(5 Oct. 1910-1 May 1999), engineer. (Ivan MacRae, Ivan F. MacRae, known to Queen’s University friends as “Mack”) (date of birth 10 Oct. also found) Born at Athol, GC. Parents: Norman Forbes MacRae and his wife Mary Catherine MacMillan. He attended Athol Public School, Maxville High School, Ottawa Normal School, and Queen’s University, where he graduated in 1934 with his B. Sc. in mechanical engineering. On 10 Nov. 1945 he was married at the Gordon Church, St. Elmo, to Hazel Ferguson MacKercher, who was born at nearby Stewarts Glen in GC. (two children) Ivan MacRae worked for the Ford Motor Co. in Toronto for a few years, then from 1937 to 1961 for the Cockshutt Company in Brantford, where he rose to the position of chief engineer, Tractor Division. When Cockshutt was taken over by White Farm Machinery in 1961, he became manager of transportation with Union Gas in Chatham; and retired 1976. In retirement, he and his wife lived in London, Ont. He died at St. Joseph’s Hospital, London. Burial was in the cemetery of the Gordon Church, St. Elmo. Presbyterian, and Presbyterian elder. Greatly interested in music, and attracted by the technology of organs, he was a long-term member of the Royal Canadian College of Organists; and he built a manual pipe organ in the music room of his home.

     As an engineer, Ivan MacRae played a leading role in developing a system whereby the power take-off in tractors operated on a clutch separate from the clutch that drove the tractor. The purpose of this new arrangement was to minimize problems such as the jamming of pull-type combines which farmers had found occurring under the old system when stopping the tractor resulted also in stopping the power which was being transmitted to the machine that was being hauled by the tractor. The new system as installed in tractors became known as the “live power take off,” a term Ivan MacRae had suggested. In 1995 the Canadian post office issued a stamp commemorating the Cockshutt Model 30 Tractor, a tractor which incorporated the live power take off. The July 1999 issue of the Cockshutt Quarterly (a publication of the International Cockshutt Club) was dedicated to the memory of Ivan MacRae. He was the author of Memories of Engineering at Cockshutt (1995: Ivan F. MacRae and the Ontario Agricultural Museum; 1997: 2nd edn., CKP Publications, Big Prairie, Ohio, 1997, pp. 96 with many illustr.)

Death notice, London Free Press 2 May 1999; no Glengarry News obituary, but death noted, Winter(G.) 12 May 1999 * private information * portraits, biog. and technological information in Cockshutt Quarterly July 1999 and Memories of Engineering, as cited * Maxville (1991) 257 & 745-748 (includes portraits) * biog., line drawn portrait, on occasion of his induction into the GC Agricultural Wall of Fame, Vankleek Hill Review 9 April 2003, GN 16 April 2003