. No, I don't think he could have been. I don't know if he was or not, I 
don't think so.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  19:18 
Now, where did you grow up?  
 
Margaret Anderson  19:20 
Well, mostly in Winnipeg. I was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. I lived the first four years of my 
life, probably, in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. And then when my mother and father split, my mother 
moved back to Winnipeg with my brother and I. My father stayed on in Yorkton, he was 
working for the federal government at that time, in the Department of Agriculture. And then 
during the war years, I lived a year in Sudbury, Ontario. My mother was, my mother remarried, 
and she was working at a defense plant. She was in the, a secretary, and she worked for this 
defense plant down outside of Sudbury. But I lived with my aunt and uncle, her sister, and that 
year, went to school in Sudbury, fifth grade. And then one-- the year I was in eighth grade, I was 
with my mother and stepfather. He was in the Air Force and stationed in Saskatoon, 
Saskatchewan, so I spent a year in my, oh it wasn't, wasn't eighth grade. Yeah, it was eighth 
grade in Saskatoon and then, but the rest of time in Winnipeg.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  20:40 
So, you lived with your mother?  
 
Margaret Anderson  20:42 
Yeah, yeah. And that's, yeah, I'm glad you asked that because my brother, when my father and 
stepmother were married, my brother went to live with my father. And I always remember, and I 
was given the choice of who I wanted to live with. And I always remember my Uncle OT saying 
to me, "They're both damn fools, come live with me and I'll buy you a bicycle." And to this day, 
I think that probably was the best offer, but I didn't take it, I think it probably was. I had, I was 
already hooked. My mother was clearly, by that time, already alcoholic and and I was already 
hooked, you know, into being [inaudible] caretaker. And when I was 10, I was busy bringing her 
cold cloths for her head, for her, and tomato juice for her hangover, calling the office to say she 
was ill and couldn't come in. And I can remember clearly thinking, I can't leave my mother 
because she needs me to take care of her. And so I always say that's what, people ask me, "When 
did you decide to be a social worker?" I say, "Well, when I was 10," you know.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  21:55 
So, were you aware at the age of 10 that your mother was an alcoholic? 
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Margaret Anderson  22:00 
No, that took me longer. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  22:06 
You just, just thought she was sick.  
 
Margaret Anderson  22:09 
No, I knew. I knew, I knew she wasn't sick, I knew it was the alcohol, but I didn't know alcohol, 
you know. It took me a long time to make that connection because, interestingly enough, my 
mother's oldest brother Campbell, was also alcoholic, and I sort of knew that, but-- and I think he 
might even have been involved with AA, and that was way back, you know, in the days when 
AA first started up. And he, he was a conscientious objector to the second World War. Actually, 
he joined and was, to be a medic and then when they started training with arms, he went AWOL. 
That was back, was it the first? That was second World War, not first I remember it, second 
World War-- and, and he, he was a sweet man, and I but I know clearly now, well, two things 
about my Uncle Cam, he was alcoholic and he was obviously gay. I mean, that was never said, 
but now I know. He had this relationship with this young man and, and he worked-- I mean, I 
just know now that my uncle cam was gay. And he died, he died from alcoholism. You know, 
and I knew that, but I still didn't make that connection with my mother's alcohol drinking. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  23:32 
Were you closest to your mother?  
 
Margaret Anderson  23:34 
Well, I was really hooked in. I didn't always, you know, I was always trying to please her, and 
always trying to even get some attention from her. I was basically really neglected by her, you 
know, emotionally. And she, because she worked a lot. And before she, from the-- I remember 
there was two years from a time when my brother left, and then, before my mother remarried, 
she was gone a lot, and I was alone a lot. And then after even she remarried, my stepfather was 
in the Air Force and transferred away, and there was one year that he was transferred to Quebec, 
and she went out there to work and be with him, and I, I was left living with her mother, who I 
didn't really like very much. Or, no, I think I lived with her mother when he was out on the West 
Coast, and I lived with his mother when he was in the east. So they were my mother made a real 
clear choice, at that time, between her new husband and me, but actually it was between her 
drinking. There's lots of things I know now that I don't, and I'm still working on, still learning 
about what it was like to be a child of an, you know, an alcoholic. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  25:01 
So, you moved around quite a bit. 
 
Margaret Anderson  25:03 
Yeah, I never went to the same school two years in succession until I got to college. Yeah, yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  25:15 
How far were you from your father and your brother? 
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Margaret Anderson  25:18 
Well, when I was, I was in Winnipeg. I didn't, I didn't get to see my brother very much. It's really 
interesting. I tried to, when I was, got a little older and had a bicycle and like, in junior high and 
stuff, I'd ride over and try to re, try to connect with him. But mostly in summer, my brother 
would be-- we went down to Selkirk on a weekend or Sunday, pick me up and take me down. 
My brother and I were, which is, you know, something I don't remember, really looked at or 
really know exactly what happened to our relationship, but we were very close as children, you 
know? I mean, there's only a year and nine days between us, in our age, he was younger than I 
was. And he's, he's a nice, he's a nice guy. But we don't, we're not close. We talk and stuff, but he 
doesn't get into feelings ever. And I'm probably closer to his children than I am to him.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  26:38 
So you lived in the same town then, did you see your father as often as your brother?  
 
