Fr. James (Donald) Meldrum of the Immaculate Conception was born June 17, 1914, in Detroit, Michigan to parents David and Annastasia (nee Schultz) Meldrum. On the day of his baptism, his mother dedicated her first-born child to Mary, Our Blessed Mother. In 1935, he entered the Holy Hill Novitiate in Hubertus, Wisconsin and made his simple profession on October 15, 1936, at Holy Hill. On February 28, 1942, Fr. James was ordained at the collegiate church of Mount St. Mary by Rev. J. M. McNamara in in Emmitsburg, Maryland. During his following years as a priest Fr. James traveled the globe, serving those both at home and away. 

After ordination, he returned to Holy Hill where he was a professor and then a rector for a period of six years and then on to serve the parish of St. Florian in West Milwaukee for another two years. In 1953, he volunteered as a missionary in the Infanta Quezon Province of the Philippines where he became Chancellor and Vicar General of the diocese. Following this ministry, Fr. James worked as a missionary in the Bahamas, Inaqua, Turks and Caicos Islands and as chaplain for those at the Navy Base and Pan American Missile Tracking Station on Turks. In all, Fr. James spent a total of twelve years as a missionary in the western and southern Pacific Ocean.

In his later years, Father was blinded by macular degeneration, yet his ministry continued in California and Arizona and lastly as chaplain to the Carmel of Mobile, Alabama. Father’s final years were spent at the Little Sister of the Poor Residence in Mobile where he died on March 19, 1999. He is buried in the Carmelite Cemetery, at Hubertus, Wisconsin.