James Locke Macdonald

James Locke Macdonald of Rye, NH, died peacefully in his home on Jan, 31, 2026, surrounded by his family. He was 94 years old, and passed after a short battle with complications of heart disease. Young Jamie was raised in New Canaan, CT, the son of Corinne Parsons Macdonald (Connie) of Rye and James Ronald Macdonald (Ronald) of Brooklyn, NY. He attended Cherry Lawn School in Darien, CT, then boarded at Choate during high school (by which time he’d dropped the hated “Jamie” and become “Jim”), before attending Yale as a Calhoun man, graduating in 1953 with a major in Art History. After serving at the tail end of the Korean War, Jim had a brief stint working on Wall Street before finding his career with the Merrill-Anderson company, which specialized in creating advertising for the trust departments of banks. This allowed Jim to actually make a living from his art history degree by writing about art and artifacts that were of interest to wealthy clients, and to use his formidable skills as a writer. When Jim met the lovely Patricia Brown at a party, she had just returned from a grand tour of Europe and was flush with stories of the great works of art and ancient buildings she had seen. They hit it off, and Jim got tickets to the hottest show in town, “My Fair Lady,” to impress her - although he could only afford to get two seats behind one another. Pat really liked him, but told him she was sick for their next date because another guy she was seeing had a boat. When Jim went by her home to bring soup, he learned of the deception and broke things off. That was when Pat’s heart sank because she realized he was the one, so she got him a bottle of his favorite Scotch and apologized. But the rest wasn’t history quite yet. One night, at the end of a date, Pat and Jim were talking on the sofa. Pat nudged a pillow to the floor, and Jim, always chivalrous, picked it up. A few minutes later, the pillow again wound up on the floor, and Jim picked it up. After the pillow fell a third time, Jim asked Pat why she kept knocking it to the floor. “It’s for your bended knee.” Jim exclaimed that he would love to marry her, but that he would not be able to keep her in the style to which she had become accustomed. Pat replied that she did not care a whit about that, and they got married in a side chapel of St. Thomas in NYC, before moving into a converted chicken coop in the backyard of a friend. Pat and Jim went on to have two daughters. When the oldest was 9, Pat woke in the middle of the night, paralyzed down the right side of her body. She was having her first attack of multiple sclerosis, though it took a number of years to get a diagnosis. From that day on, Jim and Pat gave up cocktail parties and lived a quiet but rich life based at home. Jim went on playing tennis for another 60 years, but focused on being Pat’s companion, and, as they aged, her caretaker. She was the love of his life, his beautiful blonde to her dying day. In addition to tennis, Jim exercised every day, often taking long walks on the grounds of stately homes or museums or along the coast, posting his photographs on Facebook to share with the family. He kept up with the New York Times, but was also an avid reader of The Scotsman, and, because his older daughter lived in Denmark for a number of years, the Copenhagen Post. After Pat’s death, at the invitation of his younger daughter, Jim became the writer of the newsletter of the Rye Historical Society, a job that felt like a legacy to him, since his grandfather, Langdon B. Parsons, had written the history of the town. Jim wrote his final newsletter just two weeks before his death. Jim is survived by his daughter Clare Macdonald, her husband Sebastian Hammer, and his grandchildren Dylan and Jamie Hammer, and his daughter Virginia Macdonald, her partner Rolfe French, and Virginia’s daughters from a previous marriage, Rebecca and Julie Schneider. Pat passed away in 2020. A Celebration of Life will be held online on Saturday, Feb. 21st at 2:00 p.m. EST to allow Jim’s friends and extended family to attend. A family graveside ceremony for the burial of Pat and Jim will be held in August. Interested attendees for either event should email macdonaldginna@gmail.com to receive an invitation. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society or NPR.

James Locke Macdonald

January 20, 1932 - January 31, 2026