(26 Aug. 1898-14 June 1996), nurse. (Nettie MacDonald, Annie H. MacDonald) Born in the Williamstown area of GC. Parents: John Alexander (Gardenfield) MacDonald (called “J. K.”) and his wife Flora M. MacDonald. “J. K.” MacDonald was one of the noted GC athletes of his day. Annette MacDonald attended primary school at Williamstown and Martintown, and high school at Williamstown. Heavy family responsibilities fell on her in her early years, as the eldest child of nine, and with a mother in poor health. When her siblings were older and she was able to leave home, she trained as a nurse in Montreal and qualified there. Later, in New York City, she continued her training and for a time nursed the infant future president George H. W. Bush at the family home in Greenwich, Conn.. He would greet her later as “Miss Mac” on postcards to her when vice president of the United States.

     She obtained the degrees of B. S. in Nursing (1953) and M. A. in Nursing (1954), both from New York University. Immediately after Pearl Harbour, she volunteered to become a nurse with the U. S. Army. She was sent to Britain shortly afterwards, or by another account in the spring of 1943. In the allied campaign in Western Europe in 1944-1945, she served as a nurse with the U. S. forces in Belgium, Holland and Germany. During the Battle of the Bulge, she was for a few days, with other members of her unit, a prisoner of the Germans. She was about to be transferred to the Pacific theatre when the war against Japan ended with the two atomic bomb attacks. The ship on which she returned to the United States from France was the same one on which after WWI her father had come back to Canada.

     After the war, she returned to nursing at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, the hospital in which she was working before she entered army service. Later, she worked as a nurse in various U. S. veterans’ hospitals. In 1968 she retired from nursing and returned to Williamstown, her home for the remainder of her life. At Williamstown, she was active in church and community activities. She was one of the founders there of the Charlottenburgh Nursery School. At Williamstown in 1995, she unveiled a plaque to women volunteers in the two world wars. (Glengarry News 15 Nov. 1995, with portrait) She died at the Hotel Dieu Hospital, Cornwall, aged 97. She never married. Roman Catholic. The burial was at St. Mary’s cemetery, Williamstown.

Standard Freeholder 15 June 1996, Glengarry News 26 June 1996 * biog. note in Sue Harrington’s Williamstown column, GN 19 June 1996 * biog. article (based on interview) by Lesley Cadham, GN 5 Nov. 1986 (with superb portrait) * her Bush family ephemera now in the collections of the Glengarry Historical Society * Ann Gordon Gibbs and Una Ross Thain, compilers, Bless ‘em All [about south GC-area women volunteers in two world wars] (Williamstown, 1995): includes biog. sketch, portrait * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 56 * Academic Records, New York University * biog.of her father “J. K.” MacDonald by Angus H. McDonell prepared for Glengarry Sports Hall of fame, GN 16 June 1982, with his portrait drawn by Douglas A. Fales