by MiRan Powell
I had to know. Who was this woman that had conjured up one of my favorite actresses, plays, and performing experiences? Her grit, her wit – what would cause her in 1943 to enlist in the department of chemical warfare during World War II, go on to earn an advanced degree in biochemistry and physiology from Cornell University,[1] choose to take a “common farm horse to glory”[2] instead of raising her own brood, then proceed to write about her adventures in a ticklishly funny manual on horse breeding titled Losing Less Money Raising Horses: The Big Authoritative Little Book That Smiles and Smiles... – all while mentoring countless young women in “Girl Scouts, the 4-H, and the Pony Club”?[3] Courage? Coltishness? Chutzpah? By the age of 21, beyond civic duty, Margaret “Peggy” Gardiner had whatever it took to defy the powerful societal norms narrowly defining her sex and author her own destiny.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 11, 1922 to Margaret Thomas and William Tudor Gardiner, she was the daughter of a two-term Maine Governor privileged to live at The Blaine House mansion, one of Maine’s most notable homes.[4] Of her mother typically little seems to be written. There is a painting, however, called The Thomas Sisters. Painted in 1901 by George de Forest Brush, it depicts 12-year-old Margaret Thomas and her sister Helen elegantly attired in long riding habits, their beauty and daring already shimmering.
Dive deep enough into a family’s history and family tragedy isn’t hard to find. For Margaret, or Peggy as she liked to be called, fate made no exception. Her youngest brother by two years, Sylvester, was a classics scholar and varsity athlete at Harvard University, their father’s alma mater. After his return from serving in the Ski Troops, he drowned while ice skating during his fourth year of school.[5] Six years later, Peggy’s father, also heeding the call to serve, reenlisted in the Army and survived a secret mission behind enemy lines only to die in another catastrophic accident. His plane exploded mid-air following attendance at a military reunion.[6]
Always an avid horsewoman, I wonder if Peggy would say that horses saved her from a devastating grief. She used her background in science to refine the Morgan breed and invested in the research of “equine neurological defects”.[7] The results speak for themselves in numerous awards and accolades. The May 2010 issue of The Morgan Horse honors Peggy as one of “The Women in Our Industry Honor Roll,” with the following tribute titled “Margaret Gardiner: Harnessing A Vision”:
Margaret Gardiner’s singular gift to the Morgan breed—outfitting and competing internationally with her homebred Morgan pair trained by Larry Poulin—has been historic. Like Batell and other Morgan founders, she not only had vision, but she backed it up with persistence and personal resources. That the Morgan enjoys its place today in the world of combined driving is in no small part the result of her important effort….Her careful and well researched breeding program has produced horses that are as well known for their soundness and good temperament as they are for their versatility and athletic ability.
She enhanced the Kennebec Morgan reputation and that of the Morgan horse when a pair of her Morgans, Kennebec Count and Kennebec Russell, took the international driving world by storm finishing first in dressage and 6th overall at the 1985 World Combined Driving Competition in England….They also won the National Pairs Championships three times. The quintessential versatile horse, Kennebec Morgans have won national acclaim for carriage driving, dressage, eventing, working western, endurance riding and open showing. She has possessed a vision not only of how Morgans should be bred, but also how they should be utilized.
On worthpoint.com, a search for ‘Breyer Horse Kennebec Count’ reveals multiple versions of Model #599. Forever immortalized a champion, he remains an enduring symbol of an ideal that was achieved through Peggy’s lifelong dedication.
Now for the funny part, and what drew me into Margaret Gardiner’s unexpected gem of a book on a day in need of some sparkle. She begins: “There are basically three kinds of horses, The Swamp Horse, The Forest Pony, and the Desert Pony.”[8] She depicts the Swamp Horse as such: “Ordinarily he has three gaits: trudge, shamble, and lurch. [What?] The Swamp Horse is the horse for you if you weigh a lot or prefer to ride very slowly or, of course, if you live in a swamp.”[9] [snort] She describes the Forest Pony’s disposition as ‘at once obstinate and treacherous…the ideal mount for children as he soon puts the little horrors in their place and teaches them to be careful around animals.”[10] [hee hee] It gets better in her explanation of the ‘3-Person Training System’:
It is intended for people who don’t have very much money or experience and who weren’t going to make the Olympic Team anyway. All you need is two (2) strong friends, the fatter the better. This is so that, if the horse should fall down, he would have something soft to land on and not hurt himself.[11]
I can’t stop snickering. Her illustrations are equally entertaining:
Filled with amusing asides and informative details for the professional breeder or horse breeding voyeur, this smiling little book is at once useful and divine. At least one other person agrees with me. “Erudite, belly-quivering! Fine help for the deluded” states Peter Neilson, an Amazon reviewer and quite possibly, one of Miss G’s friends. Another friend and fan, former Maine politician Pam Cahill further attests to her unique humor, sharing an anecdote in Peggy’s obituary about the time she picked her up for a fundraiser and Miss G was wearing “a new outfit and a necklace of chestnuts”:
She talked in that Julia Child voice, which was always so comical…She said, ‘How do I look?’ And she did a pirouette in the middle of the kitchen. And she says ‘I look so good I had to wear these homemade beads…because if you look too good, all they do is ask you for money.[12]
I wish Margaret Gardiner could have been my friend. She reminds me of another Margaret, the beloved British actress Margaret Rutherford in the 1945 film version of the zany Noel Coward play, Blithe Spirit. Rutherford plays the local medium Madame Arcati, an eccentric who is somewhat successful in her endeavors to send back the unwanted ghosts of Elvira and Ruth, Charles’s first and second wives:
MADAME ARCATI: …Are they still here?
