Margaret was born in 1922 to a North Dakota Norwegian family in the USA. Her early years were filled with love as she lived with her grandparents on a family farm. The time came when Margaret was required to live with her parents and siblings where one of her first challenges was to learn English. She was sent home from her first year in school because she only knew Norwegian. Margaret learned English within one year, was prepared for school life, loved it, and ultimately made a career of teaching. Margaret relates the challenges of a drinking father and her way of helping care for her eight younger brothers and sisters. The family had no clock, so the first person to wake in the morning would run to the neighbors to get the time from the neighbor's clock. At one point the family lived in a railroad boxcar that was too small for the growing family. To help the family, teen-age Margaret found work as a waitress and made enough money to rent a room in the local hotel for the older girls in the family. These instances are a true historical account of an amazing woman in a small North Dakota community.