Minnie Lee Lucas MacDowell (1913-2005) was born in West Virginia. She attended Marshall College in Huntington, W. Va., for two years, and received her bachelor's degree in education from Kent State University. She taught second grade for 12 years at Evamere Elementary School in Hudson, Ohio.

She was a longtime Hudson, Ohio, resident and very active in the community. She was a member of the Garden Club, Woman's Club, League of Women Voters, Women's Guild of Christ Episcopal, Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames and Great Decisions. She served as the director of the Hudson Heritage Association. She was also a founding member of the Hudson Players.

Ms. MacDowell took special interest in iron craftsmen Angelo Lavelli, who worked primarily in Hudson, Ohio, and Samuel Yellin, who worked primarily in Philadelphia, Penn. Ms. MacDowell researched these craftsmen and also went around taking photographs of their work, especially of homes and structures in Hudson featuring Lavelli's work. She presented a slide lecture "Artisans in Ironwork: Samuel Yellin and Angelo Lavelli" in various venues locally in the 1980s.

Angelo Lavelli (1885-1982) was a blacksmith and ornamental iron craftsman who resided in Hudson, Ohio. He was born in Italy, where he learned the iron trade from his father who was a blacksmith. Lavelli came to the United States likely around 1902. He worked as a blacksmith on the double tracks of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Kent, Ohio, and later worked as a blacksmith in Cleveland before arriving in Hudson in September, 1905. He initially came to Hudson because he was offered a partnership in a tavern. He was able to save up enough money five months after arriving in Hudson to open up his own blacksmith shop at 5 E. Main St.

Lavelli originally served as the town blacksmith but eventually turned to ornamental ironwork when demand for blacksmith work declined. He founded and owned the Hudson Ornamental Iron Works at 20 Streetsboro Street from 1919 to 1970, where he designed and produced a wide range of iron-crafted products including park benches, murals, candelabras and fireplace tools. Angelo and his wife Emilia (1895-1966) resided at 84 S. Main St. with their children Edith and Dante. Dante (1923-2009) was a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns and was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1975.

Around 1981, the Hudson Heritage Association authorized a project to make a record of the gravestones in the Old Hudson Township Burial Ground on Chapel Street by making rubbings, copying inscriptions and taking photographs. The Gravestone Rubbing Committee consisted of a group of volunteers and Minnie MacDowell serving as chairman. The group compiled the information in a set of typed volumes, both kept at the Hudson Library & Historical Society (one is in the general book collection the other is part of the Hudson Heritage Association records).