Rosalie "Lari" McDonald

Rosalie Laramie McDonald, known as 'Lari' to nearly all (except her grandkids who called her ‘Lewi’), passed away at Pruitt Nursing Home in New Bern, NC after extended illness. She was 88.

Preceded in death by her parents Haskell and Rose Laramie, her brother Haskell, and her late husband Bill McDonald, Lari is survived by one sister, Marianne Garringer, by three sons: Jim, Sam, and Tom McDonald, two daughters: Scottie Marshall and Kate McDonald, 14 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.

Lari was born in Oak Forest, IL. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Indiana University-Bloomington, where she was on the women’s swim team. Her relay team set the 1948 national women's record in the 80 yard free style event. After graduation in 1949, she married Bill McDonald of Carolina Beach, NC. Later she taught junior high school in nearby Wilmington.

Eventually Lari moved her family to Chapel Hill, NC to pursue graduate studies at UNC. While studying, she also taught Women’s Health and Physical Education. She earned her master’s degree and completed course work for her doctorate. She helped start the UNC Women's Swim Team, and was honored in 2011, at the 40th anniversary of the team’s founding.

Lari was an avid singer with a gorgeous voice.

In her years at Carolina Beach, she served as choir director at the Presbyterian Church. She sang often in other local venues, and multiple times on regional live TV.

In Chapel Hill she sang in her church choir, and at every opportunity in a wide variety of community cultural venues including musical theatre, choral groups and experimental opera in Chapel Hill and Durham. She also took up amateur acting with the Carolina Playmakers and other groups, and later attended the Mel Blanc School of Acting in California. At age 80, her voice still strong and gorgeous, she recorded a CD of 18 folk songs and hymns for her family.

In her late thirties she took up oil painting as a hobby and was fairly good at it. In her forties she wrote stories of family adventures and was pretty good at that too.

Lari loved the outdoors and had a strong sense of adventure. She took her kids camping across America. Twice. She loved showing off its beautiful land and explaining its history and heritage. She was an American patriot in all the good senses of the term. And proud of it.

Lari backed up her beliefs with her time and energy. She was actively engaged in the political life of the nation she loved. Never one to back down from a worthwhile challenge, in her sixties she ran as a conservative in a liberal district for the NC State House of Representatives. With a clear view of the cultural heritage being left to later generations, she got actively involved in watch-dogging public school boards at the state and local levels, and tirelessly wrote letters to the editors of various newspapers.

Then there was her passion for plants. Lari loved collecting them... growing them... sharing them... dispensing their beauty wherever she lived.

She believed strongly in God, and lived her life loving others.

A true Renaissance woman, Lari seemed larger than life. We were privileged to call her ‘Mom’.

If the success of a life is measured in other people influenced positively, then Lari McDonald’s success was huge indeed. She will be sorely missed.