Born in New York City on December 29, 1827, Margaret McDonald grew up and attended school in Brooklyn. In 1850 she married the Reverend Frank Bottome. Her long-standing practice of giving informal talks on the Bible culminated in January 1886, when she and nine other women organized themselves into a permanent study group for self-improvement and Christian service to others, taking the name ╥King╒s Daughters.╙ Each of the ten organized a group of ten, as did those, and so on. (The idea for this pattern stemmed from Edward Everett Hale╒s story ╥Ten Times One is Ten.╙) In 1887 men were admitted to the organization, which accordingly became the Order of the King╒s Daughters and Sons, and within 20 years membership had grown to an estimated half million in the United States and Canada; by that time the word ╥international╙ had been added to the name. Bottome was annually elected president of the order. From 1888 she contributed regularly to the order╒s magazine, Silver Cross, and from 1889 to 1905 she conducted a column in the Ladies╒ Home Journal for members. In 1896 she was chosen president of the Medical Missionary Society. Among her published works were Crumbs from the King╒s Table, A Sunshine Trip: Glimpses of the Orient, Death and Life, Seven Questions After Easter, and The Guest Chamber. She died in New York City on November 14, 1906.
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