(4 Oct. 1882-27 Nov. 1949), farmer, businessman. (Bob MacKay) Born on the family farm, which was on Lot 37, 6th Concession of Kenyon Township, close to Maxville, GC. Parents: Angus MacKay, of the Martintown area (descended from Donald McKay the U E Loyalist) and his wife Mary Ann McKercher, of the St. Isidore area. Robert MacKay’s formal education was limited to Grade 7 in public school. He became owner of the family farm in his teens, on the illness of an older brother, the father having died a little earlier. As a farmer, Robert MacKay was involved from an early age in quality seed growing and in seed competitions at fairs. He attended the first meeting of the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association at Ottawa in 1904. At Dunvegan, on 24 Dec. 1913, he was married to Ethel May Hope (1880- Jan. 1964). From the later years of WWI, he began to withdraw from active farming for reasons of health. About this time, having TB, he spent a year in a sanatorium at Gravenhurst, Ont. Thereafter, as a businessman in Maxville, he sold cars, farm machinery and insurance, and served on the town council, being reeve for the years 1933-1936. In Maxville he took part in a wide range of community activities, including the promotion of chautauqua entertainments, the building of the covered arena in 1931, and the restoration in the 1940s of the neglected Maxville Cemetery.

     He built the Maxville building known as the MacKay Block, which carries on the front the date of construction, 1921. It housed his auto and insurance business, and part of it was rented for post office use. Continuing his former interest in seed growing, he was a seed dealer in Maxville (see, e.g., advert. Glengarry News 25 Feb. 1938), and he was a judge at seed fairs. In 1946 he was made a Robertson Associate by the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association. He had a long involvement in a wide range of farm organizations. Also, he served as president of the Glengarry Liberal Association. His wife was also active in community activities including Bible classes, temperance work, the Red Cross, the Maxville library and the Women’s Institute. Robert MacKay died at the St. Lawrence Sanatorium, where he had been for several months a patient. (two children) Presbyterian; United Church after Church Union. Mason. The obituary of his sister Miss Nellie Catherine (Mickey) MacKay, a civil servant, noted that her poems had been published “in Canadian and American magazines as well as the local papers.” (Standard Freeholder 15 July 1948)

Glengarry News 2 & 9 Dec. 1949 * Maxville (1991) (with portraits) 186, 218, 297-298, 304, 310, 395, but esp. 693-698 * private information * gravestone, Maxville Cemetery * Kenyon Church Report 1913 (marriage) * J. S. Cram, “The Loyalist Spirit Lives On,” Macdonald College Journal, 7:12 (Aug. 1947), biog. data, portrait with wife * biog. sketch prepared on his inclusion in GC agriculture “Wall of Fame,” GN 9 Sept. 1992 * death of his dau. Gertrude (Mrs Ferrier), GN 18 July 2001 * MacKay Block in progress, GN 10 June 1921