Interview of Margaret Mary Markmann, Ph.D.

Dr. Markmann was born in 1948 at the Anderson Hospital in Center City, Philadelphia. She was the fourth of eleven children born into a household of her mother, her father and her grandparents. She grew up in Philadelphia and has lived in the area for her entire life only leaving once after she completed nursing school. During her childhood her extended family lived nearby, her grandmother lived down the street and her Aunt and Uncle lived in the opposite direction. Her father was the direct descendent of Irish immigrants who settled in South West Philadelphia and lived in Southwest Philadelphia for the entirety of their lives. The family also had a summer home in Avalon, New Jersey. Dr. Markmann attended school in one of the largest Catholic Parishes in the United States. There were normally ninety students in the classroom. The school was very large and had 3,300 students attending when she was going to the school. Education was very important for Dr. Markmann and her siblings growing up. Both her father and mother made a point to try and send all eleven of them to college or some form of higher education. After she finished high school she took what she believed was the more practical option as compared to her original desire to become a doctor. Dr. Markmann went to nursing school at St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. She graduated in August 1969 and became a registered nurse. Dr. Markmann worked in the field nursing for a large portion if her professional life. Her first experience was as an emergency room nurse, a position that she held for one year before becoming a Clinical instructor at St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing. She went back to school to get her Bachelor of Arts degree which she received in 1998 from La Salle University with a major in History and a minor in English. She received her Master of Arts from Temple University in 2001. Her original intention was to use that degree to teach high school students. However after she had contacted the Arch Diocese she did not hear back from them for four years. During that time she was contacted to teach a few history courses at La Salle University. That was the start of her professional life at La Salle University. She has been teaching at La Salle University as an adjunct professor since 2002. The majority of the courses that Dr. Markmann teaches at La Salle are Global history courses, most notably HIS 151 and HIS 251. She has also worked in the Dean of Arts and Sciences office as a student advisor for five years, non-consecutively. Many of her children have attended La Salle University and her husband is currently on the Board of Trustees at La Salle. She has been a member of the Parents association at La Salle and both she and her husband have set up the Markmann scholarship for students who attended Catholic School