A to Z Blogging Challenge: M is for Maggie

Maggie.

Maggie is a name that shows up on several occasions in my family tree and at least once in my husband’s. My maternal grandma was named Maggie. It wasn’t short for Margaret, as is often the case. It was Maggie, plain and simple. Her maternal grandmother was also named Maggie. Grandma described her Granny Williams as a red-headed Irish woman with a temper to match. She did not like her granny. Grandma was about nine years old when she was told that her Granny Williams was dead. Grandma’s response? “Good!” Wow. Of course, I didn’t know my grandma when she was a little girl, but knowing the woman that she became, I can’t imagine those words coming out of her over the death of anybody. Her granny must have really been some piece of work!

My own granny, Evelyn, had a grandma named Maggie as well. Her name was Maggie Fowler, wife of George, and mother to my granny’s daddy.

My youngest daughter is named after my grandma, although Maggie is not my daughter’s legal name. It is what I call her. Her name is a combination of my grandma’s name and her sister’s name, which was Mae.

The Maggie in my husband’s family was the second wife of his great-grandpa Elias Wallis Roberts. I mentioned this Maggie in the post yesterday about Leon. She came along after Leon’s mama Johnnie died from complications of childbirth when he was about eight months old. She raised him like her own and birthed him a little sister named Margie. My mother-in-law didn’t know until she was grown that this Maggie was her step-grandmother, not her biological grandmother. From what I’ve heard, she was a very loving woman.