J.M. McDonald

James M. McDonald Sr. was born July 20, 1881, in Kingston, Missouri, the fourth of five sons of Daniel G. McDonald, who operated a mercantile store in Hamilton, Missouri, that was part of a chain called the Cash-Cowgill Company.

[1] In April 1905, McDonald moved to Kemmerer, Wyoming to assist James Cash Penney, a former neighbor of his in Hamilton, in operating his first store.

After about six months in Kemmerer, McDonald went to Spokane, Washington, to assists his brothers in a department store venture there.

McDonald became a member of Penney's board of directors and, in 1921, was made a vice president of the company and was put in charge of merchandising and new store acquisitions.

[1] For the next seven years after his retirement, McDonald maintained an office in New York City doing consulting work with manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers.

He became acquainted with Ebden Brown of the Brown-Ekberg Company of Holdrege, Nebraska, a department store that was in financial trouble.

[5][6] In the mid-1920s, McDonald purchased a farm in Cortland, New York, where he established a small herd of purebred Guernsey cattle.