The extent to which any of these qualities rubbed off on her children is hard to know. But one thing is indisputably true: As far as she can remember, Margie has been nuts about kids.

“You know,” she laughs, “I loved dolls and I loved babies. I was passionate about babies. I played with dolls until I was 12 years old. And I had a doll that was my baby. I was the oldest of four. I have a younger brother who was born when I was eight, and I couldn’t keep my hands off that child. And I wanted another one so badly. I drove my parents crazy. I used to pin notes on their pillows … to inspire them.”

Perhaps the most important lesson she learned from her mother was how to say no, even on the dance floor. “That,” she says, “is where I first met Wallace shortly after I had arrived at Mount Allison. He was 20 and, well, I wasn’t. He was tall and loud. At the same time, he seemed somehow shy and reserved. I would have danced with him, but I came with someone else; and that’s exactly what I told him.”

Fine, Wallace must have thought, he wouldn’t ask a second time.

After all, he had a steady and he certainly wasn’t looking for excuses to humiliate himself in the company of a teenaged girl. Still something about Margie intrigued him. Maybe it was the polite but firm way she turned him down. Maybe it was the fox-fire in her eyes when she said, “no, thank you.”

In any event, five years later, long after both had finished worrying about collegiate social conquests (and after she had earned a Bachelor of Arts), Wallace asked her out for a cup of coffee. They were married under the maples at the United Church in Truro, N.S., on August 13, 1955. The day was glorious, full of light and sweet summer scent. After the guests departed, they assured their mothers that, yes, they would be happy together. And they were.

Michael looks back on his mother’s life and, somewhat jokingly, calls it a “two-stager”. The first stage, in Florence, N.B., where Wallace and his brother were building what would become their empire of the spud, involved performing the duties of a classic, stereotypical country matron. “She had a husband who was travelling the world and was gone from home 60 or 70 per cent of the time,” he says. “She had to play the family leadership role. She engaged in everything – from being a nurse to a bus driver to a sports enthusiast.”

Margie’s daughter Martha puts it this way: “Through a combination of natural ability and determined engagement she created a ‘village’ of family and friends for all those around her. And that created a community environment of safety, kinship, opportunity and confidence for young people.”

Adds daughter Eleanor, who is an accomplished singer: “She has been incredibly supportive … For instance, she used to drive me to Fredericton once a week to have a singing lesson which was an hour-and-a-half each way. She also played for many of my performances growing up. She put many of her own interests aside while we grew up so that she could be there for us.”

Her second stage of life commenced just as soon as her children had struck out on their own. She threw herself into various good works, developing, not surprisingly, a passionate interest in the problem of family violence, becoming a founding member of the Muriel McQueen Ferguson Foundation, as well as other boards and influential charities in New Brunswick. Then, in a move that, she says, surprised no one more greatly than her, the provincial government came calling. Would she consider accepting the post of Lieutenant Governor?

That was in 1994; she held the post until 1997. “She used that office, to some degree, to lead a movement for social change, especially concerning family violence,” Michael says. “Instead of considering the role as strictly ceremonial, I think she was one of the pioneers who used the office for real good in the community.”

Frank McKenna, who was premier of New Brunswick at the time (and who considers Margie “a close friend”) concurs: “She was a superb L-G, vitally interested in all of the major issues affecting (the province) … Wallace was also greatly influenced by Margaret’s passion. The lives of countless young people have been greatly influenced by her energy and dedication.”

It was, of course, her passion for young people that, almost seamlessly, drew her into the orbit of Dr. Fraser Mustard in the early 1990s. “I actually met him before I became Lieutenant Governor, when he was president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CFAR). He had come to New Brunswick as part of his effort to convince ministers and ministries of health across Canada on the importance of the social determinants of health. The then-president of UNB, Dr. Robin Armstrong, was also a founding member of CFAR, and for some strange reason he invited me for lunch. He wanted me to meet Fraser.”

But, as she recounts the occasion today, the meeting did not go well. At least, not at first. “I sat there listening to these men talk, listening to Fraser Mustard talk … He was speaking a language I did not understand … He spoke in the stratosphere. And I sat there thinking, ‘Why am I here?’ I had no idea why I was there. More than that, I felt so stupid! I didn’t know enough to ask a decent question. And they didn’t bother to explain about the language. They were talking about ‘gradients in human outcomes.’ As far as I was concerned, a gradient was how steep the hill was that I was about to ski down. And I was totally at sea and feeling extremely inadequate.”

The feeling didn’t last long. She left the get-together determined to both broaden and deepen the scope of her understanding about the issue.

“You never left Fraser’s presence without a stack of material to read, and it wasn’t easy to read,” she says. “I went home and I read diligently for the whole weekend. All of a sudden, the light bulb went on. I realized that family violence is one of the big determinants of health. But what you do in the early years sets a life trajectory in the child … in health, in learning, in poverty, in crime, in violence.”

She leans back in her deck chair and searches for the appropriate words. “It’s a terrible analogy,” she begins, “but if you can imagine a psychiatrist standing on t e banks of a river and he watches the bodies of children floating by, and he doesn’t know whether he should jump in to try and save as many as he can or go upstream to find out why they are falling in and prevent them from falling in … So, we have to continue to care for those children who are victims of family violence or for those who, for whatever reason, fall through the cracks. But if we want to create a non-violent society, we have to try and create a system where children are well-nurtured, well-cared-for, loved and touched and stimulated to meet the requirements of what we know a child needs for healthy development … Also to meet the needs of parents … And when I became the Lieutenant Governor, I brought together key ministers, policy makers, academics so that they could talk about this issue and how big it was and how it impacts our society.”

Consistent with her businesslike approach to, as she says, “giving it all away,” her Foundation funds the research and evaluation component of 10 demonstration centres in the Maritimes that deploy Mustard’s ideas concerning, and approach towards, early “experienced-based” learning for pre-schoolers. She calls this “play with purpose”, which, research demonstrates, better prepares youngsters to “receive education” when they get into the public (or private) school system.

But does it, in fact, work? The answer is a definitive no if you ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, as one of his first official duties, axed his predecessor’s national child care strategy, which had, in fact, borrowed extensively from Mustard’s principles. But, Margie winks, you can’t really trust the reasoning of a man who has such demonstrable disdain for evidence. You’d be better off examining the results of Quebec’s 20-year experiment with comprehensive, public child care.

“Believe it or not,” she says, “that system has paid for itself. Not only has it paid for itself, it has put back $1.05 for every dollar invested, back into the provincial treasury. And 44 cents on every dollar has gone to the feds. It cost seven dollars a day. I know there’s been a hue and cry, and the rest of Canada is saying, ‘Yeah, we’re paying for it.’ Well, maybe the rest of Canada could do the same thing in their provinces. Try it … Not only that, it has reduced child poverty by 50 per cent. So, how have they done it? They’ve put women back into the workforce. The biggest uptick in the workforce is in Quebec. It has improved children’s outcomes. It has increased the birthrate, which of course we are all worried about.”

Again, for Margaret McCain, it’s about the outcomes. She’s perfectly happy funding hospitals and universities. They do invaluable work. But the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a child – a child who, through the ministrations of her Foundation, could become a great teacher, like Mustard, or a successful entrepreneur, like Wallace – is simply too tempting a proposition to ignore.

As she contemplates the next stage of her life, this third stage, her uncluttered mind embraces the virtues of her businesslike approach to giving it all away: Make it mean something, because you sure as hell can’t take it with you.