Margaret Kinney

Margaret Kinney's warm and enduring legacy passed into history, Thursday, March 24, 2011. Mom had just recently celebrated her 92^nd birthday.

Margaret Sims Murrish Kinney was born February 1, 1919 at St. Josephs Hospital, Dodgeville. Her childhood was spent on her parents small family farm that squatted atop a hillock in rolling, driftless Southwest Wisconsin, halfway between Dodgeville and Mineral Point. Her earliest Cornish relative in the area was a McMurrish who in the early 1820s was one of the first three miners to settle in what was later to become Mineral Point. They were the original Badgers, as they dug into the very hills they mined and lived there for shelter. As a child, on cold winter days, Moms beloved father Allie would harness his legendary horse, Jack, to the sled, put some warm bricks in it, and drive the girls (Margaret had three sisters) to their country school, then return at the end of the day to retrieve them. It was Jack whom Allie famously rode into town to court their mother, Jane Sims. Because their farm was several miles out of town, and thus a long jaunt in winter, they spent their weekdays boarding in Dodgeville, when the girls went into the later grades. The area at the time was still a tightly knit enclave of Cornish immigrants, including both of Margarets parents and virtually all their friends. Their Cornish ancestry was kept very much alive with the exchange of pasty and other home country recipes and the countless stories of their colorful and intrepid relatives.

Mom graduated from Plum Grove School in 1932; from Dodgeville High School in 1936, and from the University of Wisconsin with a BA in sociology in 1941. She met her husband-to-be, Patrick Kinney, on Bascom Hill in 1938. The evening they met, she saw this handsome young footballer who had played for the latter-day Badgers, and asked him to accompany her over the Hill as it was getting dark. A ruse that proved a winner and led to 60-plus years of marriage. Throughout her life Mom remained proud of the fact that she was the one who initiated the relationship. A scant few years later, Pat went into the Navy and served as a navigator on a mine sweeper in the War in the Pacific. When he returned, they moved to Lancaster to start a family and his career as a country lawyer. Their first home in Lancaster, where their first son, Tom, was born, was the then abandoned country club at the original city golf course, a one-room brick building with no electricity or running water. Margaret would hike down to the nearby spring to pull water and harvest watercress. They lived there for two years before moving to the west side of Lancaster. The lack of these essential comforts, taken for granted nowadays, posed no inconvenience for them as both had grown up in homes without running water or electricity.

The years that Dad served in the Navy, Pat and Margaret lived in the four corners of the US: first, Naval Officer School at Harvard; training, Palm Beach, FL; Seattle, where the ship was built on Bainbridge Island; and for the fitting out of the ship, Long Beach, CA.

As Mom had been a distant relative of Frank Lloyd Wright, she had introduced herself at Taliesin at the age of 17, and turned her connection into a summer job as an aide to Wrights sister Mrs. Jane Porter, always and only referred to by our family thereafter by the regal title, Mrs. Porter. Mrs. Porter mentored Margaret and it was in part due to Porters given name that Margarets first daughter, Jane, was named. Driving Mrs. Porters car (which she learned in Allies pastures) and running errands for her, Mom lived at Tan-y-deri on the grounds of Taliesin for three summers. In Margarets first year at Taliesin, Mrs. Porter and her brother were not on speaking terms. As Mrs. Porter said, You may be King of your hill, but I am Queen of mine. In subsequent years, Mrs. Porter and Mr. Wright restored their usual good relations, and Margaret would join the Porters and the Wrights on Sunday evenings in the living room of the Frank Lloyd Wright where they would play string quartets, have poetry readings, and other cultural exchanges.

She spent much of her time working with Mrs. Porters childrens theater, a project funded by the WPA recreation program. The WPA program largely was aimed at resuscitating ethnic folk dances and melodies from the early pioneers whod settled the area. This job with its hefty $5 per week (1936) wages and room and board helped her fund her way through college. She supplemented it during the school year by being a live-in maid in various homes in Madison while attending the UW. Mrs. Porter assisted Mom in helping her find her Madison jobs and introduced Margaret to Olgivanna Wright, Frank Lloyd Wrights wife, who tutored Mom on folk dances from her native Montinegro.

