Margaret Balinsky Hartman
From Cheryl Albig
I would have missed the privilege of getting to know Margaret had it not been for Miss Conklin’s alphabetical seating. There was more about Margaret than met our eye--above all, humor, compassion, and ping pong prowess.
She attended Vassar and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Rochester while still in her early 20s (21, I think. She was a year younger than we were). She became a professor of philosophy at Tulane, Knox (IL), Otterbein (OH), and then Chairperson of the Philosophy Department at Sweet Briar (VA) for 22 years. All the while she was devoted to her disabled son.
Margaret died from an undiagnosed heart defect at the age of 54. Gardening was her passion, and there is a garden on the Sweet Briar campus in her memory.
From Cheryl Albig
I would have missed the privilege of getting to know Margaret had it not been for Miss Conklin’s alphabetical seating. There was more about Margaret than met our eye--above all, humor, compassion, and ping pong prowess.
She attended Vassar and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Rochester while still in her early 20s (21, I think. She was a year younger than we were). She became a professor of philosophy at Tulane, Knox (IL), Otterbein (OH), and then Chairperson of the Philosophy Department at Sweet Briar (VA) for 22 years. All the while she was devoted to her disabled son.
Margaret died from an undiagnosed heart defect at the age of 54. Gardening was her passion, and there is a garden on the Sweet Briar campus in her memory.
