Marg Hall lived in Rochester until 1987, where, at the age of 40, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Catholic schools and spent 8 years in the convent as a Sister of Mercy. While in the convent she met, and was inspired by, Dorothy Day (Catholic
Worker), Daniel Berrigan and other activists in Catholic social justice movements. For most of her life she has been an active participant in anti-war, labor, anti-imperialist, racial justice,
feminist and disability rights organizations.
After leaving the convent she came out as a lesbian and embraced feminism. Recognizing the intractable misogyny in the Church, she left Catholicism to embrace earth based spirituality. It
was at this point she helped organize Women Against Violence Against Women.
Marg graduated from NYS College in Brockport, NY, in 1971, with a degree in history. She briefly taught high school, but left teaching to organize against the Vietnam War. In 1982 she completed her 4 year apprenticeship with the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (IBCJA local 85). She also worked as a community organizer, bus driver, auto mechanic, building inspector and civil engineer.
In the fall of 1984 she went to Nicaragua as a volunteer with a construction brigade in solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution.
In California, she studied civil engineering for 10 years, part time, while working as a union carpenter, and later as a building inspector for local government. (County of Alameda and the
City of Berkeley). In 1998 she passed the state licensing exam and became a Registered Civil Engineer in California. Marg stopped working in 2008 because of disability.
In the summer of 2010 Marg joined a street encampment of disability and homeless advocates protesting state budget cuts which . She helped form a disability justice direct action
organization called CUIDO to defend the Independent Living movement.
Marg had an adventurous youth, bicycled through Appalachia and the Oregon Coast, camped in the Sierra and Adirondacks, lived in Mexico, and was a lifelong vegetable gardener.
In 1993 she first married her current wife, Elaine Magree, in an public but extra-legal marriage ceremony. She re-affirmed this marriage in 2004, when SF Mayor Gavin Newsom issued
marriage licenses to same sex couples. Finally, she legally married Elaine in 2008, when marriage equality finally became federal law. They still live together in Berkeley, have an adult son Tobias and young grandchild Ethan. She continues social justice activism in her old age, along with her wife, through local neighborhood organizing and global pro-democracy advocacy.
