An original 1922 Chestnut Burr yearbook for Kent State Normal College, purchased via eBay, bears this handwritten inscription on its first interior page: “Lester McDonnell 438 E. Summit St. Kent. O. July 25, 1922.”
There are written notations throughout, mainly in the faculty section, highlighting what were presumably McDonnell’s favorite instructors. The inscription near the portrait of Lester S. Ivins reads, “Our agricultural instructor. ‘A good Lester.’” A considerable number of autographs in the signature pages at the end of the book would indicate that McDonnell was well liked by his peers – and his instructors. Stephen A. Harbourt, a biology professor at Kent State from 1922 to 1940, for whom Harbourt Hall on the Kent Campus was named, wrote “In these strenuous times, you have to run as fast as you can to stand still."
McDonnell on campus
Lester Ray McDonnell was born Oct. 4, 1899, and lived in Newcomerstown, Ohio. He enrolled at Kent State from summer 1920 through summer 1926. McDonnell earned a special diploma in manual training on Aug. 29, 1924, and a Bachelor of Science in education in 1926. An announcement in Ohio Education Monthly in January 1923 reported that McDonnell was hired by the Dennison School System in Dennison, Ohio, to teach in either grade school or high school.
McDonnell was a member of Kent State’s first football team in 1920 and 1921. At that time, the team was called the Silver Foxes, named for Kent State President John McGilvrey’s silver fox farm. (The athletics teams would not be renamed as Golden Flashes until 1926.) In the 1921 edition of the Chestnut Burr, he is misidentified in the football team photo as Lester “McDonald.” In the same yearbook, his photo in the “Degree Students” section is mislabeled as Lester “McDowell,” with the whimsical notation, “Oh! Mack is all right.”
McDonnell is listed in the 1926 Chestnut Burr as a “Candidate for Degree Summer Quarter.”
When Lester met Gertrude
Gertrude Anna Huffman, who would one day become Mrs. Lester McDonnell, first appears in the “Degree Undergraduates” section of the 1924 Chestnut Burr. Her name appears again, as Gertrude Huffman McDonnell in the Kent Stater on August 26, 1926, along with Lester McDonnell, with a listing of “74 to receive degree in 1926.” The article lists the names of everyone receiving a Bachelor of Science in Education degree along with the headline “More Than 85 Per Cent Have Been Employed.”
James Lee McDonnell
On Sept. 5, 1934, in Youngstown, Lester and Gertrude’s son, James Lee McDonnell, was born. They also had a daughter, Nadine Ray McDonnell (about whom no further information was found).
James McDonnell graduated from Kent State’s College of Business Administration in 1956. While in college he was a member of the Society for Advancement of Management. From 1956 until 1975, he worked for the Ford Motor Co. as a car merchandising manager, business manager and dealer placement manager for Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. James McDonnell owned McDonnell Automotive Associates and brokered the sale and purchase of most of the auto dealerships in the tri-county area from 1976 until his death.
He was a historian with expertise on Colonial Williamsburg and the Automobile Thrill Show in America. He collected classic Ford Thunderbirds, was a member of a number of automotive clubs and attended classic car shows, annually.
Return visits to Kent State
Lester McDonnell returned to the Kent Campus in September1955 for a reunion of nine members of the 1920 Silver Foxes football team. He also came back in 1963 for one course. He died in June 1967. Gertrude A. (Huffman) McDonnell died in 1980 and their son, James, died in 2011. James McDonnell had no children.
The address in McDonnell’s inscription in the 1922 Chestnut Burr is a house, built in 1911, located at the corner of East Summit and South Lincoln streets, now across from Kent State’s Center for Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement. It is currently a six-bedroom rental property, still occupied by Kent State students.
