My greatest idol: Margaret Worrall - a.k.a. Granny

Margaret Worrall was born Margaret McArthur in Cork, Ireland in September, 1860. She moved to England when she was 6 years old and grew up there and became a nurse. Her husband and 4 sons died of influenza in the early 1900s and with too many bad memories she and her daughter, Nora - my grandmother, moved to the United States around 1910.

She eventually settled in Joliet, Illinois and got a nursing job at a T.B. sanitorium where she worked in the children's ward. She retired from there when she was 80!! I guess she was bored after that because she tried to enlist in the U.S. Army as a war nurse when she was 82. She ended up having to write to the Surgeon General as she was politely turned down by the draft board. Of course he also turned down her request and she wrote to F.D.R. who also wrote her a very nice letter turning her down.

She had moved into a nursing home and, in her 90s, she helped the "old" people who also lived there who were in their 70s and 80s. She took a bus once when it was raining and sat next to a woman who was looking for a housekeeper. Bingo, a paying job! To me, Margaret was just Granny, my great grandmother and I loved to tell my schoolmates my great grandmother, who was still alive, was born 5 years before Abraham Lincoln was shot.

I was a sophomore in high school when she passed away at 102. It wasn't until I was working that I realized what a remarkable woman Granny was and has been my inspiration since that realization.

I hope this story inspires you all to always do your best and always keep busy at doing something.

When Granny worked as a nurse she walked to and from work everyday. After she retired and was living in a nursing home on the west side of Joliet, Illinois, she walked to the downtown library every morning to read newspapers. Then she was back downtown in the afternoon to have some tea at a restaurant.
Every Saturday she walked from the nursing home to the east side of Joliet to clean her son-in-law's house. She did this until she 96 when her son-in-law died at 75.