Mary Anne Trump (; gd, Màiri Anna Nic Leòid ; May 10, 1912 – August 7, 2000) was a Scottish-American
domestic worker. She was the wife of real-estate developer
Fred Trump
Frederick Christ Trump Sr. (October 11, 1905 – June 25, 1999) was an American real estate developer and businessman. A member of the Trump family, he was the father of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.
In partnership w ...
. The couple were the parents of
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, the 45th president of the United States.
Born in the
Outer Hebrides of Scotland, Mary Trump immigrated to the United States in 1930 and became a naturalized citizen in March 1942.
She raised five children with her husband and lived in the New York area.
Early life
Mary Anne MacLeod was born in a
pebbledashed
Roughcast or pebbledash is a coarse plaster surface used on outside walls that consists of lime and sometimes cement mixed with sand, small gravel and often pebbles or shells. The materials are mixed into a slurry and are then thrown at the wo ...
croft
Croft may refer to:
Occupations
* Croft (land), a small area of land, often with a crofter's dwelling
* Crofting, small-scale food production
* Bleachfield, an open space used for the bleaching of fabric, also called a croft
Locations In the Uni ...
house owned by her father since 1895 in the village of
Tong Tong may refer to:
Chinese
*Tang Dynasty, a dynasty in Chinese history when transliterated from Cantonese
*Tong (organization), a type of social organization found in Chinese immigrant communities
*''tong'', pronunciation of several Chinese char ...
, on the
Isle of Lewis.
Raised in a
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...
-speaking household, Mary was the youngest of ten children born to Malcolm (1866–1954) and Mary MacLeod (' Smith; 1867–1963).
Her father was a
crofter
A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural are ...
,
fisherman
A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish.
Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or rec ...
and
compulsory officer at Mary's school.
English was her second language, which she learned at the school she attended until secondary school.
Her paternal grandparents were Alexander MacLeod and Ann MacLeod; her maternal grandparents were Donald Smith and Mary MacAulay. They were from the locations of Vatisker and
South Lochs, respectively.
Donald died at sea aged 34 when his sailing ship sank, a common fate for men in the region which was dependent on fishing.
Some of the family's generations had been forced off their land as part of the
Highland Clearances.
According to one genealogical account, displaced families in Mary's village lived in "human wretchedness" while nearby farmable land was used as
game reserves
A game reserve (also known as a wildlife preserve or a game park) is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; ...
.
Local historians
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administra ...
have said properties at the time were "indescribably filthy", and that families in the area lived austere lives as fishers, farmers and
peat
Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient ...
diggers.
The outbreak of weakened the area's economy and male population further.
Immigration to the United States
With several siblings having already established themselves there,
MacLeod may have first visited the United States for a short stay in December 1929. She was issued
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
visa number 26698 at
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
on February 17, 1930.
On May 2, MacLeod left Glasgow on board the
RMS ''Transylvania'' arriving in New York City on May 11 (one day after her 18th birthday). She declared she intended to become a U.S. citizen and would be staying permanently in America.
She was one of tens of thousands of young
Scots who left for the United States or Canada during this period, Scotland having suffered badly the consequences of the
Clearances and World War I.
The alien passenger list of the ''Transylvania'' lists her occupation as a
domestic worker.
![FredTrump1950-02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/FredTrump1950-02.png)
Arriving in the U.S. with $50 (equivalent to $887 in 2022), MacLeod lived with her older sister Christina Matheson on
Long Island and worked as a domestic servant for at least four years.
One of these jobs appears to have been as a
nanny
A nanny is a person who provides child care. Typically, this care is given within the children's family setting. Throughout history, nannies were usually servants in large households and reported directly to the lady of the house. Today, modern ...
for a well-to-do family in a New York suburb, but the position was eliminated due to economic difficulties caused by the
Great Depression.
As a 2016 account in Scottish newspaper ''
The National'' put it, she "started life in America as a dirt-poor servant escaping the even worse poverty of her native land."
Having obtained a
U.S. Re-entry Permit—only granted to immigrants intending to stay and gain citizenship
—she returned to Scotland on the
SS ''Cameronia'' on September 12, 1934.
She was recorded as living in New York by April 1935 in the
1940 U.S. Census
The United States census of 1940, conducted by the United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 132,164,569, an increase of 7.3 percent over the 1930 United States Census, 1930 populat ...
.
Though the 1940 census form filed by Mary Anne and her husband,
Fred Trump
Frederick Christ Trump Sr. (October 11, 1905 – June 25, 1999) was an American real estate developer and businessman. A member of the Trump family, he was the father of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.
In partnership w ...
, stated that she was a
naturalized citizen
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
, she did not actually become one until March 10, 1942.
However, there is no evidence that she violated any immigration laws prior to her naturalization, as she frequently traveled internationally and was afterwards able to re-enter the U.S.
MacLeod returned to her home area in Scotland often during the course of her life and spoke Gaelic when she did.
Marriage, family and activities
In the mid-1930s, while MacLeod was living with her sister in Queens, she met Fred Trump—already a property developer and builder—at a party;
on a subsequent visit to Scotland, she told her family that she had met her future husband. They married at the
Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church is a member church of the Presbyterian Church (USA), located at 73rd Street and Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side of New York City.
