Margaret Wise Brown died at the age of 42. At the time she was in France – she was going to be meeting up with her fiance James Rockefeller Jr and they were going to marry and go on a sailing adventure. She had an emergency appendectomy and she had recovered and was getting ready to leave when a blood clot released and she died –

Margaret was 16 years older than James – Today he is 96. In 2019 he wrote his memoir Wayfarer It was published by Nibus publishing – here is a short bio on him .https://nimbus.ca/authors/bio/james-s-rockefeller-jr

After her death, James or “Pebble” as his friends called him, continued traveling, eventually married and had 2 children. If Margaret had lived – I don’t think she would have had children. She was 16 years his senior and it is known that she never really liked children. I speculate that she would have continued to write children’s books and probably would have continued to expand into adult or at least young adult stories. This month is the 70th anniversary of her death. After collecting a reading nearly all her work, nearly everything written about her and discussing her work and writing style with other collectors – I feel like I have a little bit of understanding about what kind of person she was- I could be completely wrong.

Mostly everyone I know that has had a child feels that becoming a parent changed them profoundly. I know it changed me. Having our daughter was and is my greatest joy – deepest sorrow – unimaginable fear and most profoundly proud event of of my life, I’m sorry that Margaret never experienced parenthood- step parenthood or any situation where she would have stepped outside of herself and been responsible for another human being. I support everyones choice to be or not be a parent.

The question of Margaret’s sexual orientation has for sometime been the headline or at least the “salacious” subject of articles about her. I personally don’t care what her sexual orientation was- Honestly it’s none of my business. Who one loves – is who one loves- period. Loving and being in love, for me is right up there with being a mom. Margaret was in love when she died- that is wonderful.

Happy Mothers day to all the moms and step mom’s and moms of any situation – Cherish the ones you love.