No One Would Ever Know

On November 22, 1963 a courageous, far-seeing, yet oft-maligned American hero was gunned down in a Dallas motorcade while on his way to deliver a speech. John F. Kennedy, a native of Massachusetts and the president of the United States, was forever lost to his brothers, his mother, his family, and to the world.

One year later, on November 22, 1964, a babe of only 21 months took his last breath in the bottom bunk of a room shared with his three year old brother in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.
He would never be governor of that pilgrim state. He would never be followed by the media and acclaimed on national television while president. He would never face and handle any world crises. No one would ever know what kind of man Joseph Russell MacKenzie might have been.

Our first child, David, was only three months old when we were transferred from Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, GA to Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts in the fall of 1961. We pulled our little 35' x 8' Spartan mobile home from Georgia to Massachusetts ourselves. My husband drove the pickup truck, which pulled the mobile home, and he had one of our dogs on the seat beside him. I followed in our little Ford Falcon with the baby in the front seat and the other dog in the back seat.

My husband Doug was originally from Quincy, Massachusetts so we would be just across the state from relatives and friends. We located a mobile home park in Chicopee Falls and made new friends both on and off the base.

The next summer I was surprised to learn I was pregnant with our second child, but happy that David would soon have a playmate. My term was fairly uneventful term except that the same nausea which haunted me for the first six months with my first pregnancy had returned to haunt me again.

On February 8, 1963 my water broke about 8 p.m. and Doug took me to the base hospital. My labor was short even for a second child. There was no one available this time to administer the "saddle-block" I had had to alleviate the pain of my first delivery. The doctor just about didn't get there in time and the nurse talked me through a natural child birth. Joseph Russell MacKenzie took his first breath of cool New England air just after 10:30 p.m. that night.

There was some confusion after the delivery. I remember hearing the nurse say that she couldn't find my pulse, but I seemed to be conscious through it all so I knew I wasn't dead. I remember that I had to have two blood transfusions afterward. I'm not sure why. The baby was quite vocal, so I knew he was okay. I guess I was just too "accepting" of everything. I was young and didn't ask enough questions. I assumed that, if there was a problem, someone would tell me what I needed to know. Maybe there was no problem.

Russell, "Rusty" as we came to call him, was a chubby, hungry infant who loudly let you know every two hours that his tummy needed refilling. Our tiny one bedroom mobile home now housed a family of four. Doug found some surplus Dexion, heavy metal strips with holes at regular intervals, at the Air Force base and constructed a tiny bunk bed to go beside our own in the now overcrowded little bedroom. David, at 17 months of age, had the bottom bunk and the baby, temporarily, had the top bunk with higher sides to keep him from rolling out. It was obvious we needed larger quarters.

Doug was able to get some part time work helping out at the mobile home park where we lived and at a mobile home sales lot as well. Within a few months we were able to trade our 35' x 8' matchbox for a grand new 50' x 10' two bedroom Liberty mobile home. I thought I was in heaven! Proper "real" bunk beds were purchased for the boys and we settled back to watch them grow.

As the months passed, it became obvious that Rusty had a problem. He was a year old before he could sit alone. He never crawled, but pulled himself along with his elbows, not using his legs at all. We took him to the base pediatrician who recommended that we just wait and give him time. Some babies were slower than others he said. We waited.

A second pediatrician at the Air Force base two months later told us that our child was obviously severely retarded and might never learn to walk or talk. He suggested that we wait until he was older for further evaluation.

Without considering a second opinion outside the Air Force, we accepted the fact that we were now the parents of a handicapped child. Believe me, it's not what any parent wants to hear, but we tried our best to handle it.

Rusty was a happy baby, always smiling, eating well, but seemed to catch cold easily. I often found myself and the children sitting at the base hospital waiting to see a doctor due to his illness. On the morning of November 21, 1964, I bundled both of the boys up in their winter clothes and took them to the base hospital where Rusty had yet another appointment. He had not been eating well for a couple of days and, again, had a bad cold and cough.

The doctor examined my baby and even consulted with another doctor before giving me a prescription for his cold medication. He also told me that Rusty was very constipated and gave me two enemas to administer at home.

Enemas?! Good Lord! I had never seen an enema administered. I had had one done to me during my stay in the labor room. I read the directions and did the best I could with the first one when we returned home.

Rusty remained lethargic the rest of the evening. Nothing else happened. I called the emergency room late that evening to see if it was advisable to go ahead and give him the second enema. I was told to do it. Still no results. I put him to bed and tried to get some sleep myself.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning I awoke with a start. I thought I had heard someone call "Mama!" I went in to check the boys. Both appeared to be sleeping soundly. I went back to bed.

When David woke me the next morning, I arose and went to get the baby up for breakfast. Rusty wouldn't wake up. Rusty was cold to the touch and already becoming stiff. I knew what that meant. I was familiar with death... and that Grim Reaper had come again to make his harvest. Only this time, the life he cut down and took away was a part of me and that part of me was now gone forever.

I covered Rusty with a blanket, took David from the room and went to wake my husband. Doug took over and did everything else. I couldn't. I curled into a fetal position beneath the blankets in bed and soaked my pillow with my tears. He took David to a neighbor's house for care, called the base hospital and greeted the officials when they arrived. He made all the arrangements and did all the calling of relatives, except for my mother, and I, at least, did that.

The people who came from the base asked me what happened and I explained all that I knew. They asked for permission to do an autopsy and we agreed. The death certificate, when we later received copies, showed that Rusty died of "chronic bronchitis" at approximately 1:00 a.m. on November 22, 1964. We later learned the autopsy also showed that all of his glands were severely underdeveloped. And, the doctor we saw at that last appointment apologized for not admitting him to the hospital and relieving me of the responsibility for his care and the trauma of his death. But what difference did it make then? Rusty was gone.

Rusty's death occurred just a few days before Thanksgiving. I couldn't bury him on Thanksgiving Day. There was nothing here for which I was thankful. We waited one day longer. Doug's father flew up from Miami for the funeral. My mother flew up from Orlando. Neither of them had ever held or come to know this second grandchild as we had not been able to afford the trip south since his birth. Only his paternal grandmother and the Massachusetts relatives would remember his smile and his sparkling eyes.

The day Rusty died the life of John F. Kennedy was eulogized in all the news media. It was the first anniversary of his death. I watched bits of it on TV later that day when David came back home and wanted to be entertained. I sat and cried, both for the great man who might have done so much more for this country had he lived, and for my baby who had now followed him in death. No one would ever see him grow, or go to school, or become a man. No one would know or even guess what his potential might have been. Could he have overcome his handicap? Could he, one day, have also been a president of the United States? In America anything is possible.

I departed the cemetery after the funeral and never went back. That part of me which is buried there can never be retrieved. But I still remember. The media will never let me forget. And each year I still wonder what both of them might have been like had they lived.