She was auburn- haired Margaret "Maggie" Tobin and she was born in 1867, on the shore of the Mississippi in Hannibal, Missouri - the same town made famous by Mark Twain in his adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Her dad, John Tobin, born 1823, left Ireland’s potato famine and came to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Tobin sympathized with John Brown and worked on the Underground Railroad. His first wife died and gold lured him west. When he came through Hannibal, he liked it and married Johanna Collins. Johanna was also born in Ireland in 1825. She strongly believed in education and all the children of the family went to school. John Tobin worked at the coke furnace as a laborer and also for one of the riverboat companies, close to home and the river.

One of Margaret’s first jobs was at the Garth tobacco factory during harvest. In 1883, Margaret’s sister Mary Ann and her husband, Jack Landrigan and her brother Daniel went by train to Leadville, Colorado where Jack opened a blacksmith shop. In 1886 Daniel sent train tickets to Margaret and little sister, Helen, to come to visit. Leadville is nearly two miles high in elevation at 10,152 feet and has long cold winters and in 1880 it was the second largest city in Colorado because of the gold and silver mines. Margaret kept house for Daniel and cooked his meals, but soon went to work at Daniel, Fisher & Smith, a dry good store. She worked in the carpet and drapery department, sewing draperies and shades. At a church picnic Maggie met the tall, intelligent and ambitious James Joseph Brown, also a son of Irish immigrants. He was known as J.J. and he was born in 1854 in Pennsylvania, thirteen years older than Maggie. He also came west for opportunity working in mines along the way in Pennsylvania, North Dakota and Colorado. He worked in Leadville as a day miner and studied geology. Maggie finally decided she would rather marry a poor man she loved like J.J. than a wealthy one she did not. They were married in 1886 and moved to J.J.’s cabin in Stumptown. Margaret took lessons in reading and literature, music, piano and singing. Their son, Lawrence Palmer was born a year later and the family moved to Leadville. Two years later, their second child Catherine Ellen was born. J.J. became knowledgeable in mining and became superintendent of Ibex Mines with stock dividends, that let the Brown family vacation touring the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. In 1894 the family moved to Denver. Maggie was not a barmaid, gold digger or social climber, but spent her time raising her children, keeping house and trying to improve her education.

And more was written about the Browns on the social pages of the Denver papers than any other one family of the same era. The Browns traveled to Europe and sent their children to France to attend school. Maggie involved herself with lots of charities for the women, children and the church. She had several ex-first ladies donate dressed dolls for her fund-raisers. She had homes in Newport, Denver and abroad. Maggie became famous after booking passage on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and encouraged other women to help row to keep warm and shared her fur coat with survivors. Books such as The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters told the world about the event. Maggie became estranged from her husband and eventually died in 1932 from a brain tumor alone in a New York Hotel. She was buried next to her husband, J.J., who she had continued to love in spite of their separation. Kristen Iversen has written Molly Brown, Unraveling the Myth © 1999 that really covers her life in depth.

The movie Titanic awakened the interest in Molly Brown and Susan Wakeen has made a version in gray and black costume, Exclusive Premier made an 8-9 inch vinyl Molly in 1998 and Jan McLean made a 21-inch porcelain Unsinkable Molly Brown II in a rust-colored suit with suitcases. Margaret Brown was truly a heroine and as such, worthy of dollmaker’s efforts that reveal the woman behind the myth.

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