An Extraordinary Life of Adventure
Reminiscing with Jean McDonough
Jean McDonough relaxed on the patio at her home in Billings as she reminisced about her life. Though she just celebrated her 99th birthday, she still lives alone, drives her car to the grocery store, church and doctor’s appointments and keeps her own house.
“She’s amazing,” her youngest daughter, Maura Smith says. “Nothing stops Mom.”
The fact that Jean is nearly 100 and independent puts her in an exclusive club of people in the U.S. who live to be her age. It’s just one of many ways that she has set herself apart.
Jean was born and raised in Williston, North Dakota, the third of four girls. In a time when it was nearly unheard of for women to attend college, Jean and her sisters all graduated from college.
“Dad always encouraged us to go beyond high school,” Jean says. “Back then, very few women went. But my older sister was in college and I really wanted to get out of Williston, so I thought it was a good idea.”
Because money was tight and Jean had no idea what she wanted to study, she worked for a year as a bookkeeper in a bank. Just before World War II ended, she remembers meeting a woman who was a traveling pharmacist at the local drug store.
“I thought, ‘that sounds like fun,’” she says. “And that’s when I decided to go to pharmacy school.”
Jean was one of only three other girls in pharmacy school at the University of Montana in Missoula. That’s also where she met the man she would later marry. She graduated in 1949 and worked for a year as a pharmacist intern in Wolf Point to receive her license, before she and Pat were married.
With her husband in the service, the couple moved around the country for the first few years of their marriage and through the birth of their first child. After the military, the family settled in Billings and Jean worked as a substitute pharmacist for a short time before staying home to raise her children.
“That was a wonderful time in my life,” Jean says. “I was able to be home with the kids and travel with Pat.”
Five children: Cathy, Sean, Patricia (who passed away at two months old), Tara and Maura, were added to the family over the next thirteen years. When Maura started first grade, Cathy was heading to college.
Pat’s career in the oil and gas industry took them all over the world and the children often traveled with them. They spent one summer in Scotland, Christmas in Italy, and enjoyed trips to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Columbia, South America, Mexico, all over the United States and even made two trips behind the Iron Curtain.
When the family wasn’t traveling, and while the children were in school, Jean often took college courses, constantly looking for ways to keep her mind active.
“I always tried to be constructive with my time,” she says. She volunteered for Reading Rocks in the summertime, meeting children in the city parks to read to them or listen to them read to her.
When Pat passed away unexpectedly in 1979 at the age of 56, Maura was still a teenager. At 52, Jean returned to her career as a pharmacist. She spent almost three decades working for Western Drug in Billings and Laurel and filling in as a substitute pharmacist around town. She carried on that work until she was almost 80. Her kids teased her that she was going to die filling a prescription.
When she began her career, everything was compounded and ingredients were individually weighed. Prescriptions were handwritten by doctors and bottle labels were typed on a manual typewriter. About the time that computers began revolutionizing the pharmacy world, Jean hung up her white coat.
“I had a great career,” Jean says. “I was so thankful I had my pharmacy degree to fall back on. When Pat died, I was too young to just sit around.”
These days, Jean lives in a one-level home that’s been a great fit for her. Maura checks in with her daily and Jean keeps up on other family members with phone calls and visits.
“My advice to others, if I could give it,” Jean smiles, “is to keep your mind active and do things that are out of the ordinary so your life is exciting.”
