Finley Peter Dunne

Finley Peter Dunne (1867 - 1936) was a Chicago-based U.S. author, writer and humorist. He wrote Mr. Dooley in Peace and War in 1898. "Mr. Dooley" became one of the first nationally syndicated newpaper features. Set in a Chicago Irish pub, Mr. Dooley, the owner and bartender would expound upon political and social issues of the day, using the thick verbiage and accent of an Irish immigrant. Dunne's sly humor and political acumen won the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, a frequent target of Mr. Dooley's barbs.

Margaret Abbott

His wife, Margaret Abbott, was the daughter of the Chicago Tribune's book reviewer, Mary Ives Abbott, a newspaper woman and novelist who associated with the prominent families of the time in Chicago-the Potter Palmers, the Chatfield-Taylors, etc. She had a sort of literary salon dedicated to encouraging young Chicago writers, among whom was Dunne. Her husband had been a merchant in Calcutta before his death. She also had a son, Sprague. Mary Ives Abbott died in 1904.

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Margaret Abbott was one of the first women golfers, having begun play in 1897 as a member of the prestigious Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, IL. She won the first Olympic gold medal for women's golf at the second Olympiad in Paris in 1900--thus becoming the first American woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal. That same summer, she also won the women's golf championship of France.

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On Dec 10, 1902, Margaret Ives Abbott was married to Dunne at her mother's home in New York. She continued to play golf while she and Dunne were raising their four children. She died in 1955, perhaps never realizing that she was America's first women's Olympic champion.

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