Margaret Ann "Maggie" Peterson was born in the gentle town of Greeley, Colorado. She is the fourth child of Arthur E. (a general practice doctor) and Tressa Hill Peterson.

"Music was always a part of our home," Maggie remembers. When my brother Jim found an old broken banjo under Daddy's bed in Polk (Nebraska), he started playing and fell in love with it." The kids soon found their mother's old ukulele, and soon the seeds of their first band were planted.

Two of Jim's pals, Gordan Ellinger and Don Royer, began to play music with him regularly. They settled into a Dixieland style, harking back to a Roaring Twenties sound, with Jim on banjo, Gordon on drums, Don on piano and Maggie on the stairway. The boys thought she was too young to perform, so she was left to sing to herself on stairs while the boys practiced in a nearby room. Finally at age 12 Maggie joined the Group billed as the Ja-Da Quartet. They traveled in a red pickup truck with Maggie riding in the back with the instruments.

Around 1954, at a Capitol Records convention, Dick Linke heard Maggie sing and was impressed with her and encouraged her to look him up if she was ever in New York. In 1958 she did just that. The group was on the Perry Como Show and Pat Boone-Chevy Showroom and in 1959 released their album It's the Most Happy Sound. The boys decided to go back home and Maggie went back for a while but returned to N.Y. and joined a new group. They traveled for several years in resort areas such as Las Vegas, Tahoe, Reno, etc. On that tour Maggie was discovered by TAGS director Bob Sweeney and producer Aaron Ruben. 'The rest is history. Maggie became the beloved Charlene Darling.

She has appeared on other TV shows such as "Green Acres," "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.," "The Odd Couple," and more. She has appeared in movies with Andy Griffith and Don Knotts. She has enjoyed working in Nevada as a location scout for big screen movies such as Rain Man, Casino, Honeymoon in Vegas and others.