Obituaries

Donald McKay

September 6, 1926 - June 17, 2022

Donald McKay, 95, of Wethersfield passed away peacefully June 17, 2022.
He was born Sept. 6, 1926, to Dorothy Milne McKay and Peter Spence McKay in Ladysmith, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. (He had one older brother Peter Spence McKay)
As a youth he excelled at basketball and soccer, was taught by his father to become a master baker, and learned piano well enough to join a Swing band. He graduated from high school in 1944 as athlete of the year. He then graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1948 from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He became a member of the Officer’s Training Corp. toward the end of World War II. In those few years, he lost both his parents and had to take over running the family bakery. He sold the business in 1950 and went to work for Comox Logging Co. for a summer. That job left him with just enough funding to get himself to Queens University Medical School in Belfast, N. Ireland which he attended from 1951 to 1956. During his time in medical school, he helped organize the Queens basketball team which played throughout the UK.
He also met and married his first wife Kathleen McDermott McKay June 23, 1956, in Ireland. He then relocated to the U.S. and completed a surgical residency at New Britain General Hospital in New Britain from 1956 to 1961. In 1961 he started a general surgery practice at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, where he settled to raise his family of five children. He practiced surgery there for the next 50 years and fully retired at age 84!
He helped organize and develop the physician owned office buildings on Saybrook Road, Middletown, and the Middletown Surgical Group, P.C.
Donald enjoyed simple pleasures and a good sense of humor. He was an avid reader with a penchant for history and an incredible memory to match, even into his 90s.
For many years farming was his true love. He lived with his second wife Antonina Siecienski McKay on 30 acres in Cromwell where he raised two more children. He enjoyed raising pigs, chickens, and a few horses. He was very proud of his strawberry farm and plowing the fields with his tractor. His first granddaughter Ashley nicknamed him Grampa Duck (Donald Mc had a farm?) and it stuck.
He loved his family and is survived by his children, Patricia A. McKay of East Hampton, Peter S. McKay (Kendall Cote), Heather Fillion (James Fillion), Christine M. Morrissette (Jeff Morrissette) all of Waterford, Jonathan S. McKay (Michelle McKay) of South Hero, Vt., Lena Begin (Pierre Begin) of Seattle, Wash. and Marc McKay of Wethersfield. As well as 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren with two more on the way.
A service for friends and family will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, June 23, at Pequot Chapel, 857 Montauk Avenue, New London, with a private family burial to follow. In lieu of flowers please send donations to: https://www.aplacecalledhoperaptors.com/ A Place Called Hope – Birds of Prey.