Editing Margaret Mitchell (section)

==Family history==
Margaret Mitchell was a lifelong resident of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. She was born in 1900 into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Her father, [[Eugene Muse Mitchell]], was an attorney, and her mother, [[Maybelle Stephens Mitchell|Mary Isabel "Maybelle" Stephens]], was a [[suffragist]] and [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] activist. She had two brothers, Russell Stephens Mitchell, who died in infancy in 1894, and Alexander Stephens Mitchell, born in 1896.<ref name=cyclopedia /><ref name="seven sisters" />

[[File:Eugene Muse Mitchell.jpg|thumb|left|Eugene Muse Mitchell, the father of Margaret Mitchell]]

Mitchell's family on her father's side were descendants of Thomas Mitchell, originally of [[Aberdeenshire]], Scotland, who settled in [[Wilkes County, Georgia]] in 1777, and served in the [[American Revolutionary War]]. Thomas Mitchell was a surveyor by profession. He was on a surveying trip in [[Henry County, Georgia]], at the home of John Lowe, about 6 miles from [[McDonough, Georgia]], when he died in 1835 and is buried in that location.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Mitchell|first=Stephens|title=Margaret Mitchell and Her People in the Atlanta Area|journal=The Atlanta Historical Bulletin}}</ref>  Thomas Mitchell's son, William Mitchell, born December 8, 1777, in [[Edgefield County]], [[South Carolina]], moved in 1834-1835 to a farm along the South River in the [[Flat Rock, Georgia|Flat Rock]] community in Georgia.<ref name=":0" /> William Mitchell died February 24, 1859, at the age of 81 and is buried in the family graveyard near [[Panola Mountain]] State Park.<ref name=":0" /> Margaret Mitchell's great-grandfather Issac Green Mitchell moved to a farm along the Flat Shoals Road located in the Flat Rock community in 1839. Four years later he sold this farm to [[Ira O. McDaniel]] and purchased a farm 3 miles farther down the road on the north side of the [[South River (Ocmulgee River tributary)|South River]] in [[DeKalb County, Georgia]].<ref name=":0" />

Her grandfather, Russell Crawford Mitchell, of Atlanta, enlisted in the [[Confederate States Army]] on June 24, 1861, and served in [[Texas Brigade|Hood's Texas Brigade]]. He was severely wounded at the [[Battle of Antietam|Battle of Sharpsburg]], demoted for "inefficiency", and detailed as a nurse in Atlanta.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Simpson|first1=Harold B.|title=Hood's Texas Brigade: A Compendium|date=1977|publisher=Hill Jr. College Press|location=Hillsboro, TX|isbn=0912172223|page=69}}</ref> After the Civil War, he made a large fortune supplying lumber for the rapid rebuilding of Atlanta. Russell Mitchell had thirteen children from two wives; the eldest was Eugene, who graduated from the [[University of Georgia School of Law|University of Georgia Law School]].<ref name="cyclopedia">{{cite book |last1=Candler |first1=Allen D. |first2=Clement A. |last2=Evans |title=Cyclopedia of Georgia |location=Atlanta, Georgia |publisher=State Historical Association |year=1906 |volume=2 of 3 |pages=602–605 |oclc=3300148}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Garrett |first=Franklin M. |title=Atlanta and Environs: a chronicle of its people and events |location=Athens, Georgia |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=1969 |volume=1 |page=819 |isbn=0820302635}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated6" />

Mitchell's maternal great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald, emigrated from Ireland and eventually settled on a slaveholding plantation, [[Rural Home]], near [[Jonesboro, Georgia]], where he had one son and seven daughters with his wife, Elenor McGahan, who was from an Irish Catholic family with ties to [[Colonial Maryland]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tomitronics.com/old_buildings/fitzgerald_house/index.html|title=Fitzgerald House|access-date=February 6, 2022|archive-date=November 30, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130204456/https://tomitronics.com/old_buildings/fitzgerald_house/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Mitchell's grandparents, married in 1863, were [[Annie Fitzgerald Stephens|Annie Fitzgerald]] and John Stephens; he had also emigrated from Ireland and became a captain in the Confederate States Army. John Stephens was a prosperous real estate developer after the Civil War and one of the founders of the [[Gate City Street Railroad]] (1881), a mule-drawn [[Streetcars in Atlanta|Atlanta trolley system]]. John and Annie Stephens had twelve children together; the seventh child was May Belle Stephens, who married Eugene Mitchell.<ref name=autogenerated6>{{cite book |last=Ruppersburg |first=Hugh |title=The New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion to Georgia Literature |location=Athens, Georgia |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=2007 |page=326 |isbn=9780820328768 }}</ref><ref>Historical Jonesboro/Clayton County Inc. ''Jonesboro-Historical Jonesboro''. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007. p. 8. {{ISBN|0-7385-4355-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Reed |first=Wallace Putnam |title=History of Atlanta, Georgia: with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers |location=Syracuse, New York |publisher=D. Mason & Co |year=1889 |page=563 |oclc=12564880}}</ref> May Belle Stephens had studied at the [[Villa Maria (school)|Bellevue Convent]] in Quebec and completed her education at the Atlanta Female Institute.<ref name="seven sisters">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HKHD9limCCEC |title=Southern Women at the Seven Sister Colleges: Feminist Values and Social Activism, 1875-1915|isbn=9780820330952|last1=Johnson|first1=Joan Marie|year=2008 |publisher=University of Georgia Press}}</ref>{{rp|13}}
[[File:RuralHomePlantation.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Photo of a young woman (likely Mitchell) on the front porch of [[Rural Home]], circa 1920]]
The ''[[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution|Atlanta Constitution]]'' reported that May Belle Stephens and Eugene Mitchell were married at the Jackson Street mansion of the bride's parents on November 8, 1892:

<blockquote>the maid of honor, Miss Annie Stephens, was as pretty as a French pastel, in a directoire costume of yellow satin with a long coat of green velvet sleeves, and a vest of gold brocade. ... The bride was a fair vision of youthful loveliness in her robe of exquisite ivory white and [[satin]] ... her slippers were white satin wrought with [[pearl]]s ... an elegant supper was served. The dining room was decked in white and green, illuminated with numberless candles in silver candlelabras. ... The bride's gift from her father was an elegant house and lot. ... At 11 o'clock Mrs. Mitchell donned a pretty going-away gown of green English cloth with its jaunty velvet hat to match and bid goodbye to her friends.<ref>''The Chi Phi Chakett'': Graduate Personals. January 1893, Vol. V, p. 135.</ref></blockquote>