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Submitted by Vivian Brinker, <VIVIANB@RAVEN.CCC.CC.KS.US>
The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II.
pg. 351
ORVILLE L. MCDONALD. To come into a field already crowded
with competitors, a professional man must possess unusual qualities to be able to reach a foremost place in their
ranks and in a comparatively short space of time, and this is just what Orville L. McDonald has done since coming to
Clarksburg, where he is recognized as an able attorney and is a member of the well known law firm of Strother &
McDonald, general practitioners, with offices in the Union National Bank Building.
Mr. McDonald was born on a farm in Harrison County, West
Virginia, December 7, 1888, and is a son of Mordecai Smith and Emma Virginia (Roe) McDonald, and a grandson of James
McDonald. For generations back the name to which its earliest American members came from Scotland. Mordecai
Smith McDonald followed an agricultural life and died on his farm in Harrison County at the age of sixty-six years.
He married Emma Virginia Roe, who was born in Taylor County, West Virginia, and still survives, and as was her husband,
a faithful member of the Baptist Church. They had two sons: Orville L. and Carl Smith.
Orville L. McDonald attended the public schools of Harrison
County, graduating from Bridgport High School in 1907. He later entered the preparatory school at Keyser, academic and
scientific courses, and later entered West Virginia University. Folowing this he completed a full course in law
the same year he was admitted to the bar and immediately entered into practice at Clarksburg in association with
Ray L. Strother. They are practicing under the firm style of Strother & McDonald. During his nine years at the bar, Mr.
McDonald has given a good account of himself and has been professionally and successfully connected with some of the
most important litigation coming before the Harrison County courts within this period.
Mr. McDonald was married in 1916, to Miss Nellie W. Reese,
who was born in Taylor County, West Virginia, and they have one son, Robert Orville McDonald. Mr. McDonald was reared by
a Christian mother in the faith of the Baptist Church and has never wavered from his early teaching, and largely dispenses
his charities through this worthy medium. In his political attitude he is a democrat, a loyal party man but no seeker
for public office. He belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a Knight Templar Mason and a
Shriner. He is interested in all that pertains to the welfare of Clarksburg and both professionally and personally is held in
high esteem in this city. |
