Margaret Mattison Coffin, 89, died Tuesday, January 22, at the United Helpers Nursing Home.

Coffin was the author of three books, American Country Tinware, Death in Early America and Borders and Scrolls. She also was an editor for Woman’s Day magazine in the mid-1960s and has published articles in Antiques Magazine, New York Folklore Quarterly, The American Decorator and Woman’s Day.

She was also a high school English teacher. She taught for many years, primarily in Burnt Hills, N.Y., where she was also chair of the English department, and in Melbourne, Fla. She retired in the 1980s.

Born June 14, 1918, in Comstock, daughter of Bert Job and Maude Cynthia Fuller Mattison, she trained as a teacher at New York State Teacher’s College.

She was a violinist, a painter, and an expert on early American decorating. She enjoyed folk music, jazz, and driving Volkswagens and Porsches, her favorite German cars. She and her late husband, Charles B. Coffin, who died in 2000, enjoyed redecorating and restoring old homes.

Surviving are four sons, Charles “Duke” Jr of Hillsville, Va., Chris of Ogdensburg, N.Y., Jon of Syracuse, N.Y., and Jeff of Oneonta, N.Y.

Arrangements are with Frary Funeral Home, Ogdensburg.

Memorial donations may be made to Ogdensburg Public Library in care of David Franz, director, 312 Washington Street, Ogdensburg NY 13669.