Margaret Never Existed: What Makes a Life Real?

Artful : The Gallery is filled with the ephemera of a woman’s life. Margaret Chaloner’s existence is laid out in display cabinets and suitcases filled with the physical evidence of her presence. Photographs. Documents. Clothing. Medical records. A straitjacket. A dollhouse.

Margaret never existed. Her story did. This paradox at the intersection of truth and fiction leaves us questioning, “How can a fiction be archived?” 

Author and artist Debbie Marshall is the creator of My Name is Margaret: War, Madness & Recovery, on at Artful : The Gallery thru August 22, 2026. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 5pm at 526C Cumberland Rd., Courtenay, BC. Marshall will be offering a free artist talk on Saturday, August 22, 2 to 3pm. 

Marshall has a unique creative process. She has constructed the evidence of Margaret Chaloner’s existence through a process of creating and collecting artifacts, assembling them to create a coherent vision. This archived life of an imagined woman resonates because it is the real historical experience of so many. 

Debbie Marshall has long been interested in women’s wartime experiences and has authored two books highlighting the work of women during wartime. She is the author of Give Your Vote to the Other Sister: A Woman’s Journey into the Great War and Firing Lines: Three Women Write the First World War. Marshall examines the central tension of women in wartime as the boundaries of women’s ordinary lives are disrupted. Women become workers, caregivers, manage households in extraordinary circumstances and often carry the emotional and psychological burden of wartime existence. The historical narrative typically focuses on the military actions of men.

The photographs provide evidence of existence and set the stage, providing the backdrop for Margaret’s life. Her husband, children and friends add substance to her story. The ticket stubs and programmes provide nostalgic reminders of events attended, while ration books furnish a stark reminder of wartime deprivations. 

The story builds with the objects that Margaret touched in her daily life. Her clothing, a uniform and an aproned housedress represent roles she embodied. Her medical records tell the story of her diagnosis. Margaret’s straitjacket illuminates the story of her confinement. Her dollhouse provides the trajectory for her safe return home and her husband’s care reveals the story of his love.

Artist Grant Leier observed that the exhibition becomes a sounding board for what we now know were the lives of countless women at the time. This fiction provides a historical record for the abundance of women’s lives left fragmented, anonymous, and undocumented.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is Margaret’s dollhouse, an exceptional representation of the home that Margaret and her family inhabited. All the details of her daily life exist within the tight container of these walls. Her husband and children, representing family and marriage, live within these walls with her. The evidence of her domestic responsibilities exist in stark contrast to the toy-filled children’s room and her pipe-smoking husband’s relaxed lounging in the living room. 

Marshall points out that “the expectations we have of women during wartime are very different from the expectations we have of them in peace.” Just as many women were called upon to serve their country during wartime, Margaret joined the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service) following the death of her brother Stephen at Dunkirk, leaving her college language studies incomplete.

Her facility with languages led to Margaret being transferred to Bletchley Park to work in Hut 6, the secret code-breaking center in Buckinghamshire. One can only imagine the purposeful, courageous and productive nature of Margaret’s work at Hut 6. 

It was while working here that she met her future husband, Ken Chaloner. They married in 1947, and moved to Cherley, Hertfordshire, a rural post-war community. Like most women, her employment options narrowly constricted with the return to peace. Margaret’s miniature dollhouse becomes a potent analogy for the shrunken post-war existence she was expected to conform to.

In the aftermath of the war and the birth of her children, Margaret first became depressed and subsequently spiralled into experiencing hallucinations and blackouts. Margaret was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis and hospitalized in a private mental facility. Her straitjacket represents the complete evisceration of her life. 

Margaret’s suffering was treated with Insulin Shock Therapy, in use between the 1930’s and 1950’s. Large doses of insulin were given to induce deep comas. Patients were ‘woken up’ with glucose shots, and the process was believed to ‘jolt’ the brain out of mental illness.  This process was extremely dangerous, and could cause significant weight gain, brain damage and death. Controlled studies done in the 1950’s proved insulin therapy was ineffective and the treatment was halted.

Margaret’s husband removed her from the institution when he witnessed the disturbing impact of her treatment. Her medical records describe what was done to Margaret, her belongings remind us of who Margaret was, both before and after her mental health diagnosis.

Today, we have vocabulary to describe trauma and psychological injury in ways that were previously unavailable. Margaret’s experience allows us to witness what it might have been like to encounter acute psychological distress without the language to express it, and without the current understanding of the nuanced impact of the changing roles of women during wartime.

Margaret is a psychiatric patient. She is also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a woman, a friend, a worker, a person shaped by living through a war, and a person trying to understand what happened to her as a result. 

Margaret is larger than her diagnosis. The final word in the title of the exhibition is ‘Recovery’, and it is an essential aspect of her story.

In her diary, on Sept 14^th, 5 days after returning home from the institution, Margaret writes, “My name is Margaret. I live in this house. Ken is my husband. Sylvia, Michael and Phyllis are my children.” 

Margaret is declaring her identity, over her diagnosis, over all she has suffered. With this declaration, Margaret begins her recovery; recovery from her time in the institution, to reorienting herself in her home, from rebuilding her relationships with her husband and children, to finding her way back into her ordinary daily life, and learning to live with what cannot be undone.

Her husband’s role in Margaret’s recovery is significant, beginning with Ken’s decision to remove her from the institution and its Insulin Shock Treatments.  A few weeks later, Ken arranges for Margaret to begin seeing a therapist and her recovery begins in earnest. When Margaret comes home after purchasing the dollhouse, although perplexed, he establishes a workshop in the garage for Margaret to create the miniature furnishings. 

In the same way that Hut 6 is a bit of reality included in Margaret’s story, in the 1920’s Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld developed the foundational psychotherapeutic framework, The World Technique, today known as Sand Tray Therapy. Lowenfeld had pioneered the use of miniatures to help patients (initially children) process their traumatic experiences. In Margaret’s story, her therapist Dr. Elizabeth LaMotte (fictionally trained under Lowenfeld) uses miniatures to reconnect Margaret with her identity, life and family. Eventually the therapy miniatures lead to Margaret buying a dollhouse which she furnishes and fills as she reintegrates her life. 

Debbie Marshall has created a compelling story for us to experience. Had she told us a true story, she would have told us one woman’s story. Because Margaret is a fiction, she becomes a composite. In her specificity, she becomes even more relatable – each day at the gallery I am told stories of mothers and daughters, sisters and grandmothers, stories of loss and grief, hardship and healing. The exhibition’s photos, documents, objects and dollhouse all tap into a collective memory, jumbled together like the toys on the floor of the children’s rooms.

Margaret stands in for the countless women whose experiences were never documented.

Fiction is not the opposite of truth, it provides us with access to the truth.

Margaret never existed.

The women she represents are very real.

Artist Talk Aug 22, 2pm

Exhibition ends Aug 22, 2026