Margaret Cheney

Margaret Cheney was born on April 5, 1921 in Eugene, Oregon, and moved at the age of two with her family to a small farm town in western Washington. Her mother, Josie Swisher, a school teacher, taught the five children to read before they entered public school. Her father George Swisher, a racer and trainer of horses, departed each spring with his sulky and Dr. Bob, a black pacer, for county fairs in the Pacific Northwest and California. Margaret entered first grade at age five, the only student in her class in a one-room schoolhouse, was promptly promoted and began to foreshadow her career in journalism by publishing these and other events in hand-printed newspapers.