Years later, Margaret and her husband, Pat Kinney, went to Wright to see if he would design a house for a young couple who had no money to pay for his blueprint. Wright's usual approach then was to charge 10% of the final cost of the house for his design and despite their fiscal circumstance; he willingly agreed to do it. To save money, Pat and Margaret did all the groundwork. Pat mined the limestone from a distant quarry which he would travel to in a beat up 1949 black Ford pickup truck, often with his young son Tom in tow. Pat broke the large slabs of stone into barely manageable sizes armed only with a pick axe, 16 lb. sledge, and crowbar and rolled them end-over-end to the truck and somehow heaved the giant blocks onto the flatbed unassisted. Pat dug and backfilled the footings for the foundation while Margaret fed the stonemasons whom she housed in a boardinghouse near her sisters home. Because the masons couldnt read a blueprint, Pat came to the site every morning before going to work, read the prints and drew the line-strings for their work each day so the masons knew where to lay the great slabs of stone. The entire process took three years of backbreaking after-hours work for Pat and Margaret (who was badly injured when a limestone slab she was helping to remove from the pickup fell on her leg) and the final total cost of their classic prairie home was a beyond reasonable $15,000, which gave FLW a whopping fee of $1,500 for his design, about which he never uttered a mumbling word of complaint. Whatever you could say about FLWs ego, money was a distant secondary motivator. Thereafter, as owners of a Wright home, they attended as guests all major events held at Taliesin. Margaret remained friends with many who lived at Taliesin, including Cornelia Brierly and Charles and Minerva Montooth. When Pat and Margaret put an addition on to their home in the early 60s to accommodate their fourth child, David, it was scrupulously designed by their friend and FLWs assistant, Jack Howe, to conform to the original. Mom rarely missed the annual FLW Birthday party at Taliesin. Margaret was one of the few, and possibly the only remaining original Wright home owner in Wisconsin, and one of few in America. She had the rare honor of having it declared a registered landmark during her lifetime. Their home remained a great object of pride throughout their lives as was their love for all their children. Both were especially proud of their son, Tom, a writer and editor, their daughter, Jane, a florist and store owner, Anne, an astronomer inspired by her father who navigated his mine sweeper by the stars, and son, David, a teacher of English and Spanish. Although their home had originally been laughingly dubbed Ft. Ticonderoga by a local judge, due to its stone walls and fortress-like appearance, the town became accustomed to its unusual design and presence.

Despite growing up humbly in rural Wisconsin, her Cornish family had a brilliant history. Her aunt, Emily Sims, was the first woman to graduate from the UW school of economics in 1915 and went on to become a pioneering Red Cross spokesperson in New York City where she strove mightily and successfully to pass and implement women and children's labor protection laws. A recently discovered photo from the 50s shows Emily at an award ceremony in the company of Queen Elizabeth with a twitching Richard Nixon, then VPOTUS, bouncing around nervously in the background trying to get into the picture. Emilys sister, also Moms aunt, Mary Sims, worked as Confidential Secretary for Wisconsin governor F.E. McGovern as his girl Friday, and later moved to New York to join Emily where, after serving as secretary to the city budget chief in the NYC reform administration of Mayor Mitchell, Mary met and married Robert Moses, the city engineer who transformed NYC through his building of many of its major bridges and its futuristic highway system. Not to mention his work on the St. Lawrence Seaway and many park projects of great magnitude that his biographer, Robert Caro, in his Pulitzer prize-winning book, The Power Broker, compared as being in scope to those of Ramses III. Moses kindness to his country in-laws allowed Margaret and Pat and their family to visit New York frequently where Robert would make available his two-floor townhouse on Gracie Square opposite the Mayor's office, where he was a major player. During those visits, Moms country cousin family had front row tickets for hit Broadway shows, Yankee games, live TV shows, visits to museums, including the opening of FLWs Guggenheim, and a chauffer at their ready. Pat and Margaret were also often invited by Moses to attend gala events such as the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

In the early 70s Margaret returned to college and got her masters degree in social work and worked until her retirement at Lancaster Hospital. Throughout their lives, Pat and Margaret enjoyed enduring friendships with the Clarke Arnolds of Columbus (who also had an FLW home) and the Floyd Brynnelsons of Madison, both attorneys and pals from law school. Margaret was a 63-year member of Lancasters PEO association and had lengthy friendships with her dear friends Dorothy Weber and Betty Steinbrenner among many others. She networked with the local ladies, making no distinctions based on class or economic well-being, and often relived her farm roots with her many farm friends in the area.

She is survived by four children, Tom (Judi) Kinney, McFarland; Jane Kinney, Madison; Anne Kinney, Washington DC; David (Angela) Kinney, Madison; four grandchildren: Kelly Ann Kinney, Lindsay (Seth) Kinney Hartwick, Archie Kinney, Yasmine Kinney; one great-grandchild, Bruce Paul Kinney Hartwick; two sisters: Elizabeth Emery, Minneapolis, MN; and Patty Schleicher, Madison.

She was preceded in death by her dearly beloved husband, Patrick Kinney in 2004; her beloved sister, Mary Jane Brewer, and her parents, Jane and Albert Murrish, and relatives and friends beyond number.

The family would like to thank Grant County Hospice nurses Kim Leamy and Lori Walker, and friends, Rose Bryhan, and Barb Randall for their support and help during her last days and to neighbors and relatives, most especially, John and Pearl Hughes, for their loving care and attention over the years.

In lieu of plants and flowers, the family suggests contributions be sent to the Schreiner Memorial Library, Grant County Hospice, or the First Presbyterian Church in Lancaster.

Funeral services were held on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 10:30 a.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Lancaster with Pastor Mark Hoehne officiating. Burial was in Hillside Cemetery, Lancaster. Family and friends called on Monday, March 28, 2011, at Schwartz Funeral Home in Lancaster from 4:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. and from 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday until time of services at the church.