Recollections of My Brother, Donald Sage Mackay III, and Our Family
by last remaining sister, Elizabeth Mackay Balderston
Donald Sage Mackay III, Born 1920, Died 1942, son of Donald Sage Mackay, professor of philosophy at the University of Califonia, Berkeley and his wife, Helen Thorndike Mackay, brother of Alden Thorndike Mackay, Helen Grace Mackay and Elizabeth Annette Mackay.
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Donald joined the Army Air Corp. at nineteen, trained to be a bombardier, and died at twenty-two after his two-man small bomber was shot down in January 1942 over the China Sea by a Japanese Zero. Soon after his death, the War Department sent home a black wooden chest with the initials DSM Jr. in brass, on the top. It contained his clothes, photographs of his family and landscapes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he loved to roam. Among his personal memorabilia were pieces of irridescent mica, picked up on the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in California. He had carefully wrapped up these mementos in yellow tissue paper.
My big brother Donald was extremely shy and diffident. Our parents sent him to a private academy in Berkeley to increase his learning skills before he went off to attend Williams College in western Massachussets, where our father had had a successful college career. Young Donald spent barely a semester there before dropping out and coming home. Shortly after, he enlisted in the Army Air Force.
When I was eight, when my friends came over to play after school, he would charge out of his room, loaded with a kind of sling shot made from a strong rubber band, with "bullets" made out of paper wads which he launched from his thumb and forefinger as he chased us, terrified and squealing through the house. The paper wads raised red welts on our skin, but we never told our parents and we always came back for more. We apparenly enjoyed the terror of the chase, screaming madly and hiding desperately throughout our big wood-shingled house. Eight years later, after he joined the Army Air Corp, he died in action. My mother and father told me that he was in love with his cousin Eileen, which I was glad of, because I felt that he never had a chance to live and it was good that he had fallen in love.
Donald's younger brother, Alden Thorndike Mackay, named his youngest son after him. Donald Sage Mackay is now a professional actor. His photo and acting credits are included in this website.
Alden Thorndike Mackay (Dykie) lost his right eye when he and Donald were playing with BB guns. Donald loaded his gun with a nail and shot it just as Dykie came around a blind corner. It must have been terrible for my mother and father and Dykie, and for Donald himself. Dykie managed the tragedy with humor and good nature. He used to take his artificial eye out of its red empty socket to horrify my sister and me. Dykie had a military deferment and, when all of his friends headed off in uniform to fight in WWII, he joined the American Field Service and drove ambulances along the Burma Road.
After Thorndike returned home, he finished his degree from the University of California, became a teacher and then a principal. Patricia Mackintosh was the prettiest and smartest girl in his class and though he teased her unmercifully, she married him and lived happily ever after. When he was close to eighty, he contracted muscular dystrophy, suffered a long illness, shrinking away, with his sweet nature and sense of humor enduring through all.
My big sister Helen was five years older than me and went off to a private school in Pasadena. We didn't become friends until we were grown-up. I got the idea that my syblings thought I was a terrible brat. Our family spent summers hiking in the Sierra Nevada wilderness with a ranger and 4 mules to carry our tents and food. We spent winter weekends and Christmas at the cabin we shared with Peggy and Kenneth Hayes, their children who were the ages of my older syblings, and an enormous dog named Gilmore. They all slept in the "Hayes loft", accessible only by a steep ladder from the living room. It was a memorable scene to see the Hayes pushing and pulling their 150 lb dog up the ladder for the night and, even more traumatic, when after everybody had settled into sleep, he whined and had to come back down to pee in the snow.
The three older children always brought friends along, and many times they drove over Donner Pass to go to Reno for dinner and shows. Once they witnessed a murder at the small tavern just up the road from our cabin. A young, wild minister's son had caught a gambler cheating and had shot him dead and escaped into the night. Donald, Dykie, Helen and the Hayes boys, Caulder and Kenneth, came back with white faces to describe the murder. I remember the vigerous discussion between Peggy Hayes (sister of the famous artist, Alexander Caulder and a gifted artist herself) and my mother. Peggy thought we should leave all the lights on and the cabin door unlocked so the young murderer could come in out of the snow and give himself up. My mother wanted to turn all the lights out, draw the curtains, lock the door and go to bed. We all listened intently and wondered what to do. Finally, the door was locked, the lights turned out and we all went to bed. The next morning we heard through the tavern grapevine that the murderer was caught in the snow before daylight. I never heard what happened to him after that.
When my cousin Ann and her husband Tony Neidecker were living and working in Paris, I visited them. Ann made an appointment for me to have my hair done at a French Beauty Salon. "Beehive" coiffeur was the style of the 60s and I really looked spectacular after I emerged. (not good). She arranged that I meet a friend of hers, an ex-patriot, at the Deux Magot Cafe on the West Bank. I would recognize him by the white carnation in his button hole. We found one another - I can't remember the young man's name - but he invited me for a drink and he pointed out the famous people who were in the bar. One was Alexander Caulder and, wanting to impress this sophisticated ex-patriot, I said, "Oh, my mother and father know him. He is the brother of a good friend. My date was properly impressed and urged me to go over to the great man's table and introduce myself. I did. We had a pleasant chat; he remembered my father well and, after a few patronizing questions, asked "how I liked the Tour Eiffel. I excused myself and went back to my date. Shortly, "Sandy" Caulder came over, sat down at our table and invited us to dine with him. Of course we agreed, very impressed. He escorted us to a nearby restaurant where he downed more wine, ordered a hearty dinner with dessert and then, thanking my new friend very much, he left him with the bill. I found out later from his sister, Peggy Hayes, that her brother fed himself in Paris that way. If you read Joyce Cary's novel, The Horse's Mouth, about a fictitious artist living off the tourists in Paris, you will recognize that the book is about "Sandy" Caulder. That is my sad story about my encounter with an extraordinary genius.
Donald Sage Mackay, the young minister who in the late 19th century left Glasgow to come to America, is remembered and honored by his American and Scottish descendents. One Scottish cousin is a prominent judge in Edinburgh. Some of his achievements can be found on this website. His brother, Alan Mackay, a correspondent for the BBC news and his wife Ishbel, have named one of their sons after the Reverend Donald Sage Mackay.
