| Main entry | MacDougall (or McDougall), Margaret Dixon |
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| Birth place | Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland |
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| Birth date | 25 December 1828 |
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| Death place | Seattle, Washington, USA |
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| Death date | 22 October 1899 |
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| Identifier | 0218 |
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| Birth name | Margaret Moran Dixon |
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| Alternate names | Nora, Norah, Nora Pembroke |
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| Married name | McDougall, MacDougall, or MacDougal |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Baptist |
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| Paid work | journalist; teacher |
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| Biography | Born and raised in a prosperous family in Northern Ireland, Margaret Moran Dixon (1828-1899) came to Canada with her mother, step-father, and two step-sisters some time during her twenties. In 1852, she married lumberman Alexander Dougald McDougall (1827-1887), with whom she had six children, and during the 1860s and 1870s lived alternately in Pembroke and Clarence, Ontario, where she taught in her own school. After publishing extensively in local newspapers, she returned to her native land as a correspondent for the MONTREAL WITNESS and NEW YORK WITNESS during the Parnell agitation of 1882. The injustice of the oppression of the Irish peasants struck her imagination forcibly and, while not advocating Home Rule, she firmly supported substantial land reform as the only way to restore peace and justice to the country. The views expressed in her columns, published in book form as THE LETTERS OF "NORAH" ON HER TOUR THROUGH IRELAND (1882), are reiterated in her novel DAYS OF A LIFE (1883). These books were preceded by a volume of verse. After the death of her husband in 1887, Margaret became an active member of the Baptist Home Missionary Society, working in Michigan. Her last six years were spent living in Montesano, Washington where she dedicated much of her time to church activity. Margaret died unexpectedly during a visit to Seattle in 1899; her obituary honoured her work lecturing through the southern states in favour of educating freed slaves. |
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| Other notes | In a number of sources, Margaret is mistakenly identified as "Paul Peppergrass," author of THE LADY OF THE BEACON OF THE ARAHEERA (Corey: Quebec, 1857); however, this was the pseudonym of a Catholic priest, John Boyce (1810-64). Margaret cared for a foster child, identified as "Mrs. W.C. Gibson" in the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER obituary. |
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| Residences | Belfast, Northern Ireland (1828-); L'Original, Ontario (1852); Clarence, Ontario (1853); Pembroke, Ontario (1854); Clarence (1861, 1865); Pembroke (1871, 1881); Ireland (1882); Oscoda, Michigan (1887); Montesano, Washington (1893-1899) |
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| Geographic regions | Ontario; USA |
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| Primary genres | fiction; non-fiction; poetry |
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| Books | VERSES AND RHYMES BY THE WAY (1880); THE LETTERS OF "NORAH" ON HER TOUR THROUGH IRELAND (1882); THE DAYS OF A LIFE (1883) |
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| Periodicals | MONTREAL WITNESS; NEW YORK WITNESS |
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| Father's name | William Henry Dixon |
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| Life dates of father | c1798, Whitehaven, Cumberland, England - c1830, Ireland |
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| Mother's name | Eleanor West |
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| Life dates of mother | 1799, UK - 1884, USA |
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| Mother's note | Second husband Thomas Carey (with whom she had two daughters) |
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| Spouse 1 | Alexander Dougald McDougall |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | 20 March 1827, Fortingale, Perthshire, Scotland - July 1887, Oscoda, Michigan |
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| Spouse 1 note | lumberman |
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| Marriage 1 date | 23 January 1852 |
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| Marriage 1 place | L'Orignal, Ontario |
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| Children number | 6 |
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| Children's names and dates | Isabella Evaleen (26 December 1853 - 27 November 1924), m. to John George Guppy;
John Alexander Leonard (28 February 1854 - 8 January 1919), m. to Amanda Catherine Free;
William Henry (5 February 1857 - 1906), m. to Elizabeth Lusk Beggs;
Anne C M (c1859 - before 1899);
James Peter (c1862 - before 1899);
Reverend George H. (16 September 1865 - after 1899)
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| Biographical references | MACMILLAN DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY; Obituary, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER (October 1899); 1861 Census of Canada; 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 124, 334, 972 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
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| Unverified titles | MY LIFE IN GLENSHIE (1878); MY YOUNG MASTER; CASTING A LOT; REVENGE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE; IN SEARCH OF THE SUPERNATURAL |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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