Marguerite Noelle Gallagher was born on March 23, 1984 in Winchester, Hampshire, England. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, finally deciding to settle down in one place. Maggie was always the one who stood out, whether it was within her family or within her group of friends. As the youngest of four girls, she hated being the subject of her sisters' makeovers and having to wear their hand-me-downs, only to ruin them in roughhousing. Her parents, Cormac and Elizabeth, were both doctors, which meant that the four Gallagher girls could live comfortably, although they were all taught from a young age that greed was unbecoming of young ladies such as themselves and it was, as they often complained, impossible to fake sick and stay home from school for a day when your parents were both doctors.
Maggie was the tomboy of her sisters, always running around outside, climbing trees and scraping her elbows. She tried her best to establish herself from her sisters and usually succeeded; she became the rebel of her sisters, cutting her own hair and cutting the sleeves off of her jackets to show her lack of respect for the conformity of society. She loathed her sisters' talk about the cute boys in town--instead, she was beating those boys at playground games with a sharp flick of her wrist and an even sharper tongue. Although she maintained a separate identity from her siblings, she was fiercely protective of her older sisters, never without a biting remark to those that antagonized them.
The most remarkable part of Maggie's childhood was her friendship with Kaspar Faust and Finn Caddock, the boys she considered as brothers. Finn had been her next door neighbor for several years prior to Kaspar appearing in her life, and she was the Gallagher girl that was closest in age to his sisters, so she was often over at the Caddock house. One day, Finn introduced her to Kaspar while they were both at his house, and she immediately remembered him to be the shy little boy she had approached outside one day.
All throughout their school years and especially in high school, the trio grew closer by the day and Finn and Kaspar became Maggie's closest confidants, the only two people outside of her family that she trusted with her life and all of her secrets and troubles. The girls in her year hardly understood why she was so close with two boys, but Maggie ignored their often incredulous first reactions to that particular bit of information.
Maggie had high hopes for college, and so in addition to the typical schools within the country, she also applied to Ivy League universities, praying for a stroke of luck that she didn't really need so she could get into Harvard for Education. That luck was granted and she was the only one of the trio to leave the country for school, and travelling home was difficult for her. It was a challenging experience: not only was she far from her family and friends, but she was in a different country, almost entirely disconnected from the dependent life she led. However, Maggie was a quick adapter, and she forced herself to forge new friendships and relationships, participating in the true college experience through the parties, study sessions, and student organizations. She graduated in 2006 with high honors with a degree in English and Theatre Education, and returned to her home in Victoria to reunite with her family and friends.
When they were reunited, Finn, Kasper, and Maggie made the decision to move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and share a house. It was a difficult decision to move such a distance from her family, but it was expected, and with her official documents, she, along with her two best friends, moved to the U.S. a year after graduation and she promptly began studying Music Education at the University of the Arts.
While she was attending graduate school, Maggie knew she couldn't just sit around and be a bum without a job, so in addition to teaching music and acting lessons on weeknights, she alternated working at a standard, boring cubicle job, being a bartender, and waiting on tables whenever she had the time. She was pushing herself to work hard but she knew from past experience that hard work paid off, and she would eventually land a great teaching job. Within two years, she had earned herself a Masters degree in Music Education.
During the final year she was working on her Masters, Maggie applied to all the high schools in the Philadelphia area, and landed herself a very solid job at one of those schools as the newest addition to the English Department. Maggie quickly became known for her contagious enthusiasm and ability to bring the students into a discussion, never leaving anyone out. But her students had also caught onto her quick wit and ability to make situations awkward with a mere sentence, something that she fought to restrain but let slip on a rare occasion.
Now, with the second year of her teaching career well underway, Maggie is also attending classes at University of Pennsylvania to earn her PhD, and hoping that her degree will secure her tenure as a teacher at her school. When she gets stressed out, she knows that she can always rely on Finn and Kaspar to be there for her, in good times or bad. |
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