Catherine Ellen McDonald was born around 1844 in Pennsylvania to William and Harriet McDonald. Her father was a farmer who owned $1,000 of real estate by 1850. Her father died sometime in the 1850s. She lived in Londonderry, Pennsylvania, until the 1850s, when the family moved to Inland, Iowa. She married Albert Johnston in the 1860s, and they had at least five children: William, born around 1862; Jessie, born around 1868; Frank, born around 1872; Edna, born around 1874; and Albert, born around 1880. They lived in Inland, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1870, they owned $580 of personal property. She died in 1891.

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