The daughter of James and Mary Galeese, Margaret was born February 2, 1874. Maggie grew up with tales of banashees and leprechauns. Banashees could be heard as the wind blew and were a sign of impending death or disaster. And leprechauns were a little people who played tricks on humans, some brought good fortune and others bad.
Though she was pampered by her parents, Maggie started working in a paper mill as a child. There it was customary for children to stand on a box to reach a work table.
After Maggie married George Daly, they lived in a house across from her parents on Webster St. in Middletown. This was convenient for Maggie who liked to take food from her mother’s ice box home. They would later move to Dayton when George found employment there.
Maggie bore ten children, bragging she had everyone kneeling on a chair. There were so many that they sat on long benches at the table when it was time for dinner. It must have been difficult raising a large family because Maggie worried constantly. Every friday she would go to confession for them, convinced they were not telling all of their sins!
On Thanksgiving, Maggie always made plenty of pumpkin pie and applesauce cake. The applesauce cake was her own recipe in which she put chocolate in! Nobody could ever make it like she did. She would also kill and cook two turkeys, one for the morning and the other for the afteinoon dinner. On Sundays all of her family came home for good dinners. When it was time to clean up nobody was allowed to touch the dishtowels for they had been scalded to prevent the spread of germs! As Maggie grew older she also started washing her dollar bills before giving them to the church! She had kept her money hidden under a rug.
Maggie’s hair was very long and she wore it combed back in a small bun. She enjoyed rocking on the porch swing during her later years. It was on July 4, 1964 while rocking that she laid her head back to rest for the last time. She had been out pulling weeds in the yard that morning. Maggie was buried beside George at Calvary Cemetery In Dayton, Ohio.
