Born in Tilbury East Township, Upper Canada, Margaret Finlayson was the daughter of Ann Mather & John Finlayson. The family moved to Detroit and owned a boarding house for sailors. She rose from hawking newspapers on Griswold St. in Detroit to become one of the world's leading Shakespearean actresses in the late 1800s. She was famed on the world's stages for playing Juliet, Rosalind, Lady MacBeth, Imogene and Cymbelind. She used her Mother's maiden name Mather as her stage name and was also known as Margaret Bloomer. Margaret collapsed on stage in west virginia while playing Imogene in "Cymbeline." she died the next day without regaining consciousness. She owned her own production company at the time of her death. The troubled career of Margaret Mather was not to end peacefully. She was buried on Easter Sunday, 1898, in a white gown--her costume from her role as Juliet. Thousands of bereaved fans listened as Jessie Bartlett Davis sang the eulogy, then mobbed her fresh grave for souvenir flower petals. A crowd of at least 5,000 seethed around the mortuary chapel of Elmwood Cemetery. Otis Skinner, a pallbearer, observed that the throng had been promised a view of the body attired as Juliet. When the coffin lid was removed, the mob swarmed into the funeral home out of control, and at the cemetery,trampled over "hallowed mounds...and by the time we reached the final resting-place of Margaret Mather's body, much of the spruce lining of the grave had been stolen for souvenirs."
Born in Tilbury East Township, Upper Canada, Margaret Finlayson was the daughter of Ann Mather & John Finlayson. The family moved to Detroit and owned a boarding house for sailors. She rose from hawking newspapers on Griswold St. in Detroit to become one of the world's leading Shakespearean actresses in the late 1800s. She was famed on the world's stages for playing Juliet, Rosalind, Lady MacBeth, Imogene and Cymbelind. She used her Mother's maiden name Mather as her stage name and was also known as Margaret Bloomer. Margaret collapsed on stage in west virginia while playing Imogene in "Cymbeline." she died the next day without regaining consciousness. She owned her own production company at the time of her death. The troubled career of Margaret Mather was not to end peacefully. She was buried on Easter Sunday, 1898, in a white gown--her costume from her role as Juliet. Thousands of bereaved fans listened as Jessie Bartlett Davis sang the eulogy, then mobbed her fresh grave for souvenir flower petals. A crowd of at least 5,000 seethed around the mortuary chapel of Elmwood Cemetery. Otis Skinner, a pallbearer, observed that the throng had been promised a view of the body attired as Juliet. When the coffin lid was removed, the mob swarmed into the funeral home out of control, and at the cemetery,trampled over "hallowed mounds...and by the time we reached the final resting-place of Margaret Mather's body, much of the spruce lining of the grave had been stolen for souvenirs."
Gravesite Details
previous married name Haberkorn
Advertisement
Records on Ancestry
Advertisement
