Margaret May Nixon was born Feb 15, 1884 in Wimbledon, England. She had an older brother Harry. Their mother died when they were young children, and their father remarried and had two other daughters. Although her father was relatively well off the 1901 census listed her as a scullery maid in Kent, England. As a single woman, she travelled to Canada and landed in Quebec in 1906. From there, she made her way to New Westminster. By 1907 she was married to Richard Augustus Young. They had five children, one of whom drowned as a child. They split at the time her husband enlisted in the army. She worked on the BC Ferries and in logging camps. Her sons lived with other families during this time. She lived in a logging camp with her daughters, according to the 1921 census. There she met her second husband, Harry Dingee, who was a foreman in the camp. They had two children, but Harry Dingee died in 1942. He left her a house in Duncan, BC. Margaret worked most of her life, including a stint at the Anglican residential industrial School in Alert Bay, teaching sewing and cooking. From all accounts, she was strict and stern with her children and grandchildren alike. Only our father was able to have an education. Her two daughters by Richard Augustus had to go into service as there were no funds for high school. I’m sure this life was not the one she dreamed of as a child in England. However, she lived a long life dying just before her 103rd birthday in 1987.
