Margaret Brittingham

If the lantern slide collection is dependably representative, Margaret Brittingham Reid (1892-1966) accompanied her parents on more trips than her brothers did, possibly because she did not attend college. She also began to have children during the period of time when these photographs were taken.

If nothing else, the voluminous number of photographs of the Brittinghams’ first-born grandchild (coupled with the comparative lack of photographs of the following children) proves that some things never change.

Margaret married Bryan Seaborne Reid, a Lake Forest, IL native and graduate of UW (Madison). As a student he had been a member of Phi Delta Theta, the rowing club, and was VP of the mining club. The couple was married in front of immediate family only on October 5, 1914, at the Brittingham home on North Henry Street.

The Reids lived in Ashland, WI before settling down north of Chicago. Bryan was a general manager of the Chicago division of the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. Margaret was a prominent Chicago socialite and president of the women’s board of Passavant Hospital. The Reids had four children together.

Margaret and Thomas, Jr. had donated the family home, Dunmuven, to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1955.

After it had served for many years as the operational center of the Geopolar Research Institute, the family requested that the building be made into a residence again. The necessary renovations and redecoration were overseen by one of Margaret Brittingham’s daughters, Margot Donald of Lake Forest, Illinois.