The Union Leader Memoriams
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Pamela Ruth McDonald, formerly of Hopkinton, NH, died April 16, 2021 at home in Penobscot, ME from T-Cell Lymphoma.
Pam was born in Santa Cruz, CA, on November 17, 1947 to Paul Laughlin McDonald and Marvis Lyle Campbell McDonald. Her parents moved to a ranch in Linden, CA, when she was a toddler; it was there, among groves of almonds, walnuts and cherries, that she developed a love of Nature and first felt God's presence.
As a teenager, Pam was awarded the Grand Cross of Color by the International Order of Rainbow for Girls for her exceptional commitment to service. She graduated from Linden High School as class Valedictorian and matriculated at Stanford University. Following a year of study in Tours, France, Pam graduated in 1969 with a B.A. in English.
She was greatly moved by student demonstrations promoting social justice and gender and racial equality in the 1960s.
Pam began a career in nonprofit development at the Stanford University Development Office, eventually serving as its Associate Director of Foundation Giving.
It was during this period she was diagnosed with Lupus, at age 26.
Pam moved with her family from California to New Hampshire in 1987. After five successful years with Wiita Family Realty in Concord, Pam chose to return to nonprofit service. She strove to strengthen organizations with skills "to build lives, change lives, and to save lives." Over the next twenty years, she served as fundraiser at Concord Hospital; Regional Director of the National Kidney Foundation; Executive Director of the NH Community Colleges Foundation; and Executive Director of the Council on Fundraising.
Always engaged, Pam was a three-term President of the Hopkinton Woman's Club, receiving the Muriel Lima Award for her contributions to that town. She was selected as a member of both Leadership Greater Concord and Leadership New Hampshire.
Pam fought a year-long battle with Lymphoma in 2009, surviving this transformative experience. An active volunteer in the Episcopal Church throughout her life, she now felt called to a ministry with the sick and dying. She entered Episcopal Divinity School at the age of 63 and graduated with a Masters of Divinity, winning the John Robbins Hart Memorial Prize for excellence in preaching.
Pam was commissioned by the Bishop of New Hampshire as a Diocesan Lay Preacher, but did not follow a traditional ordination path. Instead, she joined Compassus Hospice and Palliative Care as a chaplain, supporting patients at the end of life.
Entering "semi-retirement" in 2019 she moved with her husband Chris to their home on Toddy Pond. She loved the peace and serenity of rural Maine, even as she dealt with a new, more aggressive form of Lymphoma.
Pam's greatest joy in life was her family. She is survived by her devoted husband Christopher W. Closs; her three children, Joseph Robinson "Jay" Truesdale, IV and his wife Jacqueline of Loudon, NH, and their children Ella, Augusta, Charlie and Alden; Katharine Campbell Truesdale and her husband Cameron Frothingham of Great Cranberry Island, ME, and their sons Grayson and Merrin; and Benjamin Laughlin Truesdale and his wife Helene St. Leger Buchan of Philadelphia, PA; her brother Paul Michael McDonald and his wife Patti of Rancho Santa Fe, CA; and 16 beloved nieces, nephews, and great nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her parents, and her sister Sandra Gene McDonald Clowes. Pam will be interred at the Bay Cemetery in Penobscot, ME, a peaceful site overlooking the Northern Bay.
The family wishes to thank Dr. Frederick M. Briccetti and Dr. Peter J. Sands of Concord; Dr. Lisa Lesko of Blue Hill; Dr. Lloyd C. Harmon; Dr. Philip L. Brooks and the nursing staff at the Mary Dow Cancer Center in Ellsworth; Dr. David C. Fisher and Keri Flynn of Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston; and the staff of Northern Light Home Care & Hospice, Ellsworth.
Pam asked that memorials in her name be directed to nonprofit organizations or churches that work for justice and equity for all people, especially the poor, the homeless, the sick, and those on the margins of society. "Take a moment, reach out, and touch others with gifts of Love and Hope," she said.
A celebration of Pam's life will be held at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Hopkinton, NH on Sunday, August 29, 2021 at 1:30 PM, followed by a reception for family & friends.
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