CHARLES: Yes.
MADAME ARCATI: How disappointing.
CHARLES: Have you any suggestions?
MADAME ARCATI: We mustn’t give up hope. Chin up–never give in—that’s my motto.
RUTH: This schoolgirl phraseology’s driving me mad.
MADAME ARCATI: Now then…
CHARLES: Now then what?
MADAME ARCATI: What do you say we have another séance and really put our shoulders to the wheel? Make it a real rouser?
ELIVRA: For God’s sake not another séance!
MADAME ARCATI: I might be able to materialize a trumpet if I tried hard enough—better than nothing, you know. I feel as fit as a fiddle after my rest.[13]
Born to a father who went mad and a mother who killed herself, one would never have suspected that Rutherford likewise suffered her own losses; her characters are infused with the same lifeforce Margaret Gardiner had – to not just go on, but go on with style.[14] I imagine them traipsing through horse fields, snagging their pantaloons on aluminum electric wired fencing (recommended, by the way, for peevish young colts), not caring a whit about the bright shock that might send them tumbling, old girl scouts – daffy and punk – giggling as they brush clover from their white heads. In the way that good friends do, she picked me up when I was feeling low and reminded me that on any given day, you can cry or you can laugh, and laughing is so much pleasanter. Her gilded parentage and glittering family firmament may have put Margaret Gardiner on the coveted path to success, but it was Peggy, or Miss G, that determined it was there she would stay. We would do well to apply her secret formula for breeding horses to our own sometimes tragic lives – “resign yourself to not making money, and…learn to dress funny and live on oatmeal.”[15] It is a fay warrior’s design for living, but something more. Underneath the layers of one-liners and quips lies a supreme belief in her very own unique gifts and the supreme confidence to honor them. “To thine own self be true,” said an equally puckish playwright.[16] I’ll try, Margaret. I’ll try.
MiRan Powell is a professional actress in the DC/MD/VA area. She has appeared at The Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, 1st STAGE, and Spooky Action Theater among others. Stage highlights include originating the roles of Mina in the world premiere of Neil LaBute’s adaptation of Dracula and Hideko in the world premiere of Gretty Good Time at the Kennedy Center. Other favorites include Elvira in Blithe Spirit, Agave in The Bacchae, Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Helen Sutherland in The Pitmen Painters. Her work in local film still runs for the DMV, the Department of Homeland Security, the AARN, and House of Cards. MiRan attended Smith College and received her B.A. in Theatre Arts from BYU Provo. She resides in Upperville, Virginia with her family, and is happily engaged in her new role as Visitor Services Associate at NSLM.
Photo: MiRan as Elvira in Blithe Spirit, photo by Jim Poston
[1] Susan Johns, “Miss G: Woolwich’s Margaret Gardiner,” Wiscasset Newspaper, February 25, 2020,
https://www.wiscassetnewspaper.com/article/miss-g-remembering-woolwich-s-margaret-gardiner/130769.
[2] “A Love for Morgans Spurs a Trainer,” New York Times, July 19, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com > 1987/07/19 > a-love-for-morgans-spurs-a-trainer.html.
[3] “Obituary: Miss G,” Portland Press Herald, February 20, 2020, https://www.pressherald.com/2020/02/21/obituarymargaret-gardiner-3/.
[4] “Blaine House – Maine’s Governor’s Mansion,” https://www.blainehouse.org.
[5] “Sylvester Gardiner (1924-1947),” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91103106/sylvester-gardiner.
[6] “Former Gov. W. T. Gardiner, State Senator Chase and E.S. Burt Die in Plane Crash,” Lewiston Evening Journal, August 3, 1953, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1913&dat=19530803&id=yONKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mvMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5309,2866916.
[7] “Obituary: Miss G.”
[8] Margaret Gardiner, Losing Less Money Raising Horses: The Big Authoritative Little Book That Smiles and Smiles (Margaret Gardiner, Second Printing,1969), 7.
[9] Gardiner, Losing Less, 8.
[10] Gardiner, Losing Less, 9.
[11] Gardiner, Losing Less,11.
[12] Johns, “Miss G.”
[13] Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit (New York: Samuel French, 1968), 77.
[14] “Rutherford, Margaret (1892-1972), “ https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/rutherford-margaret-1892-1972
[15] Gardiner, Losing Less, 71.
[16] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, ed. Philip Edwards (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 110.
Drawing Covert 