Knowing her as she was then and remembering her devotion to the South
and the sacrifices she had made for her home through the dark years,
one might have thought that she was a native daughter of Virginia. In
the village of Milton, Pennsylvania, where her father, Reverend George
Junkin, was pastor of the Associate Reformed Church, Margaret Junkin
was born on the 19th of May, 1820, in a small, plain, rented house, a
centre of love and harmony, with simple surroundings, for the family
finances did not purchase household luxuries, but were largely
expended in assisting those less fortunately placed.

In this little home, where rigid economy was practised and high
aspirations reigned, our future poet entered upon the severe
intellectual training which caused her at twenty-one, when the door of
scholastic learning was closed upon her by the partial failure of her
sight, to be called a scholar, though she sorrowfully resented the
title, asking, "How can you speak of one as a scholar whose studies
were cut short at twenty-one?"

She received her first instruction from her mother, passing then under
the tutorship of her father, who fed his own ambition by gratifying
her scholarly tastes, teaching her the Greek alphabet when she was six
years old and continuing her training in collegiate subjects until she
was forced by failing sight to give up her reading.

When she was ten the family removed to Germantown, where her father
had charge of the Manual Labor School, and Margaret enjoyed the
advantages at that time afforded by the city of Philadelphia,
gathering bright memories which irradiated her somewhat sombre life
then and lightened her coming years.