Margaret Anderson  26:42 
Yeah, yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  26:47 
What is the educational background of your parents? 
 
Margaret Anderson  26:52 
Well, my mother finished high school and then went to business college. And she really wanted 
to go to chartered accountancy school, but they didn't take females.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  27:04 
Now that's the same as a CPA?  
 
Margaret Anderson  27:06 
Yeah, that's where her father was, had gone to charter accountancy school, but they didn't have 
women at that time. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  27:14 
And how did she feel about that? 
 
Margaret Anderson  27:17 
I think she, I remember talking about that. She sort of resented the fact that she never had a 
chance to do that. She was very good with figures, she was, kept excellent books, she was a real 
good businesswoman. My father had a degree, college degree in chemistry, and when they met, 
actually, she was working as a secretary at the University of Manitoba. At that time, it was an 
agricultural school, and my father taught out there, he taught chemistry, I think. And now it's just 
on like, on the suburbs of Winnipeg. But in those days, the people that work there stayed out 
there in dorms and stuff. So they started dating at that time when he was lecturing at the 
University and she was working there.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  28:13 
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How old were they when they met? 
 
Margaret Anderson  28:16 
I think my mother got married when she was 22 and my father is, was 29, seven years older than 
her. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  28:23 
Did she ever talk about women's rights or the fact that she, she couldn't get into school because 
she was a woman?  
 
Margaret Anderson  28:31 
No, I don't, I don't think she thought in those terms. She was a very independent kind of person 
and a very good business woman. And I think that, I think she might have become more aware of 
those things. But like, my mother, died of alcoholism. So, you know, she was drinking all, she 
drank, probably from the time she was in her 20s until she died at 67. So that, she didn't pay too 
much attention to other things. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  29:07 
What were her political beliefs, if any? 
 
Margaret Anderson  29:12 
I don't know. She would get, when I, when I went into social work, I would talk about things, she 
would get really incensed, you know, about some of the things I would tell her that, that people 
had to deal with, put up with. She really, she wasn't the kind of person that said, "Oh, why don't 
they get off their asses and work," you know, or something. She was really, she was really, my 
mother was a very kind person. And with like, her friends would say, you know, "Chris, Chris 
would give me the shirt off her back," she was that kind of a person. But, see, I imagine she was 
a liberal. Then later on, I remember she probably voted democratic, Democratic Party in 
Manitoba. She was not, she was not a conservative person. She probably was not very political.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  30:11 
I guess I'm really unaware of the things that happened in Canada during, you know, I know what 
happened in the United States. What did-- did Canada go through the same kind of uplift after 
World War Two that the United States-- did the economy improve and people get jobs, that kind 
of thing?  
 
Margaret Anderson  30:32 
Well, it actually got better, probably during the war, is when things picked up. I mean, it was 
affected also by the, the Depression. And like, I was born in '31 which is during the drought, the 
Depression and I was born in January, and my mother said, like, instead of a snowstorm, that 
was like a sandstorm. You know, because their ground was so dry and there was no, it wasn't 
snowing, wasn't raining or snowing, you know. There was this cold and dust blowing all over 
and my mother held down two jobs, [?after she left my father?] [inaudible]. She worked two 
jobs, probably in order to pay, you know, for us. And, and I know that my father gave for, 
something like $35 a month, for each of us kids. I mean, wages weren't very high. You know, 
money was, things probably got a little bit better in the '50s, I imagine. '55 is when I left Canada 
Page 11 of 15 
 
and came down to go to graduate school. But I do know, I remember thinking afterwards, all the 
time I was a kid, we'd drive by United College, where my, I knew my uncle was dean there,  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  31:51 
And that is where? 
 
Margaret Anderson  31:53 
In Winnipeg. And we'd drive by this, and it's right downtown, it's now called the University of 
Winnipeg, and it would be my mother, as well as everybody else, would point it out to me and 
say, "Now, that's where you're gonna go to college." And so, like, I always knew from time I was 
about 10 years on, that I was going to go to college, and I never thought that was unusual until, 
years later, I read that during those years when I grew up and went to college, only 1 percent of 
the population in Canada went to college, you know, so that was-- 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  32:25 
Even a smaller, percent were women, probably.  
 
