Elizabeth McFadden
by Mike Thompson, 12/23/2012
Elizabeth was the fourth of the seven children of Andrew and Ellen McFadden. We remember her for her energy, adventureous spirit, and determination. She backpacked the entire Appalachian Trail alone while in her 60s, then did it again a decade later, which tells you a lot about the kind of person she was.
While the family was still living and farming in Crosby, North Dakota, probably shortly after she graduated from high school, Elizabeth moved back to Minnesota. That's where her father, Andrew's three brothers lived - only he had moved west to claim homestead land in North Dakota - and Elizabeth stayed with family members there. I believe she went to school there for a while, and then found a job with the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company, known today as 3M.
During World War II Elizabeth went to work in Alaska, where 3M was doing a road building project for the US government. I have a story that she wrote while there about a gold panning expedition she took with a couple of her co-workers.
After the war Elizabeth took an interest in Hawaii. In typical Elizabeth fashion, rather than just buying a picture book, she went there. Elizabeth told my sister, Susan that when she decided to make the move she also decided to buy a car and have it shipped to Oahu. When the ship carrying her car arrived she had to have someone else drive it off the dock, because she didn't yet know how to drive. She had purchased a brand new convertible, her first car, and decided that once it arrived in Hawaii she would learn how to drive it. Elizabeth never seemed to be afraid of anything. She had such a positive spirit, always going forward with tremendous determination, much like her sister, Agnes. Nothing stopped them. They moved ahead with unwavering purpose based on tremendous faith, and often encouraged us to pray.
It was in Hawaii that she met and was married to Lionel "Mac" MacMillen. There's a beautiful wedding photo of them outside the Hickam Field chapel. Mac was working for the US government on some sort of communications project, work in which he contined to be involved after they moved east to Washington DC. They bought a lovely, two-story home in nearby Annandale, Virginia.
Their son, Dale was born in the early 1950s - he's close to my age so I'm going to guess that it was 1954. Mac died very suddenly and unexpectedly when Dale was still in elementary school. Elizabeth found a job in Washington DC to support them while Dale grew up.
While looking through Aunt Elizabeth's photo albums I found a number of pictures of Dale with his dad and mom at a campsite by a lake. Elizabeth said that they bought a small lot in a private lakeside camping area not too far from their home, where they went on weekends to relax. The pictures show a small covered picnic shelter and an aluminum skiff with an outboard motor. Dale's outdoor experiences in his youth left a lasting impression. After high school Dale hiked the Appalachian Trail (which Elizabeth said inspired her to do so later in her life), and after college became a ranger for the National Park Service. During his career Dale became a wildfire expert, and did quite a bit of traveling to combat forest fires in the west.
I remember Elizabeth and Dale coming to Yakima for a McFadden family get-together, probably about 1965. The other brothers and sisters came too and brought their children: Andy, Hugh, and Helen from the Tri-Cities, and Rosemary and Honey from San Francisco. That's the only time I remember seeing Elizabeth or Dale when I was growing up. I do remember my mother, Agnes boxing up parcels of food, sox, band-aids, and other items for Elizabeth while she was hiking the Apalachian Trail. Elizabeth would stop at post offices along the way, pick up Mom's packages, and drop off letters.
In the mid 1990s, when Erika and Laura were in middle/elementary school, Jane and I took them on a trip to Washington DC, Colonial Williamsburg, and then out to Cape Hateras. While we were in DC, Elizabeth came into town and showed us around a bit: through some of the Smithsonian Museum buildings, to Ford's Theatre, etc. Elizabeth would have been about 80 years old then. At around 5' 4", 120 pounds, and looking lovely in a summer dress, she proceeded to walk our legs off. That day left no question in my mind about her abilities as a hiker.
Elizabeth made two trips to the west coast in her later years. I picked her up at SeaTac airport once when she came to visit Mom, and we drove to Yakima over Snoqualmie Pass. We stopped along the way to take a short hike through the grove of old-growth forest at Asahel Curtis. A couple years later she and Dale came out together, and we visited with them at Susan and Bill's house at Lake Tapps.
In the summer of 2005, when Elizabeth was in her early 90s, I flew to the east coast to pay her a visit, to re-photograph some of the pictures in her photo albums, and to learn from her about McFadden family history. I stayed for several days and we had a great time, looking through her albums, visiting, and going for walks in the large woodland park that was only a stone's throw from her house.
Huge credit is due to Elizabeth for her work in organizing and annotating photographs and in doing genealogical research. Most of the written information that I have on McFadden family history came from her. What you're seeing and reading here is a gift from Elizabeth. She even made a trip back to Ireland in the 1990s with one of her cousins from Minnesota. They searched, mostly through parish records, to try to trace the McFadden and Barrett lines back farther that the original American immigrants. What they learned is that the Irish of the 19th century were much too busy trying to stay alive to have time to produce such documentation. Genealogy has become a passion in modern-day America, but in earlier times it was pretty much limited to the aristocracy.
In her mid-90s Elizabeth moved in with her son, Dale and his family at their home in Arkansas. Elizabeth died there a year or two later, but she still inspires those who knew her. When I picture her face I can feel the radiant energy that she projected, and hear the sound of her clear voice.
When I last visited her at her home in Annandale in 2005 I did a little gardening for her, moving some azeleas that were in the back yard under some huge oak trees. I took a cutting from one of those azeleas, brought it home with me on the plane, and planted it in our front yard, where it prospers today.
