(2 Oct. 1862-14 May 1929), physician. (Dr R. J. McDonald) Born in GC, probably at Glen Nevis. His father, John R. McDonald, is described as being “a pioneer lumberman” in northern New York state, and “an own cousin” of Archbishop C. H. Gauthier. Roderick J. McDonald was a GC resident during his first quarter-century. He attended primary school and high school in GC, then after normal school, he taught school for several years in GC. He “afterwards worked as an accountant for a large lumber firm” of which the name and location are not stated. On 23 Sept. 1890 he was married to Mary Catherine McGillis of Bridge End, near Glen Nevis in GC. At the University of Michigan, where he began the study of medicine in 1891, he graduated with his medical degree in 1895. Shortly afterwards, Dr McDonald settled as a physician at the mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where he lived and had his medical practice for the remainder of his life. His brother Allan had begun a medical practice at Leadville several years earlier.

     Dr Roderick was a successful and well-regarded physician. On a number of occasions he served as county physician for Lake County (which contains Leadville). In 1905, he with his brother Allan and another physician, Dr Sol Kahn, bought St. Luke’s Hospital in Leadville. Dr Roderick also worked as a physician for the local mines. In 1925, he was elected mayor of Leadville as a Democrat. He remained mayor till his death (“one of the most popular and enterprising mayors Leadville has had”), being re-elected by an “overwhelming majority” to his third term the month before his death. During WWI, he served on the Lake County draft board. He had business interests in area mines. He died in Leadville. (two children) Roman Catholic. In his last years, he was losing his eyesight. His obituary in a Leadville newspaper pays warm tribute to the devotion and industry of his wife, who handled the business side of his practice, and it notes that as his eyesight failed she read to him from medical literature. Besides his widow, he was survived by two sons, both of them physicians, Dr Franklin J., who practised in Leadville, and Dr Roderick J., who was a child specialist in Denver.

     His brother Dr Allan J. McDonald (12 April 1857-17 April 1922) (Dr A. J. McDonald) was born at Belfast, Allegany County, New York state. He graduated with a medical degree in 1890 from the University of Michigan, and he took also a post-graduate course in NY State. He practised medicine briefly in Ohio, then became a physician at Leadville in 1891. About this time, he married Mary Elizabeth Gilgallon of Leadville, who died some years before her husband. He and his wife were friends of a colourful figure of American history and folklore, “the unsinkable Molly Brown.” Dr McDonald had business interests in mining. He died at Aspen, Colo., and is buried at Leadville. (five children surviving him) Roman Catholic.

     Second Lt. Franklin J. McDonald, born in Leadville on 11 Sept. 1921, was killed in China 25 Oct. 1944 while acting as a bombardier in a B-29 with the U. S. Army Air Corps. He was the grandson of Dr Roderick J., and the son of Dr Franklin J. McDonald. He had been a student at the University of Colorado before enlisting in the Army Air Corps, 1942. It was expected that if he had lived, he would have followed his father and grandfather into the medical profession. He would therefore have belonged to the third generation of physicians in the Leadville family.

Herald Democrat (Leadville, Colo.), 15 May 1929 (with portrait); QF this source or obituary of Dr Allan * University of Michigan: alumni files (both brothers) * obituary and report on funeral of Dr Allan J. McDonald, Herald Democrat (Leadville, Colo.), (23?) April 1922 * Dr Franklin J. McDonald recollected (partly by his daughter), Leadville U. S. A., ed. B. Larsh and Robert Nichols (1993) 58-59, 173, 231-232 * Don & Jean Griswold, History of Leadville and Lake County Colorado, Vol. 12 (1995) 407, 428, 461, and their two-vol. work (1996) of same title: index * death of 2nd Lt. Franklin J. McDonald: Standard Freeholder 11 Dec. 1944; Archives, University of Colorado