We remember: Jack McDonald

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A century on from the end of World War I we acknowledge their service …
Lest we forget.

Driver John MacDonald
Born: 1887 Beazley’s Bridge, near St Arnaud.
Died: 24 July 1964 Pakenham.
Enlisted: 1 February 1915 aged 26
Served: Egypt, Gallipoli and Western Front.

Jack was aged 26 when he enlisted at Leongatha on 1 February 1915 and was assigned to a mobile medical unit. In late August 1915, Jack proceeded to Gallipoli where he would most likely have been a stretcher bearer.

In March 1916 he was sent with his unit to the Western Front. There, Jack was dogged by several episodes of ill health, including contracting the mumps and influenza. In March 1917, he was invalided back to the UK suffering from appendicitis. Jack rejoined his unit in July 1917. During 1918, he was gassed at Corbie and while he was not hospitalised, suffered from a cough and frequent colds afterwards.

Jack had a period of leave in the UK between August and October 1918, by which time the War was almost over. In January 1919, he was sent to England preliminary to his return to Australia. Jack left England in February 1919, and was discharged from the Army in Melbourne on 6 June 1919. While he had been away, Jack’s parents sold up their property at Mount Eccles and retired to a small holding in the Toomuc Valley which they named “Carbost”. So it was to Pakenham that Jack initially returned home to. In October 1919, both he and his brother Murdoch were presented with gold medallions at a special soldiers’ welcome home held at Pakenham.

Jack subsequently went into share farming with another brother on a dairy farm at Fish Creek in South Gippsland, before taking up a soldier settler property in Huxtable Road Pakenham Upper. He pioneered “Avalone” with a horse and plow, but suffered from ill-health which he attributed to the gassing back in 1918.

In 1927, Jack married Elizabeth Ritchie, a member of a well-known local Pakenham family, and the couple raised two sons.

Despite his ill-health, Jack was a very active, community-minded citizen. As the Pakenham Gazette noted, “It would be difficult to find many public institutions in the district which Mr MacDonald was not actively associated with during his long residence in the District”.

These included the Mechanics’ Hall committee, the Recreation Reserve Committee, the Pakenham Agricultural Society (of which he became a life member), the Presbyterian Church (of which he was an elder), the Pakenham Masonic Lodge (of which he was a past master) and the Pakenham Upper Sunday School.

Jack was also well known as an expert horseman and even worked out a treatment for fistulas in horses. This was so successful that some of the racing people in Pakenham would get Jack to treat their horses, because he was cheaper than a vet!

While he “knew horses inside out” and was used to telling them what to do, Jack was apparently not as good with mechanics. According to one family story, after Jack acquired a truck, the trailer he was supposed to be towing beat him down Huxtable Road!.

After he died in Pakenham on 24 July 1964, the Pakenham Gazette paid its tribute in the following terms: “John McDonald will long be remembered for his public service to the community, but even more for the integrity and kindness of character which made him a man one was proud to call friend”.

This is an extract from Patrick Ferry’s book A Century After The Guns Fell Silent – Remembering the Pakenham District’s WWI Diggers 1914-18.
For more details on this and other profiles in the book, head to the website www.pakenhamww1.com