(1860-1952), housekeeper. Born in Scotland, and went to the United States in 1900. She worked for many years for the American multimillionaire “Telegraph king” Clarence H. Mackay, eventually becoming the head of his household of some 70 servants at his mansion (now demolished), called Harbor Hill, Long Island, New York. Katherine Thompson retired in 1931 to Maxville, hometown of her relatives Dr J. H. Munro and Olive O’Hara. In Maxville, where she is said to have been known to the local people as “Cousin Katie,” she lived with her sister Mrs Josanna or Johanna Rose (1868 or 1869-30 May 1943) (Mrs William Rose), who was also a native of Scotland, and had been in charge of the household of a steel magnate in Cleveland. In 1938, it was reported in the GC-area press that Clarence H. Mackay, who had died 12 Nov. 1938, had left Katherine Thompson a legacy of $100 a month in his will. (Standard Freeholder & Glengarry News both 9 Dec. 1938)

     In Depression-era Glengarry, $100 was for most people an amazing sum of money. Mackay had been ruined by the Depression, but there was no hint in the news reports that there might be any difficulties about the money being paid. At any rate, for a man as rich as Mackay had been, ruin is relative. Mackay is remembered today especially as the father-in-law of the songwriter Irving Berlin. Mackay had not welcomed the marriage (which was in 1926), but Berlin is said to have given Mackay a million dollars to ease the latter’s financial fall. Since the 1938 newspaper reports about the bequest to Katherine Thompson mention that she had left the Mackay household six months after Mackay married the opera singer Anna Case, it is possible that Katherine Thompson and the new Mrs Mackay did not get on. On her death, Katherine Thompson left her Maxville house and its contents to Olive O’Hara. Miss Thompson and her sister Mrs Rose are buried in Maxville Cemetery.

Maxville (1991) 853 * obituary of Mrs Rose, Standard Freeholder 1 June 1943, Glengarry News 4 June 1943 * gravestone of the two sisters, Maxville * Gordon Winter’s column, GN 24 May & 8 Nov. 1995 (sale at Maxville auction sale of items associated with Berlin & Mackay families) * lives of Clarence H. Mackay and his father J. W. Mackay in DAB: Supplement Two & DAB, resp.; they are omitted from the DAB’s successor, the ANB * Laurence Bergreen, As Thousands Cheer: the Life of Irving Berlin (1990), much on Mackay but nothing on Katherine Thompson * GN 25 July 1930, nurse formerly from Alexandria, Miss Isabel MacDonald, RN, shares income from estate of a New Jersey millionaire of whose household she had been a member