The Allen-Lee-Kingman-McDonald Family

When Claire Kingman McDonald '47 came to Pomona as a freshman in 1943, she found her years at college heightened in intensity by World War II. "I think of the history and English classes, taking piano lessons from Everett Olive, singing in the College choir, the friendships, the dances, the campus, working in the dining halls, the concerts, plays, and convocations, and the sports. However, with so few men on campus, Pomona was like a women's college while I was there," she says. She met her husband, Lee McDonald '48, a cadet at Santa Ana Army Air Corps base, through a suite-mate from Oregon, and they were married the year before she graduated. Lee returned to Pomona to teach government from 1952 to 1990. He served as dean of the College from 1970 to 1975, and three of their children went to the College, continuing an impressive line of Pomona alumni.
   Claire's grandfather, Henry Kingman, was active with the church-going faculty and students of Pomona College as pastor of the Congregational Church in Claremont. He served as a trustee of the College from 1901-18.
   On the Allen-Lee side of the family tree, James Allen 1895 and Matilda Allen Mygatt 1899 were among Pomona's early graduates, and Elizabeth Lee was in the College's preparatory program. Eleanor Allen Lee '18, daughter of Clarence and Mabel Allen Lee, not only graduated from Pomona, but also taught voice at the College in the 1920s before her marriage to Alan Kingman '22.