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A Biography of John Saxton "Jack" MacCord11 November 1922 - 11 August 1993 by John Saxton MacCord, Jr. with Leslie MacCord Johnson 28 July 1997 |
What to call the old man? When I was younger everyone called him "Jack," friends, family, it didn't matter. When Uncle Robert and Aunt Jane lived across from the Riverdale fire department, and the school bus stop, cousin Sandy had every teenage girl in Riverdale calling him "Uncle Jack." Of course, he was only 32 at the time -- I thought he was incredibly old, but then, I was only 8.
Leslie writes "How many adults can remember their parents playing? Not your average games like cards, golf, football, etc.? I mean with children's toys??? My dad did!! I can remember him hopping around on a pogo-stick at an aunt's house, playing cards with his young nephews and jacks with me. Evening in his senior years he was collecting cars and trains (he claimed that they relaxed him -- I wonder)."
In later years, after he had moved to Florida, he dropped Jack and became "John." I, of course, called him "Dad." Dad was born on Saturday, November 11th, 1922 (Armistice Day) at 2:30 am, in Washington, DC, when Grandma and Grandpop lived at 734 6th Street, N.W.. His middle name was originally recorded as "Saxon" but became Saxton through usage. Grandpop was a fireman and Grandma was a housewife at the time. Dad was the fifth child and third boy. He was named for his grandfathers -- John from John Joseph McCord (as it was) and Saxton from Thomas Saxton Capron. I inherited both names and my son, Kenneth, has Saxton as a middle name.
Uncle Howard MacCord says that Grandmom and Dad took a train trip when Dad was just an infant to visit her father, Thomas Saxton Capron, for whom Dad had been partially named.
Dad grew up mostly in Washington. At some point in 1934-35 the family moved to Vienna, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington (but quite rural in those days). Living there Dad fell out of a tree and broke his right arm. The arm didn't heal properly and he had a problem straightening that arm for the rest of his life.
When he was 14 and in junior high school he met his lifelong friend, Lester Caton. Dad used to tell about how he and Lester would race each other on their bikes. Lester had a three speed "English" bike and Dad had a fat-tired American bike and they used to go everywhere on their bikes.
Another story collected at the dining room table was about a Plymouth convertible (?) that Dad had that he drove sans muffler. When it got up over a certain speed flames would shoot out the tailpipe. He and Lester would talk about how much fun it was to drive it at night!
Dad's broken arm's lengthy healing process had cost him a year of school and at age 19 he was still in Anacostia High School in Washington when World War II broke out. He was a corporal in high school ROTC and left school to join up. But, his arm made him 4-F. He went to work for the Government (who else do you work for in Washington?) until 1944 when he left to do other things. He said that even in 1944 when the physical exam was "walk over and sit in the red chair" (you could hear, you could see, you could comprehend, you obeyed, and you weren't color blind) he was still rejected. He used to say that after the War he worked at Fort Dix, New Jersey on a plumbing project and saw guys who were new recruits and could barely walk -- really made him mad.
He and Mom had know each other in high school, but had not dated. She graduated in 1942 and went to Chicago for nursing school. After about a year she had dropped nursing school and moved back to Washington. She called Dad and they went out. They had so much fun that on July 23rd, 1944, they made the arrangement permanent. Which is lucky for me because I came along nine and a half months later.
They honeymooned in New York City and came back to live in Washington. Things get a little confusing for me because they moved to Florida (where Mom was born) in 1946 to be near Mom's natural mother and sister. By the winter prices increased dramatically and they moved back to Washington. The next spring they tried it again and were back in the fall (I think you're supposed to winter in Florida and summer somewhere else -- they did it backwards). Mom had a falling out with her mother and I didn't even meet her until 1962 when we moved to New Mexico.
Mom and Dad and me, Riverdale, 1949.
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The Riverdale (MD) Volunteer Fire Department's ladder truck at the Prince George's County Firemen's Association parade in Bladensburg, Maryland, September 14, 1957 |
Dad had a direct connection to the county fire dispatcher put in each house we lived in. We called it a squawk box. When that thing went "beep-beep" you got out of the way because that was a fire call coming and if the call was in Riverdale's territory Dad was gone.
Uncle Donald MacCord was between wives and jobs and sleeping on our couch in the house on Madison Street when he came home late one night and latched the screen door before going to sleep. The squawk box went off, announcing a call in the area and Dad was out of bed and into his fireman's boots and headed for the door. Now, Dad was just under 6 feet tall and about 180 lbs. He was used to hitting that little flimsy screen door and heading for the car. Well, he hit that screen door and tore it off its hinges and nearly fell down the stairs. He made it to the fire and told Uncle Donald how not to latch screen doors.
