This page is excerpted from South Jersey: A History 1624-1924
Raymond Renaud Donges — In the execution of many important tasks that have fallen to his lot as one of the leading attorneys of Camden, New Jersey, Mr. Donges has found full play for his abilities and activities. His professional work, being extensive and important, has absorbed most of his energies and time, but Mr. Donges has won and held his position of pre-eminence among the lawyers of Camden largely by his ability to master the matters under consideration.
Raymond Renaud Donges was born at Donaldson, Schuykill County, Pennsylvania, November 10, 1871, the son of Dr. John W. and Rose M. (Renaud) Donges. Dr. Donges served during the Civil War and was left on the battle field at Fredericksburg for dead. He had enlisted at Minersville, Pennsylvania, when he was but seventeen years of age, with the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Subsequently he studied medicine and practiced in Camden, retiring in 1900. He is today a member of the Board of Assessors of Camden City.
The son, Raymond Renaud Donges, received his preliminary education in the public schools of Camden, New Jersey, and later was sent to Philadelphia, studying at the Broad Street Academy. He then went to the law department of the University of Pennsylvania and continued the study of law with Judge Howard Carrow, of Camden. He was admitted to the bar as an attorney, at the February term in 1895, and as a counsellor three years afterwards. Since then he has been in active practice, specializing largely in office and consultation practice and as solicitor for a number of building and loan associations. He is concerned largely in banking and investment law, and has acquired his important clientele through his exhaustive knowledge of those branches of the law. Like most successful attorneys his first years of practice were largely of a general nature, leading gradually toward specialization and change from court to consultation practice. In religion, he is affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in politics he is a Democrat, although he never aspired to political office. He is a member of the Camden County Democratic Club, and of Trimble Lodge, No. 117 Free and Accepted Masons, and of the Excelsior Consistory, of Camden.
Mr. Donges married, in Philadelphia, in 1909, Katherine A. McTague, daughter of Daniel McTague. Their living children are: John W. Donges, born in 1910; Katherine M. Donges, born in 1914; Raymond R. Donges, Jr., born in 1916. Mrs. Donges is prominent in Democratic politics, being the first woman member of the New Jersey State Committee. She is the present member on that committee from Camden County. She was active in the campaign for a woman’s suffrage State amendment in 1915, and also in 1919 when the State ratified the Federal amendment.
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