Last spring, longtime Rancho Santa Fe resident Robert Macdonald donated his childhood scrapbook to the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society, a cherished family possession offering a glimpse into the life of a boy growing up in the young Covenant community in the 1930s.
The Macdonalds were among the original families of Rancho Santa Fe—among names like the Nelsons, the Badgers and Clotfelters (descendant Cutter is the current president of the RSF Historical Society). The family’s first home in 1926 when Robert was still a baby was the La Flecha House, the current home of the Historical Society.
Ranch architect Lilian Rice was sometimes a babysitter for Robert when his parents were traveling the world. In the last few years, he got a kick out of visiting the statue erected in her honor and posing in front of a photograph of his parents on the La Flecha House steps at the Historical Society.
Within Macdonald’s red leather scrapbook, the leather worn and softened by time, loose photographs spill out of him as a young child on the golf course in 1929, behind him stretches the startlingly wide open spaces of the early Ranch. Another sepia-toned photo from 1937 shows the entire 25-student enrollment for the Rancho Santa Fe School. In the photo, one child stands barefoot on the steps of the building, now home to the RSF Association offices, and a smiling Richard stands the tallest of all the students, including his two younger brothers.
Inside the scrapbook, a felt RSF school patch is pasted onto one of the pages, in the school colors of “Olympic Blue and White”, as well as the lyrics of the long-forgotten school song: “With joy and sweet contentment Is filled each youthful heart, As each boy and girl among us strives hard his bit to do, And wills to help the weaker one by always being true.”
Macdonald passed away on Sept. 2 in his Rancho Santa Fe home at 97 years old. As daughter Heather Macdonald LaMarre said, his passing marks the end of an era.
Robert’s father Ranold was the first president of the Rancho Santa Fe Association board and one of the five property owner signatures on the original Articles of Incorporation in 1927. Robert’s mother Marion Hardy Morriss helped found The Country Friends and served as one of the first heads of the Garden Club. After Ranald passed away, she married Arthur Lindburg and stayed in town—she hosted an event in 1964 that raised funds for the Rancho Santa Fe Library’s current building.
The Macdonalds moved around in the Ranch and lived in a couple different places, in original village homes. Their first home designed by Rice burned down in 1943 (family lore is that the younger Macdonald brothers had been playing with matches) and they built a second home on Mimulus where they lived until Ranald’s death in 1952. After marrying Lindburg, Marion moved to the Green Leaves estate on Linea Del Cielo, built in 1926.
Robert left San Dieguito High School early to attend Stanford University and from there he joined the Navy during the end of World War II. He spent most of his career at Hughes Aircraft Corporation where he was a missile systems engineer. He came back to Rancho Santa Fe in 1988 to care for Marion and ended up retiring in the Linea Del Cielo home after her passing in 1999.
Robert’s scrapbook is filled with fragile, crackling pages, a meticulous collection of his years as a young elementary school boy. There are programs for the spring floral show at the RSF Garden Club and San Diego County Fair, racing sheets from the Del Mar Races and a schedule for the Bing Crosby Golf Tournament with a $1 admission ticket.
There are yellowed news clippings for new plans for the garden club and Covenant amendments and an invitation for a jubilee that the Association held to burn Mattoon Act bonds in front of The Inn in 1937—the community was celebrating the end of property taxes for public works projects.
The scrapbook includes copies of the Ranch School’s “Eucalyptus Leaves” newsletter written by students, issues which Robert contributed as an editor and reporter. In 1937, he gave a report on playground updates at the school and another student shared how Mr. Macdonald showed “moving pictures” to the class from his trips around the world to Egypt and India.
Ranch School news items in the “Eucalyptus Leaves” paint a charming picture of the community’s roots as a tiny, rural town: “Charles saw some rabbits on the road. Stewart’s dog ate part of Mary’s cereal. Hickey saw a pretty coyote. A possum got in Badger’s fig tree.”
“Charles has three teeth out. We hope Jimmy gets well soon.”
Robert’s scrapbook has telegrams and postcards from his father’s travels and letters that he typed up on Lilian Rice’s letterhead to send back to his father. One dispatch reads: “Dear Dad, I’m very glad that you got the cable. I have lost a tooth.”
On the postcards from dad, the stamps cost a penny and the address is simply Robert’s name and Rancho Santa Fe. Little nuggets of love, his dad’s postcard messages fill him in on where he was going next and when he would return home, reminding him to “be a good fellow”.
The Rancho Santa Fe address was always home for Macdonald. He outlived both his younger brothers, John and Ranald, and in his last months LaMarre was coming back and forth from Boston to Rancho Santa Fe to be with him. His last days were very special, surrounded by family in his home.
“He just wanted to be at his house when he passed, he had so many good memories there,” said LaMarre.
Robert MacDonald had a very good life, she said. Married three times, he had nine children, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. This November would have marked his 46-year wedding anniversary to his wife Sharon, who remains in their home in Rancho Santa Fe.
“He was really my person,” said LaMarre of her father. “I’m going to miss him a lot.”
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