CBC’s Answer Lady Marg Meikle dies after long struggle with Parkinson’s
Doggedness in finding answers later matched by persistence in fundraising
Popular CBC broadcaster Marg Meikle — known during the 1990s as The Answer Lady — has died after a long and protracted battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Meikle was renowned for her tenacity in finding answers to listeners’ questions that was “matched only by her wit and acerbity in presenting them,” according to former Vancouver Sun reporter Maurice Bridge, who described Meikle in a 2007 newspaper story about her struggle with Parkinson’s.
She was stricken by what is known as Young Onset Parkinson’s disease in 1998 within a year of giving birth to her son, Marc.
Her determination to find a cure for the disease would lead her to set up the Porridge for Parkinson’s campaign, which raised more than $ 1.6 million for the Pacific Parkinson’s Research Centre at UBC.
Meikle, 57, was born in Victoria but moved to Vancouver where she went to school. It was while working on her PhD at UBC that she came into contact with CBC broadcasters. She eventually became a regular on local and national radio.
She would go on to write a number of Dear Answer Lady children’s books, which resulted in her winning the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award.
She is survived by husband Noel MacDonald, who she married in 1995, their son Marc, mother Maureen, and two brothers, Allan and Bill.
A memorial service for Meikle will be held Jan. 18 at 2 p. m. at St. Stephen’s United Church. Donations in lieu of flowers should be sent to Pacific Parkinson’s Research Institute.
“Parkinson’s a bitch,” she told Bridge six years ago after undergoing deepbrain stimulation surgery in a bid to control symptoms. “But what’s a girl to do? It’s a little like the movies Groundhog Day and Shrek — the first because you start again fresh each morning, and the second because, like Princess Fiona, you turn into an ogre as the day goes on.
“But I’m not willing to accept defeat yet.”