Born in Illinois on 1896 June 17, Marguerite Elenor Montgomery (her first name was changed in college to avoid confusion with another student of the same name) was the first child of Joshua Lyman Montgomery and his second wife, Daisy Spilman Montgomery. Financial difficulties led the family to move to Oklahoma, where Daisy Montgomery died. A year later, Marguerite and her siblings were sent to Stephenville, Texas, to live with her maternal grandparents.
At age fourteen, through money earned by selling books, Marguerite entered Baylor Female College in Belton, Texas, completing the high school course of study and two years of college there. She then taught at schools in Rockdale, Temple, and Austin, Texas, before completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas in 1921. She then worked in public relations in Washington, D.C., before returning to Texas, teaching at schools in San Antonio. In 1923, she married William A. Hamlett, a Baptist minister she had met in Austin.
The Hamlett family, which grew to include two children, Stephen B. and Marguerite Anniel, lived in Georgia and Florida during the Depression, where William Hamlett held a number of positions. Marg-Riette Hamlett and her husband legally separated in the 1940s and she returned to San Antonio, where she acted as a Spanish translator for the U.S. government, taught, and wrote for a number of publications. She was appointed librarian at the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library in 1956, remaining there until her retirement in 1961. She then devoted her time to various writing projects, including three novels. Despite several bouts of ill health, she remained active into her 80s. Marg-Riette Montgomery Hamlett died in San Antonio in 1993.
Despite personal tragedies and frequent financial hardships, Marg-Riette Montgomery Hamlett maintained a lively intellectual curiosity and turned many of her personal interests - including music, history, feminism, philosophy, and religion - into creative works. She composed and published songs and hymns throughout her life, including a work she proposed as the official hymn of the United Nations. In addition to journalistic work and regular contributions to a number of periodicals, she published
Marg-Riette Montgomery Hamlett described her lengthy fictional works, which remained unpublished, as “written for grandmother readers with an appeal to nostalgia or for their immature granddaughters whose emotions thrive on trivial (more or less) details,” though she also felt the "social history" in the novels was “authentic all the way.” The books combine real people and events with San Antonio settings and reflect many of Mrs. Hamlett’s ideas and interests.
Personal and professional papers, musical compositions, and published and unpublished writings make up the Marg-Riette Montgomery Hamlett Papers, providing a sampling of her many interests and activities.
This collection is organized into five series.
Some materials in this collection are restricted and closed to researchers.
Please be advised that the library does not hold the copyright to most of the material in its archival collections. It is the responsibility of the researcher to secure those rights when needed. Permission to reproduce does not constitute permission to publish. The researcher assumes full responsibility for conforming to the laws of copyright, literary property rights, and libel.
[Identification of item], Marg-Riette Montgomery Hamlett Papers, 1915-1976, Col 897, Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, San Antonio, Texas.
Gift of Marg-Riette Montgomery Hamlett, 1979 February.
Processed by Warren Stricker, 1998 August.
Finding aid edited and encoded by Caitlin Donnelly, 2010 November.
This series contains miscellaneous correspondence, some correspondence with Elli Moore Townsend, scattered academic records, and printed material. Also part of this series are letters, printed material, and clippings associated with Mrs. Hamlett’s friend Marie Coudsi Basila and similar material connected with Mary Hardin-Baylor College, the University of Texas Alumni Association, and Universidad Autónoma de México. Photographs include a variety of formal and informal items, including several taken at the Alamo and on the Brackettville, Texas, set during the filming of the John Wayne Alamo motion picture.
The second series gathers correspondence, printed material, and notes associated with Hamlett’s work at the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library.
This series includes files on songs and hymns composed or adapted by Hamlett, arranged alphabetically by title. In addition to the music, these files contain material dealing with copyright, correspondence, clippings, and printed items.
The fourth series, Writings, gathers published and unpublished articles, poetry, and monographs and related material. Some of the published volumes are represented only by ancillary material. Unpublished manuscripts include two novels,
Another item included with the manuscripts is a short proposal submitted in response to a contest soliciting “a practical program to achieve economic justice for homemakers,” and attaches documents and clippings in support of her plan to acknowledge the legal and economic status of the partners to a marriage.
The final manuscript is a novella, “Arabian Romance,” written by Hamlett and Marie Coudsi Basila and based on Basila’s experiences in the Middle East. Three brief articles attributed to Basila are also included.