Margaret Isabel Gleason Webster

Margaret Isabel Gleason (1882-1960), daughter of William Cloyes Gleason (1835-1893) and Cynthia Agnes Warden (1846-1888). She married Harrison Briggs Webster (1884-1918) son of Andrew Gerrish Webster (1846-1939) and Elizabeth Florence Briggs (1853-1940). Margaret was born in Vermont.

Gleason family photo Isabel Gleason with siblings Mary Eliza Gleason, Walter Ducan Gleason, Horace Warden Gleason, John Cloyes Gleason, and Charles Leslie Gleason.

Margaret I. Gleason Webster's obituary, Boston Globe (Boston, Mass.), May 1, 1960, p. 78.

Harrison Briggs Webster (1884-1918), husband of Margaret Isabel Gleason. He was son of Andrew Gerrish Webster (1846-1939) and Elizabeth Florence Briggs (1853-1940), and grandson of David Locke Webster (1813-1903) and Johanna Rich Rider (1805-1890), and Harrison Otis Briggs (1824-1881) and Hannah Elizabeth Stetson (1828-1881).

Harrison B. Webster was born in Boston and educated at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. After his graduation in 1909, he spent some months with Dr. Grenfel in Labrador. About 1912, he came to the coast of Maine and was on the little mission yacht Sunbeam, which sailed among the islands of Penobscot Bay and along the shores of Mount Desert, where he gave invaluable service to the sick of the lone fishing hamlets. Coming to Castine for supplies on one of these trips, he was much taken with the town, and finding that a surgeon was needed, he returned to make Castine his home. 

He married Miss Margaret Gleason, who had been a nurse in Dr. Grenfel's work, and they started with the idea of having a small private hospital. They bought the commodious Dresser homestead and turned it into a very successful hospital. "He settled down to do for others, knowing full well that his services would mean life to hundreds of poor in the remote islands." 

When the World War came, he at once went into training, and sailed overseas as director of ambulances, with the rank of major. As he desired more active service, he succeeded in being made regimental surgeon of the 47th Infantry. On many occasions he went with mule teams to front line trenches to carry back wounded men. On one of these trips, while carrying a wounded private on his back from the field of battle, he was struck by a bursting shell and thus made the supreme sacrifice. A distinguished service cross has been sent to his little family. He was a man of great physical strength and of great moral courage, and his character was as strong as his body. His intellect was unusual, with a decided trend to the scientific.

Children of Margaret and Harrison: 

• Andrew Gerrish Webster (1914-2006), married Catherine (Cathy) Barrese.

• Margaret Elizabeth Webster (1916-2006), married Robert Herrington Simmons. 

• Dorothy Lancaster Webster (1918-2016), married Charles Edward Vanderburgh. 

All photographs furnished by V Harnick family Scrapbook Collection