Catherine McDonald was born on June 16, 1842, in North Carolina to John and Janette McDonald. Her father was a farmer and carpenter who owned $4,000 of real estate and $8,582 of personal property by 1860. She grew up in Cumberland County, North Carolina. She married Alexander F. McQueen on April 24, 1873, and their son Alexander was born around 1877. Her husband apparently died in the late 1870s. By 1880, she was living in her brother Lauchlin’s household in Rockfish, North Carolina. She died on December 21, 1900.