The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Cousin on Lewis tells of pride at ceremony
A cousin of new US President Donald Trump from the Western Isles said he was proud to see him sworn in yesterday.
As the eyes of the world were fixed on Washington, Calum Murray watched the ceremony on television with wife Christina.
To islanders on Lewis, the most powerful man in the western world is still the son of Mary Anne MacLeod, who left Tong for America as a teenager.
Yesterday while taking the oath the New York-born business magnate held a Bible given to him by his late mother in 1955.
Mr Murray said: “My wife and I watched it at home. I think it was a very impressive speech.
“We’ve been happy here today just watching it and enjoying everything about the build-up to it. We are very proud of him.”
Mr Murray said that the last time he saw President Trump was in 2008 when he came to visit his cousins in Lewis at the house where his mother grew up.
He said that he and his wife plan to visit him in America to congratulate him face to face.
He added: “I cannot imagine him coming here for a while because it’s a busy, full-time job – but I can see us going to America in the near future. We are family after all.
“We were in New York a few years ago and met him several times. We went out for dinner and went to his office and he entertained us very well.”
Mr Murray said that the family in Lewis have kept in touch with President Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, who is a US federal judge.
She regularly visits her cousins on the island and has donated £160,000 to the Bethesda Hospice in Stornoway.
President Trump was given the Bible by his mother as a present after graduating from Sunday church primary school at First Presbyterian Church in New York in June 1955.
Mary Anne was one of tens of thousands of Scots who travelled to the US and Canada in the early years of the last century to escape economic hardship.
She left Lewis for New York in 1930 at the age of 18 to seek work as a domestic servant. She became a US citizen in 1942.
She married successful property developer Frederick Trump, who was the son of German migrants.