Meeting Margaret: The Conclusion

June 25, 2019

Meeting Margaret: The Conclusion

my visit with the legendary author who inspired my own writing

Part Three

Part One of Meeting Margaret ended with my somewhat chance conversation with an employee of Historic Scotland, working that day at Smailholm tower, the setting of my favorite childhood novel. Part Two ended with Bob and I driving west.

In an expanded version, I’ll talk about all the other adventures, all the other people I met as a result of this journey to meet Margaret. For this blog post, I’ll skip to Monday, 11 am, our agreed-upon time. Margaret invited me to her home in Corvallis, Oregon.

(For the record, natives say something like Or-i-gin, almost like the church instrument and the first instrument I was forced to play and kicked out of lessons on, not that I’m bitter. The stress in OR-gin, to Oregonians, is on the first syllable. I continually struggle not to say ore uh GAHN. But I digress!)

On the outskirts of Margaret’s town, Bob and I followed our faithful GPS to a ‘road’ that looked more like a long, narrow, black top driveway. We almost pulled into the first house on the right before realizing it wasn’t the correct address. And so we dove deeper and deeper into the trees on this narrow blacktop road—reminiscent of the very roads in Scotland with which I’d become all too familiar.

Finally—there it was, deep in the trees: Margaret’s address! As we pulled in, the very first thing I noticed was the two matching Hondas side by side in the carport. Okay, it’s a complete tangent but I found it funny because in my current WIP, Castle of Dromore, a husband and wife have matching white Honda Odysseys. I believe my writers’ group, Night Writers, sort of laughed at this plot point, questioning the likelihood of a couple having matching Hondas. The last laugh was on them, because here were matching Hondas!

Bob and I pulled in and as we got out of the car, Margaret came from between the carport and house. I think perhaps she was coming from her garden. Maybe she’d been working there when we arrived. We would later see her wonderful garden. She welcomed me with open arms, literally, and a hug. I told her about the matching Hondas, and she laughed about it, too, saying it was her daughter’s.

It is not considered polite to give a lady’s age! I will only say I am amazed by Margaret’s youth and health! I have often, in my life, found that musicians, writers, and artists have an amazing knack for maintaining youth. My son’s (okay, I have seven, so Son # 2) godfather played drums with B. B. King. (Yes, I’m a novelist, but no, I’m not making this up.) I remember a time Leslie came to the Midwest with his band and Son #2 and I pondered the math and were shocked to realize he had to be at least 20 years older than the 50 something he seemed to be as he drummed and did the chicken dance and laughed and pranced and had a ball during their performance!)

So there was Margaret, the woman who wrote the novel that entranced me more than 40 years earlier! She was a bit shorter than me, although not much, with beautiful white hair clipped back on one side, warm and welcoming. I immediately told her the story of the matching Hondas and why I was laughing as I pulled in, and she laughed, too, telling me it was her daughter’s car. She ushered us into her home.

I sometimes, not often, but sometimes, think about the people around the world who love my writing, from Scotland to South Africa to Spain. They might be disappointed at my reality: a suburban cookie cutter home picked up cheap because the carpets and walls were all still 1979.

(When I write a horror novel, it will almost certainly feature the floor to ceiling ‘marigold’ in 70s lingo or, to be more accurate A Hundred Mustard Jars Exploded in Here bathroom. I still have PTSD from my first sight of that bathroom. I’m not joking. Thank God, and I mean that sincerely, that was the very first room my father tore apart and renovated for us into something less traumatic. But I digress...sorry, but I am a storyteller and there are a hundred gruesome stories to be told in that bathroom alone!)

Margaret’s house, however, was what we might imagine an author lives in! Something unique, something beautiful! Her house is set on five acres, originally built for a man in a wheelchair—one story—and also clearly for someone who loved nature. I’m no expert but I thought her house was a bit of Woodsy Meets Frank Lloyd Wright. It was full of earth tones and wood, with stained glass windows near the door. The small living room where we talked before lunch had a nearly floor to ceiling window looking out on a woodsy-garden area where birds flew past, and fluttered at feeders. A couple of frames held giant (and very colorful) beetles, and two plates on the wall had hand-painted insects on them.

I learned a great deal about Margaret that I hadn’t known: that she studied to be a geneticist at Edinburgh University in the 50s, that she emigrated early on to Canada, where she met her husband, and from there to Oregon, and that she had been married for many years to an entomologist. That explained the insects all around the house! I learned that Margaret had also written non-fiction books on insects and scientists, and had a pair of larvae (yes, actual hardened larvae!) earrings she wears when speaking to children about her writing!

Margaret read to us her opening paragraphs of a book about Burying Beetles, or Undertaker Beetles, as they’re sometimes known, and laughing said, “No one has ever wanted to meet me because I wrote a book about insects!” I still smile every time I think of her saying that!

By the way...the opening paragraphs were fascinating, describing a dead mouse apparently moving on its own and then burying itself!

On the subject of insects, Margaret laughed as she told us one story in particular. She says she isn't very good with naming characters and so in one book (In the Circle of Time, In the Mists of Time?) she needed futuristic sounding names for characters. She had been helping Norm with his work in part by typing up his work--including lists of insects. So she took some of those names and used them as characters! She laughed as she told me about a school teacher who let her know he knew where she got her names!

