Name: Margaret Winkle, but I’m often called Peggy
Born in: 1914
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
Occupation: School teacher, 30 years
Father: Jess Henry Platt
Mother: Margaret Weichelt, born in 1887. Her father was from Germany; her mother was French. They arrived about 1865.


In the Beginning

My Father Was a Builder and Farmer

I lived a short time in Cincinnati, a year or so, and then my family moved to Dayton, Ohio. We lived in Dayton for 16 years.

I went to school there and about the time I graduated from high school – I graduated when I was 16 – we moved to Clermont County, Ohio.

It was right at the end of a building boom in Dayton in the 20s, and my father was a builder and he could see that there wasn’t going to be any building going on.

So instead he bought a 500 acre farm and decided he would become a farmer, and so my family lived there about 10 years.

In the meantime, I went to the University of Cincinnati. I spent my time at the dorms at the University of Cincinnati and after I was finished there I taught school in Cincinnati and I kept on teaching school in Cincinnati 15 years there.

Well, one thing, I was an only child and so I paled around with my mother a lot, and I was a student type of thing. I liked learning and I liked reading and that sort of thing. So, I really did not engage much in social activities in my school days. I did take piano lessons and I got to be a pretty good pianist.

When the war came out my father couldn’t get anymore young men to work on the farm so he decided to retire to Florida. They moved to Florida and they were there about five years and I would go back and forth visiting. I would spend the summers with them and Christmas with them in Florida. But when the war was over and he could see that he was going to be able to build again they moved to California and he built out there.

They moved to Altadena, a suburban area of Pasadena in the Los Angeles area.

I would go out there and visit them. Then about a year or so after they moved out there I got married and my husband, and later on my children, would go out and visit in California and they would come here and visit us.