Hotel Mcdonald never turned anyone away
Grant Mcdonald of Kitchener Born: Oct. 9, 1931, in Waterloo Died: Dec. 15, 2012, of age-related illness
When Cindy Foell visited her parents, she never knew whether the stranger sitting in the living room was a visitor or a resident. Over the decades, her parents, Grace and Grant McDonald, had given shelter to anyone who asked — people in transition, people in trouble, people with nowhere else to go.
“People would call and he’d say yes,” said Cindy, adding that whatever had happened in the person’s life to bring them to that position didn’t matter to her dad.
“If he saw a need he could fill … he was first in line,” she said. Her brother Craig called the family home “Hotel McDonald.”
More than just offering refuge, Grant treated the people who came into their home with love and respect and no judgment, said Cindy, and he didn’t want anything in return.
The generosity of her parents, particularly Grant, seemed boundless.
“He was always giving beyond himself,” she said of a father who lived his faith as a member of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Waterloo, where he was also one of the founders of the church’s Out of the Cold program. At the time, the church was one of nine in Kitchener and Waterloo on rotation to offer shelter and a hot meal to the homeless, from Nov. 1to mid-April.
In a 2007 Record article, Grant told a reporter that everyone deserves a roof over their head.
“The least we can do is provide a hot meal and a place to snuggle in at night to escape the cruel winter months,” he said. The previous year, he said the church provided 2,405 meals and served an average of 92 meals every Thursday night for 58 overnight guests.
The church also had to source food donations for the program and find enough volunteers to run it, a few staying overnight in the church. Of course, Grant was often one of the overnighters. There wasn’t much that Grant wouldn’t do to help, said Cindy, who called her dad a defender of the underdog.
Grant was born one of two children in Waterloo. After high school, he started working as a designer for a glass company. He liked the job well enough but, after a couple of years, he left in 1950 to work at Bell Canada, a job he held for the next four decades.
Grant was a technically minded guy, someone handy with tools, so when Bell promoted him to a foreman’s position and transferred the family to Owen Sound, he was out of his element.
“He found it difficult to fire people, to come down hard on them,” said Grace. After seven years, Bell moved the family back to Waterloo and Grant returned to working in the technical end of installation and maintenance. “He was a much happier man,” she said. Grant was responsible for some of the larger corporations, particularly those located along King Street. He would often be seen pulling his little jury-rigged cart behind him containing all the tools of his trade. Give Grant a tool and something to fix and he was happy. He once took two old Morris Minis and made one good car out of the parts. Grace remembers that “I had an old electric tea kettle I put in the garbage ... twice. He had fished it out.”
Grace met Grant as a teen when he was forced to chaperone his younger sister and her girlfriend to the movies. “I was the girlfriend,” said Grace.
At first, Grant was just her pal’s older brother. She didn’t have any romantic notions about the gangly teen, at least not until he asked her out. They married in 1955.
Grant had strong faith when they met, though he attended the United Church and Grace was Lutheran. Without her ever asking, he chose to join her church.
As a father of two, Grant was always keen to teach his children everything he knew, particularly about fixing things, even roofing.
“He never stopped me doing anything just because I was a girl,” said Cindy. On their father’s 75th birthday, Craig devised a top 10 list of things his father would never say.
The list might have been tongue in cheek, but there was also a lot of truth buried in the humour: “There are too many dogs in this house ... I think I have enough tools now ... I don’t think that can be welded back together ... I had better change out of these good clothes before I burn a hole in them ... I am too busy to help that person.”
Cindy said her dad was physically fit, a baseball and volleyball player plus a jack of all trades, a man who loved animals and was devoted to his family. She talked about how he acted as “a bridge” for people in need, helping them through any life change.
Grace said one of her friends had such need, and ended up living with the couple for two years. Her stepmother also lived with them for several years. There was a Mexican man trying to establish a new life in Canada and a few characters from the witness protection program.
“Anybody in need,” said Grace. “People would say, ‘Aren’t you afraid they’ll steal from you?’ Well, the only thing of value is the grandfather clock and I can’t see them going down the street with that.”
Cindy said her parents bought their Waterloo bungalow in 1972 after returning from seven years in Owen Sound, but they never filled it with a lot of material things.
Grace said, “With Bell, we never were in want. We had a lot to share.”
Craig talked about how his father wouldn’t lock the house or car doors, believing that if someone wanted to get in and steal, they must have a greater need.
“It was fairly simple what he wanted from other people,” he said. “He enjoyed giving.”