Margaret Anderson  32:29 
But on my father's side, everybody was a professional person, as I say. My Uncle OT was a, was 
a professor of mathematics, my Aunt Marg taught, my Aunt Anne had been a nurse, my Aunt Sis 
trained in nursing down at Columbia in New York, that's, but she ended up getting, meeting a 
doctor there and marrying and living in Kalamazoo. And then my Aunt May trained as a nurse, 
she married an engineer. And on my, on my mother's side, well, my, my mother's sister became a 
teacher, my mother's brother didn't, he went into the Army very young, came back and became a 
colonel. And that sort of, lived on that for a while.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  33:33 
So, you have a well-educated family, so to speak. 
 
Margaret Anderson  33:38 
Yeah, yeah, I guess they were. They're not, they're not terribly cultured. But the woman in the 
family that I have the most in common with is my stepmother. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  33:52 
Your father's-- 
 
Margaret Anderson  33:52 
My father's second wife, yeah. She is a daughter of a minister, she's very bitter about that. She 
grew up in the prairie in the days when the ministers didn't get paid money, they got paid off in 
farm animals and the ministers children wore second hand clothing. But anyway, she's 
somebody, she's the one that prepared that information about Iceland that I showed you. She 
writes and she paints and, and when I go to visit them, she and I go off to the museums, and we 
go off on walks in the country. And we spend more time together than my father and I do, we 
just have a lot more in common. She, she has a degree in political science from University of 
Toronto, but she never got to use it, because she graduated during the Depression years, became 
a secretary for the federal government. 
Page 12 of 15 
 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  34:51 
So were you close to her when you were growing up--  
 
Margaret Anderson  34:53 
No. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  34:54 
--or when you were in high school? 
 
Margaret Anderson  34:56 
No, well, oh you, when you asked me if I lived with my mother, when I was 16, I was, I went 
and lived with my father and stepmother. My father, it was after the war, my stepfather was 
drinking, my mother and stepfather were fighting, I just couldn't stand it, and I [?finally told?] 
my mother that I want out of this. And I went and I lived with my father and stepmother and 
brother who lived with my Uncle OT, who was a widower. And they, ever since my father 
married, remarried, they had lived with OT, who was, my stepmother used to refer to him as a 
little tin God. He was really somewhat of a tyrant. And I lived there for two years, and I couldn't 
stand it. Also, I started drinking, you know, when I was about 18 and, and I couldn't, that wasn't 
the household where you drank. So, I'm back and knowing, looking back on it now I know I 
moved back to my mother's home so I could drink. And I was in college.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  36:04 
So, you lived with her while you were in college? 
 
Margaret Anderson  36:06 
Yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  36:08 
The whole time you were an undergraduate? 
 
Margaret Anderson  36:11 
Yeah, pretty much. I think, I think my first year as an undergraduate, I was with my father, and 
then, and then I went probably in the second, from then on. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  36:23 
You told me about a woman named Rhea Thomas.  
 
Margaret Anderson  36:26 
Oh, Rhea, yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  36:27 
Rhea, can you tell me about her? You said she was still close to you.  
 
Margaret Anderson  36:31 
Page 13 of 15 
 
Rhea was a, probably Rhea's sister, was probably a friend of my mother's, her sister, Reggie. And 
Reggie was married to Roy Alt, who was a radio announcer, the sister, Dorothy Alt, who was 
kind of a popular singer in Canada at that time, that I remember now. So, Rhea was getting a 
divorce, and I don't know any of the things around it, but in those days, it took a year to get a 
divorce, and she was waiting to get married. She didn't have any training or any way to get a job, 
and it was in the '30s, so, she lived with us. I took care of my brother and I while my mother held 
down these two jobs, I think for that year. And it was a very important, she was very important 
person, she just was so loving. She was just one of the most gentle, loving persons you know, 
and, that I've ever known. And she just loved my brother and I so much, she was so good to us. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  37:35 
How old were you then? 
 
Margaret Anderson  37:36 
That was the year I was eight, [?or I was seven?]. She was just very important, and she was there 
for you. And then she just, then she married Wynn and sort of dropped out of our lives. And I 
just could never, I was, never understood it. And then when I was in, right when I, I think when I 
got through college and I started working, I looked her up, and I looked and by then she and 
Wynn were, adopted two little girls. And Wynn, I don't know if Wynn was still drinking then or 
not, turned out Wynn was alcoholic. But I used to visit them off and on for about that year or so, 
and then they went, then they moved to Ontario, to Niagara Falls. And then I didn't have any 
contact with them until I moved to the east to go to graduate school and I looked them up driving 
through, I was driving, you know, driving through from Pennsylvania to either Manitoba or up to 
see my father in Ottawa. And I, I stopped off and found their house and visited them and got 
reconnected with them again, you know. And then I remember once, Rhea and Wynn were 
driving through the east, going west, and they stopped off and visited me when I was living in 
Duluth, and then Wynn died, I think in '64, '65. But I just kept track, you know me, and I, you 
know, correspond, and when I go east, I try to see her. Or, I certainly always call her if I'm east, 
but I've tried to see her, and then she, she and, and Reggie, by that time, was widowed, also. I 
stopped off and visited, my lover and I, in Duluth a few years ago, and I took my lover, she was 
the person I came out to. I remember now, when I was in some therapy, a therapist asked me 
who I had felt safe with as a child, emotionally safe, my Aunt Margaret and Rhea were the only 
people that I, that I had, that I knew. And my Aunt Margaret's dead, so, Rhea was the person I 
wrote to and came out to and I got a letter back, I think the same, she must have mailed it the 
same day as she got it, telling me that was just wonderful. She still loved me and that she would 
love to meet Rosemary because if I, if I loved her, she must be really wonderful.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  40:18 
How were you then? 
 
