(29 March 1911-1 July 1988), newspaperman. (Eugene A. Macdonald, Eugene Macdonald, Eugene Alexander (Sandfield) Macdonald, Eugene, Gene, Eugene Sandfield, Gene Sandfield) Born presumably at Alexandria, GC. He was the 7th son and 11th and last child of Alexander George Fraser Macdonald and his wife Eugenie Hubert. He was therefore of the “Sandfield” Macdonald family. As such, he was the grandnephew of John Sandfield Macdonald (to whom he had some physical resemblance) and the grandson of the Hon. D. A. Macdonald, lieutenant-governor of Ontario, as well as being the great-grandson of Col. Alexander Fraser of Fraserfield. He was also the brother of Donald A. Macdonald, Q. C., of Alexandria.

     As a youth, he was hospitalized for several months on the belief, perhaps erroneous, that he had TB (the disease that killed one of his brothers). He began to work on the Glengarry News with his father at about the beginning of the Depression of 1929. In 1944, he became editor of the newspaper. Thereafter, he managed the newspaper till heart disease made him give up work a few months before his death. In later years, his titles and positions on the newspaper varied, but he was described in his obituary in the paper as its “president and long-time owner.” Over the years of his management, he won many awards for his journalism. In 1960 he was elected president of the Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association. During his earlier years, he was a member of the Alexandria Town Council. He was one of the founders at the beginning of the 1960s of the Glengarry Golf and Country Club, Alexandria. His name is especially commemorated in the golf club by the annual Eugene Macdonald Memorial Golf Tournament. The final accomplishment of the long delayed project of getting an Alexandria library started owes much to his support. He died at his home in Alexandria of a heart attack. He is buried in St. Finnan’s cemetery, close to the cathedral. Roman Catholic.

     Altogether, he and his father directed the operations of the Glengarry News over a period which, from the beginning of the editorship of the one to the death of the other, fell short of a century by only a few years.

     The Glengarry News over the years has not been just a weekly newspaper–it has been the “newspaper of record” for GC. As editor, Eugene Macdonald faithfully recorded the marriages, deaths, successes and misfortunes of a multitude of local folk and charted the usually disappointing functioning of the local economy. The paper had an attentive readership–it may be guessed that few weekly newspapers have resulted in more clippings stored away in drawers, attics and scrapbooks through North America. An excellent Auld Lang Syne column, published in every issue since before WWII recapitulated over a 10-year cycle the content of every issue surviving since publication of the newspaper began in 1892. (And virtually all issues have survived, except those for 1895, lost in a fire.) This column too has been remorselessly cannibalized by the clipping-takers–instantly recognizable, bits from it are familiar sights to all GC genealogists and historians, and, one may guess, to many people who have never themselves actually seen the famous old county, or an intact issue of its newspaper. Aficionados of the GC scene have sometimes speculated on how precisely these historically spot-on excerpts, with their good phrases, and admirable conciseness, were compiled. We may agree, at least, that Eugene Macdonald was the historical and literary “artist” of the entries.

     Giving ample support to all local cultural efforts and events, Eugene Macdonald generously and conscientiously publicized local histories as they were published, though he may well have reflected privately on how important a history of GC or Alexandria he could have written if he had not been chronically overworked with his newspaper, which itself often gave the impression of being understaffed.

     He introduced editorials to the Glengarry News; under his father’s management it normally had none. The editorials were substantial, well researched, vigorously written. Along with the small-town, struggling-small-businessman conservatism which coloured the editorials, there were traces of patrician aloofness, appropriate to the family from which he sprang. By way of the more human side, we may note a fine short essay, “Names Are Our Nemesis” (Glengarry News 15 Sept. 1955), on his difficulty in remembering names, and “The Road Can Be Narrower Coming Home,” (GN 25 Nov. 1965), a leisurely, fact-filled, tolerant, well balanced report on border drinking dens and their appeal to the local youth. Besides his many editorials, he wrote over the years a folksy column called “The Rambling Reporter.” Always substantial in content, it was not one of his best efforts. And the reason was not hard to spot. He was, himself, in truth not a folksy character.

     Writing for his newspaper, he was the unfaltering scourge of the craft, sloth, greed, lying, evasion and stupidity of the politicians and civil servants. The newspaper had been originally a Liberal Party organ, but under Eugene Macdonald’s management it dropped all political affiliations.

     He was the author of two valuable and masterful small books, St. Finnan’s Parish: the First 150 Years (1983), and a family history, Some of the Sandfields (1987). The former reveals at least once (p. 23), touchingly, his deep conservatism and pessimism. The Sandfield history was distributed privately, and was not for sale. He prepared and issued special historical issues of the Glengarry News as a 60th anniversary issue (8 Feb. 1952) and on the history of Alexandria (20 June 1984). The press run for the former of these was, at 6,000 copies, the largest up to that date in the newspaper’s history.

     He was married on 20 June 1942 to Mary Jane MacLeod of GC and Montreal. “In later years, she was a student in the first wave of the revival of the Gaelic language in this area and became quite proficient.” She died 28 Sept. 1997, aged 76. (four sons) The child of a French-speaking, French-Canadian mother, he did not himself learn to speak French. In appearance he was a tall, austere, intimidating, nervous man. The obituary of Mrs Helen Telfer, of GC descent (née Tobin), widow of the editor of the Humboldt Journal of Humboldt, Sask., notes that she and her husband “were great friends of Eugene Macdonald, former editor of the Glengarry News.” (GN 29 Sept. 2004) And even without a GC connection, his profession brought him many contacts, which he seems to have much valued, with other newspapermen. Like C. C. Fraser, Eugene Macdonald was one of the several people who, at the request of its authors, read and commented on the manuscript of the MacGillivray and Ross history of Glengarry in 1978, the year before its publication as a book.

Obituary, by Angus H. McDonell and Joe Banks, Glengarry News 7 July 1988 (with portrait) * biog. prepared for Glengarry Sports Hall of Fame by Angus H. McDonell, GN 17 June 1981, with line portrait by Douglas A. Fales * Macdonald, Sandfields, with portrait * gravestone, St. Finnan’s cemetery * obituary of his wife, GN 1 Oct. 1997 (two items, with portrait; QF) * MacLeods, ii, 262-263 * Kenneth J. McKenna, Highland Paths: Tales of Glengarry, II (2001) 146-149, Eugene, his wife, the Sandfields * Anna Margaret MacDonald, “A Tribute to Eugene Macdonald,” editorial, GN 30 June 1982 (valuable for its list of his many awards as newspaperman, and for a sketch of his character by a fellow GN worker) * honoured at testimonial dinner, GN 20 Oct. 1960 * founding of golf club, GN 25 May & 23 Nov. 1961 * adverts for golf tournament, e.g., GN 21 June 2006