Descended from Newfoundlanders on her father's side, Margaret Bemister (1877-1984) was born in Manitoba, into a family of thirteen children. Over her life of nearly 107 years, Margaret collected many stories, beginning with the legends told to her in the 1880s by a native chief (Antowyne) who was a regular visitor at her pioneer parents' home in Winnipeg. After she qualified to teach at the Winnipeg Normal School, she used her story-telling skills to entertain her classes, and began to publish her tales in collections for schoolchildren. Her INDIAN LEGENDS, first issued in 1914, was still popular over seventy-five years later. An early member of the Winnipeg branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club, where her colleagues included Abbie Lyon Sharman* and Florence Randal Livesay*, Margaret wrote for the MANITOBA FREE PRESS and was one of the creators of the CHRISTMAS KNAPSACK (1914) anthology issued by the CWPC to raise money for soldiers' comforts at the outbreak of World War I. During the 1920s and 30s, Bemister wrote a regular column for the FREE PRESS PRAIRIE FARMER. She was eighty-two when she retired to Vancouver to live with one of her sisters. Even as an elderly woman, she continued to publish stories for children, producing THE ARROW SASH and THE GOLDEN CARAVEL in the 1960s. Margaret died at St. Vincents Hospital in Vancouver, on 3 March 1984. She was buried at Gardens of Gethsemane.
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