Margaret Anderson  40:20 
When I came out to Rhea? Oh, God, I don't know. Probably about 43, 44. Yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  40:35 
How old is she now?  
 
Page 14 of 15 
 
Margaret Anderson  40:36 
She's 77, yeah, yeah. And she-- Oh, the wonderful thing is that Wynn did sober up, he became 
very involved in AA. He got involved in A&W franchises in, around Niagara Falls area after the 
war. And when he died, I mean, he was sort of close to being millionaire, and so he left Rhea 
with all this money, and these two wonderful adopted children, who now are married, and so she 
has her grandchildren, and that's the things that are so important to her family. And it's just so 
wonderful that she has that money that Wynn made for her, [?well made for himself and then 
A&W gave her?]. So she winters, she bought a place down Florida, and she winters in Florida 
and summers at Niagara Falls, Canadian side. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  41:34 
When did you come out as a lesbian? 
 
Margaret Anderson  41:37 
Well, it depends on who and how, what you mean by the word coming out.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  41:41 
Okay, when did you come out to yourself? When did all you realize--  
 
Margaret Anderson  41:45 
that I was a lesbian?  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  41:46 
--that you were a lesbian. 
 
Margaret Anderson  41:48 
Well, I sort of wondered about it when I was 13, I was in love with, a girl, her name was Ricky, 
and we had a couple months of lovely relationship. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  42:02 
When you were 13?  
 
Margaret Anderson  42:03 
Yeah, a lot of, kind of, holding and touching. Probably not, we were not sexual, genital, 
genitally, but what kissing and holding. And then, I think probably the same time I spent at 
summer camp, sort of that, again, a relationship, but not, not genital sex. We were all kind of 
naive back in those days, I guess. So, I knew when I was like 13 that I was very attracted to 
women. And I can also remember around that time, 13, 14, there was a woman who came into 
the local coffee shop who was a transvestite. She was totally dressed in men's clothing. And I 
was just fascinated by the whole idea. I didn't exactly find her attractive, but I was just sort of 
fascinated, you know, with her. It was, when, when I first got involved in a sexual relationship 
and a relationship with a woman was when I was in college and, with my friend Benj, who was 
five years older than I was, and she was there as a veteran. She'd been in the Canadian's Army 
Corps. And so I was 18, 19. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  43:33 
Page 15 of 15 
 
When you were 13, and you were thinking that you might be a lesbian. Did that bother you? 
 
Margaret Anderson  43:37 
Well, I didn't know what a lesbian was, and no, I, I just was very attracted. I also was attracted 
to, I had crushes on boys and things, and dated. But, but when I was, when I was 19, no, it never 
bothered me. I dated, though, like I dated, occasionally I would date men. So there's probably 
about a 10 year period there where I would, I was really in love with a lot of women, I would 
date men occasionally. And at 29 made a real clear choice and stopped dating men completely, 
because I knew that it was ridiculous. But I, Benj was, was my first love, I carried a torch for her 
for about 10 years.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  44:24 
Did you talk about your feelings when you were 13 in those years with your mother or anybody?  
 
Margaret Anderson  44:30 
Oh, God no.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  44:33 
You wouldn't care, huh?  
 
Margaret Anderson  44:35 
Well, yeah, there wasn't anybody to talk to, Rhea wasn't in my life. Oh, I know what I was going 
to tell you, that the reason Rhea dropped out of my life, it turned out that, she didn't tell me this 
until after my mother died, was that at the time when Rhea left to go get married, to marry 
Wynn, she gave my mother a talking to about her parental neglect. You know, my brother and I, 
and specifically, you know the way that she treated my brother. She was really kind of mean 
with him. I mean, not physically abusive, but she just was, like, emotionally, kind of, neglectful 
of us. And that, my mother was so angry with Rhea for calling her on this that she told her that 
she couldn't see us anymore, or have any contact with us. And I'd never known, you know, why 
Rhea had disappeared.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  45:28 
Let me turn this over.  
 
Margaret Anderson  45:29 
Sure. 