MOUNT DESERT and DELAND, Fla. – Amy Isabella Arla Harkness MacDonald, 101, died Sept. 13, 2005, at her summer residence on Long Pond, Mount Desert. Born Dec. 20, 1903, in Emerson, Manitoba, Canada, she was the daughter of David Bruce and Amy Gibson Harkness. She was educated in Winnipeg schools and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Manitoba in 1925. After graduation she did family social work in Winnipeg and Toronto. She became involved with Speedwriting, Inc. and in 1929 moved to the New York office, where she was vice president in charge of the education department. She married Norman W. MacDonald in 1932, and lived in Augusta, where Norman was head of the state welfare program. They moved to Presque Isle in 1948 where he became the city manager. Retiring in 1957, they moved to DeLand, Fla., where he was employed by the admission department of Stetson University. In Augusta, Presque Isle and DeLand, Arla served on innumerable boards and committees including the American Red Cross, YMCA, United Fund, American Association of University Women, the Children’s Home Society, the DeLand Trinity Methodist Church and the West Volusia Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. She organized a World Affairs Group in DeLand, which met monthly in her home for 40 years. She and her family visited Maine regularly at her in-laws home in Bar Harbor and since 1973 spending each summer at her residence on Long Pond. She is survived by two daughters, Arlanne MacDonald Snodgrass of Daytona Beach, Fla. and Long Pond, Norma MacDonald Sweat of Largo, Fla.; seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be held 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 19, 2005, at Jordan-Fernald Funeral Home, 1139 Main St., Mount Desert, with the Rev. Dr. Sandra Reed officiating. Interment will be at Ledgelawn Cemetery, Bar Harbor. Donations can be made in Arla’s memory to the Gibson House Museum, Toronto, Canada or to the Maine Sea Coast Mission Society, West Street, Bar Harbor, ME 04609.
ARLA MACDONALD
