Margaret Bushong was born December 24, 1909 in Ottawa, Kansas. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelors in music education in 1932. From 1934-1941, Margaret and her sisters, Rachel and Ione Bushong, staged marionette or puppet shows, performing scripts and music they wrote. They gave performances at schools, libraries, museums, and clubs throughout Kansas, as well as elsewhere in Missouri, Ohio, and New York.

When the sisters stopped touring, they opened shops in Lawrence and Kansas City to teach others how to make and perform with marionettes. Margaret Bushong continued performing at the nursery school she kept in her Lawrence home, as well as teaching and performing at summer camps and art workshops. Bushong also gave private violin lessons and taught stringed instruments for the Lawrence and Eudora school districts in Douglas County, and she served as the hand letterer for students' names on KU diplomas from 1942-1960.

Margaret Bushong was a member of the Christian Science Church and the KU Gold Medal alumni club. She died in March 1991, and several of her marionettes were donated to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and to the Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum. A scholarship for first year students, transfer students, and undergraduate and graduate students majoring in theatre at KU was esablished in Bushong's name in 1993.

[Information retrieved from Department of Theatre & Dance, "Margaret Busong and Suzanne Calvin Scholarship," https://theatredance.ku.edu/margaret-bushong-and-suzanne-calvin-scholarship.]