Jack MacDonald, a 1940 graduate of the University of Washington School of Law, who lived the majority of his life
The Secret Millionaire Jack MacDonald was born in Prince Rupert, British Columbia on May 5, 1915. His paternal grandfather,
with purposeful secrecy and frugality, gained widespread,
Alexander MacDonald emigrated from Scotland to
international attention in the fall of 2013 for the “secret”
moving his family west. When he was three years old,
fortune he had built, and then gave away, following his death
where his father, Frederick MacDonald, started a
Ontario in the 1830s and operated a mill there until Jack MacDonald moved with his family to Seattle successful meat packing business in the city.
on September 13, 2013.
Jack attended college at UW, and after graduating from law school, served in the United States Army
MacDonald bequeathed nearly $187 million
“The UW was good to me,” MacDonald once
to the three causes he cared most about: the
said. “I felt I owed them something as long as
UW School of Law, Seattle Children’s Research
I was able.”
Institute and the Salvation Army. The $56.1 million he designated to the School of Law, the largest gift in the school’s history, will create, among other things, an endowed chair and support scholarships for law students and the programs that empower them to make positive change in the world.
in the South Pacific during World War II. He then returned to Seattle and worked for 30 years as an attorney for the Veterans Administration. During that time, he inherited money that his parents had
While the size of MacDonald’s gift, the largest
earned from MacDonald Meat Co. and began
philanthropic gift in Washington state last year
stewarding the family trust. He spent his spare time
and the sixth largest in the country, was certainly
studying the stock market and reading the Wall
notable, it was MacDonald’s personal story that
Street Journal, and as his investment portfolio grew,
caught the attention of the world.
so did his reputation for extreme frugality. MacDonald clipped coupons from newspapers, rode the bus around Seattle and purposefully wore old clothing in an attempt not to look “rich.” He once bought an entire freezer’s worth of frozen orange juice, simply because it was on sale. He was
C. HENRY HECKENDORN ‘48, JOHN DAVIS ’40,
a frequent attendee of UW Law’s Golden Alumni
DEAN TESTY AND JACK MACDONALD AT THE
Reunion lunches, which he would arrive at by bus.
2011 GOLDEN ALUMNI REUNION LUNCHEON
“Jack would come up and greet me with holes in his sweater and tell me he got dressed up for me,” recalled Dean Kellye Testy. It was these aspects of his personality that captivated the public’s attention
MacDonald clipped coupons from newspapers, rode the bus around Seattle, and purposefully wore old clothing in an attempt not to look “rich.”
and friends knew that MacDonald had been quietly accumulating a sizeable fortune. On November 26, 2013, two days before Thanksgiving, the three beneficiaries held a press conference, announcing the gift. Within hours, the story went viral, garnering
uw law
Prior to November 2013, only a small circle of family
S P R I N G 2 014
following the announcement of his historic gift.
press coverage around the world. 22
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