Success

 Mary MacLeod was born on the Isle of Lewis.  Her family were crofters and fishermen. I don't think they would have wanted any emphasis put on poor, they were just what crofters are, farmers, and when not farming they were out fishing for a bit extra.  The MacLeods had 10 children and Mary was the youngest.  It was expected in those times, Mary was born in 1912, that if you had 10 children you would be lucky if 4 survived and so the croft and fishing would be ok.  However, as lives improved at that time and moved on from Victorian times more and more children began to survive and then it became a problem on the crofts, they might support two or three but not 10. And so the exodus of the families to the New World as they called it began. 

Mary was not a shrinking violet and when she was 12 she read in the paper (you see they had the papers) about a young Dundee girl of her age who had won a newspaper painting competition.  Mary was lonely on the croft so she sent off a very nice letter to the girl in Dundee and said would she be her penfriend because she also liked art and wanted a friend to write to.   And so began a lifelong correspondence and friendship between them.   

When she was 18 Mary followed her sister who had emigrated to America some years before and set off for a new life.  She arrived on Ellis Island and soon started work as a maid in a household in New York.  She enjoyed it and somehow or other she did more than most maids I would imagine because she went to parties and mixed with society people.  She was tall, elegant and not shy.  She was by no means a poor little girl from a croft.  She stayed in touch with her Scottish friend and saved enough money to visit once or twice,  still spoke Gaelic and never lost her accent.  Later this friend was awarded an art scholarship and chose to take it up in Germany at the University of Marburg.  There she met a nice German young man and married him and had two children.   When the war came this became a problem and she returned to Scotland but remained in touch with Mary.  Her German husband was not with her. 

Meanwhile in America Mary married the son of a family who were second generation German coincidentally and were property developers starting off as builders do the world over, building one house to order, selling it and then moving on to the next.  I know many small builders who did this in Britain and many London terraces were built with many builders taking on just two three or four houses in a street.  As wealth grew then they would take on six.  You can see this if you look at London streets.   Now of course building and property developing is different and few of us would know it that way anymore and building companies are big, national, quoted on the stockmarket, corporations. 

Mary's husband started in a small way with his father and became more and more successful.  Mary was able to wear fine clothes and attend the social scene of New York and adjusted to it perfectly.  

Mary MacLeod had five children and one of them was Donald. Her husband was the son of Trump builder and Donald was the one son who continued in the family business.  The children all did well in careers although the eldest son fell out with his father and left the family business and became an airline pilot. 

Mary MacLeod's friend in Scotland continued to keep in touch with her, the two would meet from time to time, and Mary never forgot her Scottish roots.  The grand-daughter of the Scottish lady still has the letters the two exchanged and she was told happy stories of the two of them by her grandmother.  She continued to speak with her island accent and speak in Gaelic. 

Mary sounded like a woman who had a lot of grit and determination and style and from her fairly humble beginnings she adjusted perfectly into the social life of the wealthy of New York. 

I saw her story recently and with lots of Trump Derangement Syndrome people around I felt inclined to share it.  I wonder what she would have said had she seen the things that are said about her son.  I think she would have said pfft to it and not given a jot.  She was definitely a strong woman.  

On another note but of the same tack, if you have doubts about yourself or any young folk you know and their ability to achieve I suggest you and they listen to Sunday's Desert Island Discs and take in what Emma Grede had to say.  I see her as an achiever and achievers are not always liked.  But grit and determination can go a long way to success.