Bean Dhonnchaidh Phàdruig / Mairead ni'n Teàrlaich Eóghainn Ruaidh

Margaret “Maggie” Sarah Campbell | Mairead ni’n Teàrlach Eòghainn Ruaidh ’ic Iain ’ic Alasdair was a warm, calm and hospitable woman from Hillsdale, near Judique. She was born on July 15, 1888 to Charles H. MacEachern (1854-1935) and Christina Bhàn MacIsaac (also born July 15, in 1861). Maggie’s paternal grandfather, Hugh, emigrated from the Isle of Eigg with his parents and married a Miss MacInnis of Mabou. Christina’s family also came from Eigg with her father, Iain Ailean an Duine, being the first generation born in Rear Little Judique on land his father had cleared after emigrating.

When Maggie married Duncan Peter Campbell (1881-1961) of Glencoe, she became known as Bean Dhonnchaidh Phàdruig. According to the book Up in Glencoe, the two met at the house of Dr. A. E. Kennedy in Mabou. At the next box social, Duncan Peter won Maggie’s box and they were married in 1911. Duncan Peter was a skilled blacksmith and a fine fiddler while Maggie was a good step-dancer and Gaelic singer. Their home was a warm, welcoming place full of Gaelic and music. They would host céilidhs every Sunday after church when Duncan Peter would play fiddle and Maggie would provide hot meals for the guests. The floor mats would be cleared away for dancing with the fun only pausing temporarily if a disapproving priest happened to be passing(!)

Maggie and Duncan Peter didn’t have biological children but they opened their home to many and parented four children, three of whom were fluent in Gaelic. Her adopted daughter, Theresa Glencoe (b. 1933), remembers how Maggie was a kind, generous and easy-going woman – “nothing rattled her”. Maggie eventually went to live with her daughter and her daughter’s husband before she passed away in 1985.