Evening star., 1940-03-24
Miss Rose Macdonald, Author,
Educator, Has Made History

Society, chairman of its Junior Red
Cross, head of the committee for
the survey of old homes around
rural schools in Clarke County, and
its Historical Society, as we'll as
chairman of the Program Com
mittee for the Woman's Club and
vice chairman of the Women's
Democratic Committee. she counter
ed with her infectious laugh and,
Don't you think a change of ac-
tivities, sometimes constitutes a
complete rest?"
Pursuing this theory of refreshing
ones self with doing. I discovered
most of her literary output is
achieved early in the morning, this
being the time I can usually count
upon for the fewest possible inter-
ruptions"
She keeps house by herself by
the side of the road in Berryville, in
little clapboarded pre-Revolu-
tionary home, with a colored maid
and three ubiquitous dogs as the
complement to her household. OF
her canine companions she says,
They provide the necessary element
of unexpectedness. People who live
by themselves. get into routine ruts,
unless they have something to upset
the even tenor of their ways, when
they are least expecting it,
Enjoys 1t All.
OF this full life of hers with its
inevitable demands, she says. Il
enjoy it all, every moment of it
I never get tired either, except when
1 get bored, and people who aren't
real or who insist upon playing
bridge just to play bridge, are the
only ones who ever provoke me to
boredom
Miss Macdonald disclaims plan
ming a literary career for herself.
Rather, it evolved from an effort to
meet need as it developed.
A social study which she later
published as Then and Now in
Dixie was first written in the
form of mimeographed sheets avail
able for use in the rural schools
of Virginia which she was super
vising because there was. no text
book material to connect the pres
ent with the past for these chill
dren.
Gradually, too, there came to her
an increasing perception OF what
children could learn through stories
in history. Through access to many
hitherto unpublished letters in
the possession of members of the
Gusts and Lee families, with whom
she is connected, there followed
that best-seller among juvenile his
torical books, Molly Gusts, the
Daughter of Mount Vernon" This
Is the story of a child living in
the family of the first President of
the United States.
Book on Mrs. Lee.
Her attention was called to the
fact that there was absolutely no
biographical material available on
the life of Mrs. Robert E. Lee when
she was asked to make a talk on
the subject before her woman's
club. To carry through her part
of the program she had to tall
back on the memories of her own
father and mother during the time
OF their association with Gen. and
Mrs. Lee in Lexington after the
Civil War. Her father, Malcolm
Macdonald, had been called to the
chair of mineralogy and geology at
the Virginia Military Institute to
succeed Stonewall jackson.
Then began her search for orig
inal letters among Mrs. Lees kith
and kin. From these she wrote
the story. Born and married at
Arlington, Mrs. Lee is shown
through these letters closing the
door on the place that was never
to be home again to her because
the Nation was torn by civil strife.
A careful historian, Miss Mac
Donald has done remarkable piece
of source research work in answer
ing the long disputed point as to
whether the invalided Mrs. Lee ever
returned to Arlington after the
Civil War by quoting her, II have
this day seen my dear Arlington
so changed"
Never Regretted Decision.
Not once, Miss Macdonald makes
the point, does Mrs. Lee, by so much
as single sentence, ever regret the
decision her husband made when
he closed the door on their life at
Arlington and the security that
three generations OF her family had
built up there.
Miss Macdonald is not a stranger
to Washington, although she now
comes here as a visitor. At the
time her father was commissioner
Of fisheries, she went to the Nor
wood School, since incorporated with
the Gunston Hall School. Following
work at william and Mary and re-
search study at the Biological