 Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins in 1879 in Corning, New York, to Irish Catholic parents—a "free-thinking" stonemason father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, and Anne Purcell Higgins.Michael had immigrated to the United States aged 14, joining the Army in the Civil War as a drummer aged 15.Upon leaving the army, he studied medicine and phrenology but ultimately became a stonecutter, chiseling-out angels, saints, and tombstones.