In 1927 George Arthur Buttrick succeeded Henry Sloane Coffin as minister. ...
on January 11, 1936,
with
George Arthur Buttrick
George Arthur Buttrick (March 23, 1892 – January 23, 1980) was an English-born, American-based Christian preacher, author and lecturer.Charles F. Kemp, ''Life-situation preaching'', Bloomington, Minnesota: Bethany Press, 1956, p. 18/ref>T. A. P ...
officiating. The wedding reception for 25 guests was held at the
Carlyle Hotel
The Carlyle Hotel, known formally as The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, is a combination luxury apartment hotel located at 35 East 76th Street on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and East 76th Street, on the Upper East Side of New York City. O ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
They honeymooned in
Atlantic City,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
.
On April 5, 1937, she gave birth to their first child,
Maryanne, followed by
Fred Jr. (1938–1981),
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
(born 1942),
Donald
Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...
(born 1946), and
Robert
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
(1948–2020).
The final birth led to an emergency
hysterectomy, which she barely survived.
![Donald Trump NYMA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Donald_Trump_NYMA.jpg)
The family lived in
Jamaica, Queens, and later specifically in
Jamaica Estates
Jamaica Estates is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. Jamaica Estates is part of Queens Community District 8 and located in the northern portion of Jamaica. It is bounded by Union Turnpike to the north, Hillside Avenue to t ...
.
At first, the couple lived in the house of MacLeod's mother-in-law;
however, by 1940, the couple, having moved out, had begun an upwardly mobile existence, having taken on a Scottish domestic servant for their own household.
MacLeod generally worked as a
housewife
A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying an ...
within the family, but sometimes helped with her husband's real estate business, such as collecting coins from laundry machines in family-owned apartment buildings.
MacLeod raised her children in the
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
faith of her upbringing; on January 20, 2017, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump took his inaugural oath of office using a copy of the
Revised Standard Version Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
given to him by his mother in 1955 when he graduated from a Presbyterian
Sunday school. MacLeod drove a
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to:
* Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct
Automobiles
* Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
that bore the
vanity plates
A vanity plate or personalized plate (United States and Canada); prestige plate, private number plate, cherished plate or personalised registration (United Kingdom); personalised plate (Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom) or custom pla ...
"MMT", the initials of her name, Mary MacLeod Trump.
MacLeod also acted as a volunteer in a hospital and was involved in school activities and charities,
including the betterment of those with cerebral palsy and efforts to improve the lives of intellectually disabled adults.
The Trumps were active in the
Salvation Army, the
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded ...
, and the
LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired
The LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, and is the oldest and largest of its kind in Northern California.
History
Founded in 1902 under the direction of Josephine Rowan as the Readin ...
, among other charities.
MacLeod had a significant role at the Women's Auxiliary of Jamaica Hospital and likewise at the Jamaica Day Nursery.
She and her husband donated time, effort, services, and several medical buildings around New York;
a 228-bed nursing home pavilion at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where she spent years volunteering, is named after her.
MacLeod also belonged to several social clubs.
As a parent, MacLeod was more reserved than her husband.
Friends of the children observed fewer interactions with her than with him.
In appearance, MacLeod was slight of build but was known for an elaborate hairstyle, labeled in one account a "dynamic orange swirl",
similar to the hairstyle her son Donald would later become known for.
In 1981, MacLeod's oldest son, Fred Jr., died from complications due to
alcoholism
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomi ...
.
Later life and death
As she grew older, Trump suffered from severe
osteoporosis.
On October 31, 1991, at 79, she was
mugged
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...
while shopping on
Union Turnpike near her home. She resisted the mugger's attempt to steal her purse, which contained $14, and was then knocked to the ground and beaten.
She sustained broken ribs, facial bruises, several fractures, a
brain hemorrhage, and permanent damage to her sight and hearing. A bread-truck driver named Lawrence Herbert apprehended Paul LoCasto, her 16-year-old assailant, for which he was later rewarded by Donald Trump with a check that kept him from losing his home to foreclosure.
Paul LoCasto later pleaded guilty to robbery and assault, and was sentenced to three to nine years in prison.
Mary Anne's husband, Fred Trump, died at age 93 in June 1999 after falling ill with
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
.
She died one year later on August 7, 2000, at
Long Island Jewish Medical Center
Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJMC or LIJ) is a clinical and academic hospital within the Northwell Health system. It is a 807-bed, non-profit tertiary care teaching hospital serving the greater New York metropolitan area. The campus is ...
in
New Hyde Park, New York
New Hyde Park is a village in the Towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. It is the anchor community of the Greater New Hyde Park area. The population was 9,712 at the 2010 census.
...
, at age 88.
Services were held at
Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan
and she was buried alongside her husband and son (Fred Jr.) at Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery in
Middle Village, Queens
Middle Village is a mainly residential neighborhood in the central section of the borough of Queens, New York City, bounded to the north by the Long Island Expressway, to the east by Woodhaven Boulevard, to the south by Cooper Avenue and the form ...
.
The death notice in her Scottish hometown newspaper, the ''
Stornoway Gazette'', read: "Peacefully in New York on August 7, Mary Ann Trump, aged 88 years. Daughter of the late Malcolm and Mary MacLeod, 5 Tong. Much missed."
References
External links
Scottish Roots pagePavilion website named after her
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trump, Mary Anne MacLeod
1912 births
2000 deaths
20th-century American people
20th-century American women
Burials in New York (state)
Mothers of presidents of the United States
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from the Isle of Lewis
People from Jamaica Estates, Queens
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Mary Anne MacLeod
Presbyterians from New York (state)