But, all was not as great as it should have been. Shortly after Leslie was born (March 5, 1954) Mom was diagnosed with emphysema. The doctor told her to quit smoking, but she didn't (or couldn't). Nothing was known at the time about second hand smoke so Dad kept on smoking. She had inhalers and some medications, but nothing much helped her. By 1961 her health had deteriorated to the point that a drastic change was necessary. The single best thing she could have done was quit smoking, but she still couldn't to it. So, the decision was made to move to New Mexico where the higher altitude and much lower humidity would, presumably, help her health improve.
Aunt Nonie and Uncle Owen Rice (her
husband at the time) had also decided to move to New Mexico for his
health (he had severe arthritis as I recall). He left first and found
a place for her and the girls to live. She and the girls left in
about April of 1962 and on 22 June 1962 we followed. We had sold the
house on Tuckerman Street, with its furnishings, loaded the 1956
DeSoto and the 1961 Corvair pickup truck with everything we could and
set out a week after school was out. Dad had received honors from the
Town of Riverdale for his service and we had had our going away
parties.
We headed south to visit Mom's Dad and Stepmom (James and Edna Davis) in Fitzgerald, Georgia. After staying there a couple of days we headed west through Bossier City, Louisiana, and a visit with Mom's sister, Mildred and her husband Tony Grotzinger. For the first, and only, time in memory I met my natural grandmother. Two days west through Texas and we were at Aunt Nonie's in Albuquerque.
Dad went looking for work and found it as an unlicensed plumber (New Mexico required that you have a job to get a license, but you couldn't be hired without one -- it kept the number of emigrants down). Mom had left Federal service in Washington and did not seek employment in New Mexico. We moved into our own house and shortly after became active, for the first time in years, in a startup Baptist Church in the Heights.
The plumbing job failed after a while and Dad got a job with the Albuquerque Gas company (which didn't pay nearly as well as Washington Gas) and we moved into the downtown area of Albuquerque. He soon left that job for one as a deliveryman. This job allowed us to buy a house on the Southside of Albuquerque. Aunt Nonie had bought a house in the same development just before we did. The photo at the top was probably taken there.
But, the owner of the business Dad worked for absconded with the funds and Dad went to work one Saturday and found everything shuttered. Another job gone. We lost the house and moved again, this time into a 2-bedroom cinder block house practically across the street from the church we were going to at the time.
In May 1964 Mom went into the hospital for pulmonary problems. In one drive home he told me that if someone would tell him that she only had six months to live that he would move back to Maryland as fast as his car would take him. She was released from the hospital a little later and went home.
As I was graduating from high school they got a joint job with the New Mexico Boys' Ranch in La Jolla, New Mexico, a home for troubled youth. They were to be house parents. Dad would also work on plumbing around the ranch, household stuff and irrigation systems. Their job started about 10 days after I left home and joined the Army. By November, 1964, the ranch had a new director who didn't like the homelike atmosphere the previous director had fostered (an open door policy on the part of the house parents -- treating the boys like they were part of the family) and let them go.
Housing depended on their job. They were now homeless as well as unemployed. Dad had started writing to me in October, which raised red flags about Mom's health because he hated to write. Aunt Nonie took them in. Leslie remembers that Dad and Uncle Owen had to carry her to the bathroom. The day after Thanksgiving Mom died on Aunt Nonie's couch. Her last words were "I'm sorry."
Emphysema is a terrible illness. It steals first your breath and then your life. Mom had finally quit smoking about a year before because she could no longer breathe and do anything else. She was 5 feet 10 inches tall and at one point weighed over 220 pounds. She weighed about 130 pounds when she died 2 months past her 40th birthday. Dad was a widower at 42 with a 10 year old daughter to take care of.
We took Mom to Fitzgerald, Georgia, to be buried in the family cemetery. I went back to the Army, Leslie stayed in Georgia, and Dad went back to Riverdale to work for Uncle Bob again.
You learn a lot about life from your father. Leslie says, "Dad was awesome! He worked full time, was a firefighter, husband, father, brother and son. He passed on some great attributed to John and I. His sense of humor, his dedication to his family and service to community. I had the pleasure of watching this man who could work on pipes or a car tenderly and lovingly care for his dying wife. I watched through 10-year old eyes him half carry her to the bathroom and in the end carry her completely (with help of my Uncle Owen) to the bathroom. I can't image the grief he felt that night when she left him. He modeled a quiet strength for me even though his life as a married man had ended. He was still a father with responsibilities. My teen years were hard on me and harder still on him. I can remember when at the age of 16 I talked of quitting school and he threatened to go to school with me and sit in every class every day until I graduated from high school. Needless to say I stayed in school and graduated!
