Alexander Findlay McDonald, Jr. | 1855 - 1916
Alexander and Elizabeth Macdonald's first son was born February 12, 1855 in Salt Lake City, five and one-half months after they had immigrated from Great Britain. The family soon moved to Springville, Utah, about 60 miles south of Salt Lake City where they lived during the time when A.F. Macdonald was unjustly imprisoned but the U.S. Army and taken to Camp Floyd, Utah. It was said that A.F.'s small sons clung to his legs crying as their father was taken away. "Alec" would have been one of those small boys. Three years after his father's release, in 1862, the family moved to Provo, Utah (six miles north of Springville). Ten years later in 1872, Alec moved with his family to St. George in far southwestern Utah where his father had been called by Brigham Young, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Young Alec grew up laboring on the construction of the St. George Temple and working in the Upper Kanab area, east of St. George, milling lumber and hauling rock for the Temple. He also served as a Tithing Office clerk at Kanab. Church members contributed tithes mostly in kind: milk, butter, eggs, chickens, grain, flour, livestock, clothing, bedding, and so forth. He was socially active with the young people in St. George and courted Laura Jane Andrus, daughter of James and Laura Gibson Andrus. Laura's father operated Canaan Ranch where he had a substantial home and a large dairy. A short verse of doggerel published in a local biography from that time listed the couples in Alec's circle of friends. The verse mentioning Alec McDonald goes:
Alma took Miss Susie Young George Brooks, he took Miss Branch. Alec took Tid Andrus From out to Canaan Ranch
On April 11, 1877, a few days after the Temple was dedicated, Alec married Laura Andrus and was immediately called with his father and younger brother Aaron to go to Scotland on a mission. They left in June 1877, and Alec served almost a year. In Scotland he visited his father's birthplace in Kintail, Ross-shire where he met many of his relatives. While Alec was away, his wife gave birth to a daughter Laura Elizabeth on January 25, 1878. This first daughter died before her father ever saw her on April 21, 1878 at the age of three months.
In all, ten children were born to Alec and Laura McDonald, of whom six grew to adulthood. For a while in the early1880s, they lived in Mesa, Arizona, where Alec's father had been sent by the church to preside over the Latter-day Saints in the Salt River Valley. By late 1883, they were back in St. George.
Later in life, Alec went to Nevada to work in mining. Sometime in the later 1800s, Laura and the children moved to Salt Lake City where she and some of her children joined the Episcopalian Church. Alec was working on some mining property at Bonnie Claire, Nevada, when he became ill with pneumonia. The illness worsened, and he died at Goldfield, Nevada, on February 3, 1916 just seven days short of his 51st birthday. Laura and two of their sons, Edgar and Kent, went from Salt Lake to Goldfield to retrieve Alec's remains and took them to St. George for the funeral, held in the St. George Tabernacle. He was buried in St. George Cemetery, Utah. His obituary said of Alec McDonald: "He is well spoken of as an honest, industrious man, a good citizen and good neighbor."
Alec and Laura McDonald's children were as follows:
| NAME | BORN | WHERE | MARRIED | WHEN | DIED |
| Laura Elizabeth | 25 Jan 1878 | St. George, Utah | Infant | 21 Apr 1878 | |
| Alexander Findlay | 15 Jan 1880 | St. George, Utah | Infant | 16 Feb 1880 | |
| James Duncan | 17 Dec 1881 | Mesa, Arizona | Unmarried | c. 1930s | |
| Louis | 15 Oct 1884 | St. George, Utah | Infant | 18 Oct 1885 | |
| Kent | 12 Jan 1886 | St. George, Utah | Hannah L. Sessions | 10 Sep 1917 | |
| Edgar Everett | 12 May 1888 | St. George, Utah | Mary Charlotte Rowland | 9 Mar 1908 | 2 Jan 1960 |
| Frank | 12 Jul 1890 | St. George, Utah | Infant | 9 May 1892 or 7 Jul 1893 | |
| Milo (Miles) Van | 19 Dec 1892 | St. George, Utah | Ann Margaret Chilton | 3 Jun 1917 | 13 Jan 1974 |
| Gideon Graham | 3 Aug 1895 | St. George, Utah | Annette Connell | 11 Jun 1920 | 13 Oct 1940 |
| Flora | 3 Feb 1898 | Middleton, Utah | Reed Thomas Harvey | 29 Aug 1917 | 23 Jun 1973 |