Margaret Isabella Stevenson (1829–1897)

Margaret Isabella Balfour was one of 13 children born to the Reverend Lewis Balfour, the minister of Colinton, and Henrietta Scott Smith. "Maggie," as she was known to her family, married Thomas Stevenson in 1848, and gave birth to her only child, Robert Louis Stevenson, in 1850. She had a strong and loving relationship with her son. After her husband died in 1887, Margaret Stevenson accompanied Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny on their travels to America and the South Seas, and even settled with them in Vailima, Samoa. She returned to Edinburgh to live with her sister after her son died.