John Joseph McDonald Family

This is the family of my g-grandfather, my grandmother Mary standing in the left back. He & some of the boys worked for the railroads. The family would always gather in Staples,MN for the holidays. This one was about 1903-5. Prior to 1892 when they arrived in Staples MN to work for the Northern Pacific/Great Northern railroads, the McDonald family lived in Brockville, Ontario, where John J and Mary Jane Clute married, in Leeds county, and a few years later in Smiths Falls, Lanark co., Ontario, until leaving for the USA. John J. Sr. had been first a brakeman and then conductor for the Grand Trunk Railroad in Canada. In the USA he continued on as a conductor until his death in 1928.