Margaret (Margareta) Marie Niles was born on October 6, 1892 in Amsterdam, New York. Her father was Charles L. Niles. She attended Amsterdam High School then went to Mount Holyoke College from 1910-1914. She received her B.A. in 1914 with a major in zoology and English literature. She married Raymond A. Barkhuff, a production manager, on January 19, 1917 and they had two children. She died on December 21, 1992 in Wethersfield, Connecticut, at the age of one hundred.