• I was born February 1, 1929 at a little mission station called Nyakach in Kenya Colony, British East Africa. My father and mother were pioneer missionaries working among the tribes near the northeast corner of Lake Victoria, having been the first white people in the area, learning the native language and putting it in writing. Dad was born in Denmark coming to the States at the age of 18. He spent 4 1/2 years here before going to Africa in 1907. Mother was born in Kansas and went to Africa at the age of 21.
The first 6 years of my life, until my father died, we lived on a mission station about 50 miles from the nearest railway station. After my father died, Mother was in poor health so the three of us girls and Mother moved to the main mission station [Kijabe] where there was a school for the children of missionaries. There are three girls in the family each 3 years apart, of which I am the middle one. My brother is 13 years older than my oldest sister and left college to carry on the work my father started and is still working in Kenya colony.
I attended the mission school for ten years but during the war it was difficult to get teachers for the higher grades so I went to the government school in Nairobi to finish my high school training. Though my mother took very ill and had to leave with my oldest sister to come to the States in June 1946, I stayed in school so that I could take the Senior Cambridge School Certificate examination from Cambridge University in England. I received a First Class Certificate from the examination, having passed all the subjects with credit - English Grammar, English Literature, Biology, Mathematics (Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry), Geography, European History, and Art. My youngest sister and I obtained passage on a freighter and left Mombassa on December 23, 1946, and arrived in New York, February 10, 1947.
From New York we went to John Brown University, Arkansas, where I attended the college for one semester. When I realized it would be too difficult to go to college and work to help support my mother and sister, we moved to Redwood City, California, with my aunt and uncle. We lived with them for a year while I attended Business College in San Jose and then after graduating with a General Secretary Diploma, we moved to Compton where we have made our home since September 1948.
Since my father was Danish and Mother became Danish when she married him, we were Danish until my father died. My mother was then reinstated American but all of us children became British because of being born in a British colony. My youngest sister arrived in the States before she was 18 so was given her citizenship papers upon arrival but because the ship was delayed three weeks, I had my 18th birthday on the ship and so have had to apply for citizenship. This has made it very difficult to obtain a position in any field I would choose.2617

• And so it was, two days before Christmas in 1946, that Margaret and I found ourselves aboard the SS African Crescent bound for New York and a whole new and strange world.2580, p 113,2628, age 17 years, 11 months

• Margaret met a young salesman at the Equitable Life Assurance Company where she was working. Soon she and Bob Schilling were dating. Unfortunately Bob had to go into the Air Force and was sent overseas for a time. Although she dated other men, Bob had won her heart and they began to make plans for marriage. There was even a time when they were considering a wedding by proxy.2580, p 128