This is an excerpt from the book, Mother of Courage, an Inspirational true story about Margaret Chanin, who despite the loss of both arms earned her dental degree, married and raised two boys, taught preventive dentistry for more than 20 years, and became nationally known for her advocacy of people with disabilities. Her journey through physical challenges and adversity is a testament to the power of determination, resilience, and faith.
Photo: Margaret receiving her diploma, 1944
After she recovered from the accident, Margaret returned to dental school and graduated. Although she would never extract a tooth or fill a cavity, she decided to pursue a career teaching public health dentistry, which required a master’s degree. But first she had to go back to school to earn her bachelor’s degree. In those days in Texas, a denta l certificate did not require one.
As the Second World War raged across Europe and Asia, Margaret enrolled at Baylor University. By now she was accustomed to people staring at her when she went about in public. But she was learning that she could, by her words and actions, challenge their first impression.
“It’s up to the public,” she said during a July 1944 campus radio address about soldiers wounded in battle. “The men make the necessary adjustment in the hospital, but they dread their first contacts with family, friends, and the public in general. The public should accept them and treat them as other normal people … Write letters to the wounded, assuring them of a welcome home. But don’t be too soft on them.”
Margaret lived her words. She became known as the “Sweetheart of Maimed Veterans” for her regular visits to soldiers who were being treated for their wounds at a nearby Army hospital. Nearly every weekend, she walked down the long corridors, chatting with patients in their beds, on crutches, and in wheelchairs.
“As Margaret passed down the aisle between the beds, and spoke with ease to the servicemen, sometimes sitting on the edge of the bed,” a friend observed during one visit, “it seemed to me I could see courage coming into the faces of the men.”
That August, during commencement exercises, Baylor President Pat Morris Neff, the former Texas governor who also was the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, presented Margaret with her diploma, which had been attached to a cord.
“No one has lived the abundant life more fully,” Neff announced, before placing the diploma about her neck. “No one has stimulated faint hearts more. No one on the Baylor campus has radiated happiness and inspiration more than this young woman who exemplifies culture, courage, and character.”