SAXONBURG — It's not possible to explain 95 years of a woman's life in a single article.

It's not possible to explain them in a dozen articles. Or a thousand pictures. Or 100 theater shows.

But Margaret Cahill left behind more than those when she died at the age of 95 Oct. 3.

“She was a living treasure,” her daughter, Bonnie Cahill, said.

“She meant a lot of things to a lot of people,” her daughter, Carli Cahill, added.

That's true.

Margaret was “Peg” to her childhood friends. She was “Meg” to her children. She was “Margaret” to her tax clients and “Mrs. Cahill” to her students.

And, of course, she was “Maggie” to her theater friends.

“I think it was her way of identifying with a group,” Bonnie said.

Path to stardom

Margaret was an actress.

She graduated with a degree in drama from Stanford University, where she starred in “Moor Born” as Anne Bronte during the 1943-44 season.

She moved to New York City, according to Bonnie, where she acted and met her husband, Harold, who was in the Navy. The couple moved every couple of years for nearly two decades.

“She always joined the community theater group wherever we lived,” Bonnie said.

Margaret performed in Springfield, Va. She performed at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC,, where she starred with Alan Oppenheimer and Bob Prosky in “The End of the Beginning.” She performed with Butler Little Theatre when the Cahills moved to Butler in 1966.

“She did a show a year,” Bonnie said. “We all grew up with that.”

According to her daughters, Margaret was dedicated to BLT. She held several administrative positions over the years and once paid the theater electric bills herself because the year's pledges weren't in. Margaret acted, directed, designed costumes and did makeup for performers.

The first BLT show Margaret was involved in was “Tea House of the August Moon” in September 1966. Margaret showed up at a board of directors meeting and volunteered herself — and Bonnie — to do makeup for the show.

The Cahills hadn't even moved into their new house on Rockdale Road.

Margaret's love of theater was contagious for her children. Bonnie has performed for 56 years. Carli did a few shows in high school. Philip sang with the Miami Symphony choir. Marty loved going to shows growing up. And Allison is a professional actress in Pittsburgh.

“(Theater) has featured in all of our lives,” Bonnie said.

Taking it with you

Margaret was an avid recycler, a trait that got her featured in the Butler Eagle in 2009. Bonnie, Carli and their siblings weren't allowed to tear wrapping paper growing up. They had to cut it off their presents with a knife. Margaret would trim, iron and fold every piece to be used the next year.

Bonnie and Carli have a box of wrapping paper with pieces dating to the 1950s.

Carli credits Margaret's frugality to her Depression-era childhood. Bonnie said her mother knew how to make ends meet.

“She raised five kids on a Navy salary,” Bonnie said.

When she wasn't acting or sewing costumes, Margaret quilted with fabric scraps.

Her designs were award-winning and she often gave her quilts away as gifts. A special “Corduroyal” quilt she sent to Princess Diana and Prince Charles for their wedding resulted in a thank-you note from Buckingham Palace.

“She loved being creative,” Bonnie said. “She really was happiest when she was creating something.”

Being a Navy family could be challenging, especially when it came to raising children. The Cahill children were born all over the country and in Madrid.

Seeking a way to make her children feel at home wherever they were, Margaret came up with the Easter Egg Tree, which she read about in a children's book.

Every year, Margaret and her children would blow the yolks out of eggs and decorate them. Around Easter, the family would string the eggs and hang them on trees in their front yard.

The Cahills do it still. The collection has reached 5,297 eggs.

“It gave us continuity,” Bonnie said. “She was always thinking of things like that.”

Some of the eggs are more than 50 years old.

“Move after move after move, she did not loose anything,” Carli said.

Staying in touch

Margaret wrote and sent out a family letter once a week until the 1980s. Then, she wrote a letter once a month. And until 2015 or 2016, she wrote a letter once a quarter. Copies of her letters, which she mailed to friends and family, are archived in binders at the Cahills' home.

“That's our entire family history,” Carli said, referencing the bookcases of binders.

Turning strangers into friends and friends into family was one of Margaret's gifts. She took pictures and kept records of almost everyone she met, and certainly everyone with whom she became close.

Carli and Bonnie have thousands of photographs their mother collected over nearly 80 years. The pictures are captioned in albums on bookcases in the Cahills' home.

“So many people today are isolated,” Carli said. “It was a completely different atmosphere growing up.”

Margaret kept in touch with friends she made wherever Harold was stationed. She kept in touch with schoolmates she had the year she went to school in Germany, from which her mother hailed.

Some of her friends became tax clients when Margaret started her own tax business.

The children of some of those friends now hire Bonnie to do their taxes.

Standing ovation

Margaret's German mother took her to Dresden, Germany, to visit family twice while she was growing up.The first time, Margaret was 6 years old. The second time, she was 16 years old. She attended school in Germany for a year. It was 1938.Margaret, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl of German extraction, went to school without identification papers.She told her children that she had to learn a different map of Germany every week as Adolf Hitler conquered land.The school she went to once had a special assembly, during which the 1936 Summer Olympics were played for students.“As proof of Aryan seniority,” Bonnie said.Every time a German athlete won a medal, the student body — minus Margaret — stood and gave a Nazi salute.When an American won — including Jesse Owens — Margaret stood by herself and put her hand over her heart.“That was her,” Carli said. “To a T.”Margaret and her mother arrived back in New York a week before war was declared.Bonnie and Carli have a box of tiny pocket-sized books from Margaret's time in Germany.In those books, she recorded every theater and musical performance she went to while she was abroad.EncoreBonnie is playing with the BLT in its fall production of “The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of Macbeth.” As part of her character, she seats audience members as they arrive.“I am constantly amazed how many people knew her,” Bonnie said. “Even if they didn't know her well.”“They thought a lot of her,” Carli said.Carli and Bonnie said their mother never stopped teaching.She corrected their grammar — and her hospice nurses' grammar — until the day she died.She never stopped writing stories, news and memories. She never stopped making connections with other people.“She was very, very important to children,” Bonnie said. “People knew that she cared.”Bonnie tells a story of the time Margaret had a quadruple bypass.Her heart surgeon ran into Bonnie in an elevator 12 years later. Bonnie was visiting Margaret in the hospital, where she was recovering from pneumonia. The surgeon didn't remember Bonnie's name, but he remembered Margaret.“He said, 'You're Margaret's daughter,' ” Bonnie said.The surgeon made sure to visit Margaret while she was recovering from pneumonia.Curtain callToward the end of her life, Margaret had hearing aids. She had severe nerve pain from a leg amputation and trouble seeing. Much of the time, she was confined to a wheelchair.Margaret had the occasional “blue day,” according to her daughters. But she never stopped living.“Anyone who ever saw her, saw her with a smile on her face,” Bonnie said. “There was no giving up.”Margaret gave her last performance at the age of 90. During her life, she was involved with more than 100 productions — about 40 of which were in Butler.She worked with both BLT and the Musical Theatre Guild of Butler. She taught school and acting classes and always, always had a German cookie Christmas party.Carli and Bonnie believe there is one special way people can honor Margaret's memories: They can come to shows. Little theaters, the sisters believe, are important parts of any community.“It is the kind of thing that you can take with you no matter where you go,” Bonnie said. “There's always a little-theater group.”

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