Friends in Riverdale soon arranged a dinner for him so he could meet a friend of theirs -- a 35 year old divorcee named Marian Polk Huntley. Dad and Marian hit it off immediately. He introduced me to her when I came back to visit in April 1965, just before shipping to Vietnam. Sometime later he moved to Arlington, Virginia, to be closer to her. In June 1967 he and Marian were married.
By this time Dad had gotten a job as a plumbing superintendent on various construction jobs. Shortly after my first marriage on 17 August 1968 he and Marian returned to Arlington, to begin a camping trip using a pop-top camping trailer. Dad was testing the pop-top feature when he cut off part of his finger. He immediately took himself and the finger tip to the hospital, but they couldn't sew it back on.
Around 1970 he twisted his knee while stepping over a pile of bricks and was on workmen's compensation for more than a year. Dr. Rodney Belcher, an orthopedic surgeon, treated him without surgery by draining liquid off his knee until the knee didn't produce any more.
Eventually Dad got a job with the US Army at Ft. McNair, Washington, DC, as a plumbing supervisor.
To say that Dad's relationship with us, his children, was all sugar and spice would be quite misleading. I managed to be in the Army during most of this time and still get in trouble. Leslie did manage to graduate from high school in 1972 and promptly moved out of the house and into an apartment and a whole adult life she wasn't quite prepared for. Her words "Dad and I became estranged until I was a 29-year old mother of one. Kathy managed to wrap this tower of strength and compassion around her tiny 6 month old toe and didn't let go. Kathy was born with multiple birth problems but Dad was there every time a new diagnosis came about. Even though his heart broke he was my pillar of strength. He never tried to influence any of my decisions but he did. he taught John and I the Golden Rule and expected us to live it and that was how I made my most important decisions in regard to Kathy.
By the Summer of 1981 his marriage to Marian was seriously on the rocks. Marian appears to have developed severe psychiatric problems and was constantly accusing him of trying to murder her, usually with the connivance of a variety of Arlington County plumbing inspectors. She even accused him of sending spies after her when she took a separate vacation. They separated, sold the house, and Dad took $5,000 and bought a Recreation Vehicle and left town.
He wound up in St. Petersburg, Florida, at Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Warren Carter's house. He worked for Goodwill and lived in a variety of small apartments before settling into a small trailer that he bought in a senior citizens' trailer park.
While working at Goodwill in November 1991 he was mugged while on the job. He continued working until February, 1992 when he decided that his health wasn't good enough. 45 years of smoking developed into his own case of emphysema and contributed to his heart disease.
For his 70th birthday, 11 November 1992, Leslie arranged a surprise birthday party for him. I and my two children (Ken and Roxanne) drove all day to get to Aunt Jeanne's in Sanford, Florida. We spent the night there and went to breakfast with her the next day. We couldn't be in St. Petersburg too early or he might see us. So we went to the Central Florida Zoo and drove leisurely across Florida (still only took three hours).
I went and picked up some old friends of his, who no longer drove at night, and barely beat him to Leslie's apartment. We were coming in the back door while he was knocking on the back door.
When he got in the house the old friends came out and wished him a happy birthday. Then Aunt Jeanne came out and he asked how she got there. So the kids and I came out. Boy was he surprised. He was so pleased and happy that he talked about it for days.
The next day Dad gave up his car because of the expense (and he couldn't see very well) and shortly after moved into John Knox, an assisted living center for seniors. He soon added diabetes to his list of ailments and grew steadily more debilitated. In February 1993 he decided it was time for him to have his leg by-pass surgery and he and Leslie decided that he would recuperate at her home. Somehow, between January and July 1993 almost all of his sisters and brother got to see him. On the 2nd of August 1993 he started to have mini-strokes. He couldn't remember how to make biscuits, or phone numbers. He did remember Leslie's though!! He was admitted to St. Anthony's Hospital on the night of the 3rd. Leslie was his health-care surrogate and his out of home caregiver for Hospice. She was very much a part of his care-team.
Leslie walked in to visit him on the 4th and knew that he was ready to go. She saw him on the 10th and he was so excited because his beloved Washington Redskins had won their exhibition game and he said that he had seen our mother and that she was beautiful. On the 11th of August 1993 he suffered a massive stroke and at around 6:15 pm he passed on listening to the 23rd Psalm. He's buried at the Catholic cemetery in Pinellas Park, Florida. He left behind his best and simplest gifts -- his sense of humor, compassion, love, strength to all who knew him.
Thanks Dad, we love you.
copyright 2000 by John S. MacCord, Jr. and Leslie MacCord
Johnson
John@simjon.com
