Life History

Notes

• [Good Robinson Ritchie Lee et al.FTW]
  
  Most of what we know of the early life of Laura McDonald was recorded by her grandson,Mervyn James (Bill)  Kelly who wrote a genealogy of the McDonald Family in 1986, a copy of which has been given to the writer (David James Lee).
  
  We take the liberty of quoting some excerpts from Bill's work:
  
  "Not much is known by the writer (Bill Kelly) about Laura McDonald's childhood. In later years, she was very active in the Presbyterian church in Cobden and belonged to many church groups. One photo (in the possession of Bill Kelly) shows her with a group of Templars, a temperance group."
  
  and.....
  
  "Laura and Julia McDonald were likely very close as children and in their early married lives. There was a later dispute over the mother's belongings and Julia Jane McDonald (McLean) wrote how she would have liked a memento of her mother's, but that Laura had taken everything. Reference to a sailing boat diary (written by a lawyer friend of John Morton........John Morton was Laura's mother's first husband) was also made, and Julia accused Laura's children of losing or carelessly destroying this. Laura told a similar accusing story, saying the diary in question disappeared the summer Julia was home and that it was given by Julia to the Renfrew Mercury to publish and never seen again. Certainly it is NOT among the McDonald papers today.
  
  and.....
  
  "The childhood friendship between Laura McDonald and her sister Julia McDonald shows itself in a homemade autograph book, made of thin paper and tied with string. Laura made this document in 1884, and on the front page wrote 'Speak well of your friends. Of your enemies say nothing.' The first entry in the book, dated March 1 1884, when Laura was 12 years old, was from her sister Julia and read 'I'll never forget but think of thee/Til fade the flower of memory/In weal and woe and gloom and glee/I'll think of thee, I'll think of thee.' "
  
  and......
  
  "Laura's friendships were a lifetime long. Probably her best friend outside the family was Elizabeth Ross, who was a witness at her wedding."
  
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  Laura's work with the temperance movement is mentioned several times in the Renfrew Mercury, but she seems to have given that up to some degree after her marriage and the arrival of 6 children over the next 10 years. The two youngest died in childhood and we know from oral family  history that John Keith McDonald Lee, the eldest, was very ill with typhoid fever while in his teens.
  We also know that Laura looked after her aged mother, Julia Abigail Smith, who lived with the family in Cobden after the death of Laura's father, John. R. McDonald in 1916. Julia Abigail Smith was very frail in her old age and in fact spent a year bedridden in 1926/27.
  So no doubt Laura had her hands full with family matters.
  
  The Renfrew Mercury of Dec 22, 1916 reported that Laura had been seriously ill with appendicitis, but was recovering nicely. She was otherwise a very strong healthy women and died in her 99th year.
  
  Laura and her husband James R. Lee later owned a cottage on a small lake in the Muskokas where they spent their summers, and also spent their time visiting with their children in the winter. We know from newspaper clippings that they were living with their daughter Julia in Lindsay Ontario in 1937 and with their sons Murray and Keith in Rouyn-Noranda Quebec in 1939. After her husband's death in 1949, Laura spent most of her remaining years with her daughter Laura in Baysville in Baysville, Ontario later moving into a nursing home in nearby Bracebridge, Ontario, where she died in 1970.