Margaret was a woman with deep Lutheran roots, and a Gettysburg College pioneer and scholar.
She was born in 1875 in the home of her maternal grandfather, the Rev. Charles A. Hay, on Seminary Ridge where Hay was teaching at the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg. Her father, John A. Himes, taught at Gettysburg College (then Pennsylvania College, and the oldest Lutheran college in the United States), and Margaret became one of the first two women to graduate from the College in 1894. At that time, young ladies were only permitted to be day students at the College, without housing or other privileges. Decades later, in 1933, Margaret successfully organized alumnae of the College to petition the board of trustees for the College to become fully coeducational. Although she had the highest grades in her graduating class, Margaret did not graduate as valedictorian or salutatorian – those honors were awarded only to male students at the time. Following graduation, Margaret married her classmate, Julius Seebach, a student at Gettysburg Seminary. In 1943 Margaret became the first alumna to receive an honorary degree from her alma mater.
Her career was prolific. While raising a family, she edited the magazine Lutheran Women’s Work from 1918-1938, authored numerous books and poems for adults and children on a range of topics including mission work, the life of immigrants in this country, and people in other lands, and wrote the hymn Your Kingdom Come. By using the influence of her beautiful and persuasive pen, Margaret inspired thousands of Lutherans about the importance of home and foreign mission work.
–Jean LeGros