Biography

We are working on a complete, detailed obituary and will post that here soon.

Brief Version

Dad lived a wonderful and rich life. He was born in Swatow, China on July 16, 1929. His father Edward Lionel McDougall was a “Tai-Pan” for Jardines, a Scottish shipping company that still exists (very interesting history here). Grandfather ran the operations in Swatow and the family lived in a massive villa called E-Wo Bungalow on a private company island owned by Jardines in a customs settlement. Although the rest of the family lived in Swatow, Dad went to boarding school in Shanghai. When the Japanese invaded China in 1932 my father’s family, then living in Swatow, was constantly in danger from bombs dropped by Japanese planes which regularly bombarded the city.

Great Britain declared war against Japan a day after Pearl Harbor was struck - December 7, 1941. As a result of this declaration and because my grandfather was a British subject, his family was interned by the Japanese. And because E-Wo Bungalow was such a large building it became a detention center for 6 or 7 families belonging to the local Allied diplomatic and international community in Swatow. (Our Russian borscht recipe comes from that period.) In spite of being a veritable internee of the Japanese, Grandfather played tennis almost every day with the local Japanese commandant in charge of the internees at E-Wo Bungalow.

During the war, the family was exchanged together with other Allied families and non-combatants for Japanese non-combatants and civilians in Lorenço Marques, the capitol of Mozambique in neutral Portuguese East Africa. This required a somewhat perilous journey across the Indian Ocean on a Japanese cruise liner painted with white crosses, to signify its internationally recognized neutrality (sanctioned by the International Red Cross) whose mission was carrying Allied non-combatants for exchange with Axis non-combatants across the Indian Ocean on neutral territory. After the exchange the family was sent to Durban, South Africa where they boarded a ship headed for Bombay. Unbeknownst to Grandfather, the ship joined a massive Allied convoy and was then diverted to Cairo, Egypt with what was to be a reinforcement of Allied troops from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India to reinforce Field Marshall Montgomery’s 8th Army for his push against Field Marshall Erwin von Rommel’s combined German and Italian forces in north Africa. Grandfather even took his turn on watch on deck for U-Boats patrolling the Indian Ocean during the night hours.

Returning to Hong Kong at war’s end, dad attended the University of Hong Kong and studied architecture. He received a British Council scholarship (roughly the equivalent of an American Fullbright) to pursue graduate studies at the Architectural Association in London. He then took a second scholarship at Cornell, where he received a second Masters of City and Regional Planning. His first job was in San Francisco at John Carl Warneke & Associates.

He met his wife, Dawnna in San Francisco in 1959. Evidently Dawnna and her roommate were intrigued by the exotic curry scents that wafted down the shared apartment building’s hallways. They were married in 1960

He subsequently worked at Bay Area firms Wilsey, Ham & Blair, and Ruth & Krushkhov. In the course of these years his most prominent credits were Chief Planner of Foster City and Redwood Shores - new town developments. He also led the street improvements for the upper (Berkeley) half of Solano Avenue.

In 1973 dad accepted a position on the founding faculty of the Planning Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where he taught planning, design and architecture for 20 years until his retirement.

After his retirement he was active in the FM community (stands for Filho de Macau, or sons/daughters of Macau, who are the Portuguese / Eurasian descendants of the early Macau trading settlement - more here). He had a worldwide network of friends and enjoyed editing a quarterly publication, Lusitano Bulletin for an FM organization, Lusitano Club.

Michael is survived by a lovely 90-year old aunt in Brighton, UK, a brother, Gerald and sister Gina in the US, a sister Selsa in Perth, Australia, his devoted wife Dawnna, four children, Eric, Leslie, Marina, and Deanna, and three grandchildren, Alex, Milo, and Cyrus. - Eric (with historically-accurate edits from Gerald McDougall, Michael’s brother)

…………………………………………………………………..