I was delighted to meet Margaret’s youngest daughter, Karen, on our visit. Did I mention that in my world, I’ve often thought more about the stories than about the authors? Now, I was meeting Karen, the youngest of Margaret’s four children and about my own age. Suddenly, I was thinking about her experience with a mother who wrote fiction and my own childrens’ experience. Was Karen aware, at the age of 15 that there was a child across the world engrossed in her mother’s words?

While Margaret put together our lunch, Karen showed us many of the books her mother had written, including books they had co-written together. I had known one book, which had heavily influenced me. I had been unaware of how much Margaret had done! Karen showed me her books on insects, on scientists, a novel based on her mother-in-law’s account of a trans-Atlantic journey, her memoir, other novels!

Bob and I helped Margaret and Karen move plates, silverware, food, and more out to a table maybe 200 feet from the main house, past a separate little house that was alternatively used as a house or office space, to a little space beside a pond.

We feasted on salad that I later learned was grown in Margaret’s gardens, bread fresh from the oven (although Margaret stressed that she bought it and merely warmed it!), crackers and four kinds of cheese. Whether it was here or in her front room that seemed to be part of the birds, we learned of Margaret’s and her children’s travels around the world, with her professor husband, of their personal connection with Smailholm.

Margaret told us of her parents’ courtship—which included climbing out the upper window of the then- empty Smailholm and sitting on the rooftop, many stories up, talking throughout the night! Her home is somewhat sparse—and I mean that in a good way—consisting mainly of book shelves. A ceramic model of Smailholm is one of the few things adorning those shelves other than books.

As we ate, Karen pointed out the goldfish and newt in the pond and Margaret told us how, in normal rainy seasons, the pond overflowed, creating a small waterfall. Margaret and Karen told us funny family stories, including one about Margaret setting out luminaria leading to the pond—and her (then) young grandson running headlong down the illuminated path until he fell head first into the pond itself. I told of my son, now a Marine, trying to flip his older sister into the similar (but much wider) pond at The Grotto when he was 18 months old.

They spoke fondly of Margaret’s husband Norm, who passed away eighteen months prior to our visit. After lunch, we helped carry things back to the house and Margaret took us on a walk around her land, through trees, past the stream where her husband loved to look for—and found—new water insects. In fact, Norm found several new insects, at least one of which is named after him! I'd tell you the name, but I don't remember. I didn't want to spend our visit taking notes. What I do remember is that he was clearly an amazing man with a deep passion for learning about the world around him.

We crossed a beautiful field of daisies, and back to her garden. I laughed when I first saw it, with its board across the bottom to protect against rabbits—I thought of Mr. MacGregor and Peter Rabbit!

Margaret led us in to a splendid venue of raised beds of peas and carrots and Swiss chard with twisting red stalks that reminded me of something out of Dr. Seuss. How appropriate for a children’s author! I was amazed at her energy to be able to maintain such a garden, and more amazed still to realize that our lunch salad was partially the fruit (so to speak) of her own hands, grown right here! I thought, as we walked through the many vegetable beds, of my own small attempt at gardening at home—a fenced in space that my Irish Wolfhound easily broke through, but with a small paved-stone path between the rows of plantings, a space my children are loving in creating goodness and food.

After our tour, we talked more of her life’s work, and Margaret gave me six of her books, autographed: Searching for Shona, To Nowhere andBack, In the Keep of Time, Journey of the Shadow Bairns, From a Place Far Away, and The Druid’s Gift. (I gave her in return a full set of my books, The Blue Bells Chronicles, which were in part inspired by the Elliot children’s adventure in Smailholm Tower, and Food and Feast, a collection of modern and medieval recipes and history and lore based on my novels.)

We took one more look outside Margaret's kitchen door, looking out on a little enclosed patio with many potted plants. Suddenly, a fawn appeared. Suburban dweller I am, I gasped in amazement--and scared it away! She said deer appear daily.

I had scheduled Air bnbs for every night (I’m sure I’ll write elsewhere about our unfailingly wonderful experiences there, with Emily and Ian, Shelli and Bruce, and Liang!). Our Monday night hosts, Shelli and Bruce, 45 minutes away outside McMinnville, had some expectation of an appearance on some sort of schedule. It was time to say good-bye to Margaret.

How do I sum up such a visit? Thank you so much, Margaret J. Anderson, for your generosity and hospitality! Thank you for being such a great example of how to live a life to the fullest, full of curiosity and wonder, learning and imagination, of thinking about how others have lived and what they experienced and what that tells us about how we ourselves should live. Thank you for bringing history to life. Thank you for the positive impact you have had on my life. Thank you for welcoming me into your life.

I started this series with the quote Our actions echo throughout eternity and talking about those who influenced Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. I jokingly told Margaret I want to be her when I grow up. But really, it's not a joke. Isn't this what we should all strive for--to be a positive impact on others? To light a candle or a roaring hearth in someone else's heart or mind or imagination? To expand someone's world? Anyone who loves my writing--well, you have people like Margaret J. Anderson to thank!

I didn't take many pictures while I was at Margaret's house because I was truly there to meet someone whose book I loved. I didn't want to distract from that. But I finish with this picture of Margaret standing in all the daisies, just after we left the stream on her property. This is my favorite picture from that day and to me it sums up her sunny, happy nature.

Thank you, again, Margaret!

In the Keep of Time by Margaret J. Anderson

I hope you'll visit Margaret's website! I've also discovered Searching for Shona, From a Place Far Away, and To Nowhere and Back, as I work through Margaret's books. I'm enjoying every one of them!