Mary Anne MacLeod Trump

Born in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, Mary Trump emigrated to the U.S. in 1930 and became a naturalized citizen in March 1942.^[1] She raised five children with her husband and lived in the New York area.^[2]

Early life[edit]

Mary Anne MacLeod was born in a pebbledashed croft house owned by her father since 1895 in Tong, Scotland, a village on the Isle of Lewis.^[3][4] Raised in a Scottish Gaelic-speaking household, Mary was the youngest of ten children born to Malcolm MacLeod (1866–1954) and Mary Ann Smith (née Smith; 1867–1963).^[5] Her father was a crofter, fisherman and compulsory officer at Mary's school.^[4][1][6][7] English was her second language, which she learned at the school she attended until secondary school.^[4]


Her paternal grandparents were Alexander MacLeod and Ann MacLeod; her maternal grandparents were Donald Smith and Mary MacAulay. They were from the locations of Vatisker and South Lochs, respectively.^[8] Donald died at sea aged 34 when his sailing ship sank, a common fate for men in the region which was dependent on fishing.^[9] Some of the family's earlier generations had been forced off their land as part of the Highland Clearances.^[10] According to one genealogical account, displaced families in Mary's village lived in "human wretchedness" while nearby farmable land was used for sheep.^[11] Local historians have said properties at the time were "indescribably filthy", and that families in the area lived austere lives as fishers, farmers and peat diggers.^[9] The outbreak of World War I weakened the area's economy and reduced the male population further.^[4]

Later life and death[edit]

As she grew older, Trump suffered from severe osteoporosis.^[4] On October 31, 1991, at 79, she was mugged while shopping on Union Turnpike near her home. She resisted the mugger's attempt to steal her purse, which contained $14, and was then knocked to the ground and beaten.^[23] She sustained broken ribs, facial bruises, several fractures, a brain hemorrhage, and permanent damage to her sight and hearing.^[24][25] A bread-truck driver named Lawrence Herbert apprehended Paul LoCasto, her 16-year-old assailant, for which Herbert was later rewarded by Donald Trump with a check that kept him from losing his home to foreclosure.^[7][26] LoCasto later pleaded guilty to robbery and assault, and was sentenced to three to nine years in prison.^[27]


Mary Anne's husband, Fred Trump, died at age 93 on June 25, 1999, after falling ill with pneumonia.^[28] She died one year later on August 7, 2000, at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York, at age 88.^[2] Services were held at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan^[23] and she was buried alongside her husband and son (Fred Jr.) at Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.^[29] The death notice in her Scottish hometown newspaper, the Stornoway Gazette, read: "Peacefully in New York on 7th August, Mary Ann [sic] Trump, aged 88 years. Daughter of the late Malcolm and Mary MacLeod, 5 Tong. Much missed."^[7]