Mark Ralph MacKay, Brian Reynolds MacKay, and Kathryn Leilanbi MacKay

[00:02] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Hello, I'm Mark Ralph McKay. I am 65. I'm here at StoryCorps in Ogden, Utah, on Wednesday, September 28, 2022. I'm here with my sister, Katherine McKay, and my brother, Brian McKay.

[00:16] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Hi, I am Ryan Reynolds McKay. I'm 73. I'm at Storycorps in Ogden, Utah. It's Wednesday, September 28, 2022. And I'm here with my sister, Katherine McKay, and my brother, Mark McKay. I'm Kathryn Leilani McKay. I'm 75, and I'm here at StoryCorps in Ogden, Utah, Wednesday, September 28, 2022. And I'm here with two of my brothers. One is a twin, Brian McKay, and one is younger than the twins, Mark McKay. So we're here today to talk about the folks, but more specifically, we're here to talk about our dad. I think we're all agreed that he was a remarkable person, and so I'm going to introduce him until you two come into the picture, and then I'll start asking you questions. So Calvin Reynolds McKay and our mother, Bertha Virginia Cotter, met at Madison junior high long time ago. They both went to Granite high, and they got involved in student government and did all kinds of things together. And then they both went to the University of Utah. Dad graduated with a degree in bacteriology, actually, in 1944, and he went on to medical school under the auspices of the Navy. And it was only the second year of medical school at the University of Utah. So he was in the second year, and it was an accelerated course. He graduated in three years. The folks married in 1945, and interestingly enough, mom then taught school, which was unusual because usually married women didn't teach, but she was able to teach for a year in her old high school in Granite high school. She taught domestic science, which she didn't really like, but she was informed that women don't teach history, and therefore she was stuck with domestic science. So they married in 45, dad graduated in 46, and then they went off to Hawaii. And this is quite a move for two folks from South Salt Lake. And he applied for an internship at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu. And this seemed very far away, very exotic. Our mother loved it. She loved the people. She loved the food. She ate avocados for the first time. She ate pineapples for the first time. She really enjoyed it. Dad was more sanguine about it. But at any rate, I was born there in 1947. They were there a couple of years, but they came back home to Utah where they had the twins. Brian, you are one of those twins. But they went back to Hawaii because he was able to work as a doctor on a plantation. But his mother, Agnes Reynolds McKay, kept drawing him back to Utah, and so she convinced them to move back, which they did, and he set up a practice in south Salt Lake, which he didn't really like, but he survived it. They built a duplex with friends of theirs, the Niedagers, and I want to tell a little story. Lol Benion, who was a LDS seminary teacher, had encouraged his students that they should live together, not communally, but that they should be good friends. And so my folks, who are our folks, were friends with Donna G. Niedger and Ivan Cutler and his wife Beth, and they all decided that they would want to live together. Ike and Beth went off to his family farm, but the niedagers and our folks built a duplex, which is still standing in South Salt Lake. And I have vague memories of playing with their daughter and enjoying the time. However, in 1950, the folks saw an Ilya Kazan film, panic in the streets, in which Richard Woodmark, the courageous public health physician, his ever faithful wife, Barbara Belgettys. Anyway, Richard Widmark saves New Orleans from bubonic plague brought in by that cad, Jack Pallance. And so that film inspired dad to join the public health service. Wow. So for the next several years, we just kept moving. First we went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he worked at the hospital at the hot springs. Then we went to Mississippi. We lived in the barracks. Do you remember that, Brian? Because I've seen so many slides of Brent and me, you know, on the boardwalk. Yeah, yeah. But I don't think I recall really that period of our lives, but I remember it very well because we lived at the end of the boardwalk in the barracks, and at the other end was the hospital. We then moved to New Orleans and the folks built a house. It was kind of a starter house, and our sister Michelle was born there in 1955. I will say one thing about the house, too. 53. 53. Oh, thanks, Brian. I appreciate the correction. Dad is always building stuff. He always used to say that he was not the fine carpenter that his father in law was, but he loved to build. And so he built, he enclosed a room in that house that had an air conditioner, which meant that all the friends came to our house and sat in that air conditioner and played games and laughed and talked and had a great time. And those were friends that they kept. Throughout the next several years, they'll reconnoitre, they'll regroup in Paradise, California, some years later. But there were the hearse there were the Larsons, several others that were part of that group. So then we move to New York. The summer. That summer was spent in Washington, C, with our mother's sister Nola. And I remember that very well. Do you, Bry? I do. I do. Playing with Stephen. Yes. I remember the thunder and lightning storms, too, which were immense. Exactly. The boys. The three boys. You and Brent, your brother. Twin brother. And Stephen, the lowe's son. And the three girls, I and Judith and Janice. We lived on opposite sides of the attic or slept on opposite sides of the attic. And. But it was a great summer. I loved it. From New York, we went to Seattle, and there. Harkwit ho, I was born. Yes, Mark was born in Seattle again. Dad is working on various specialties as he's moving through the public health service. Dad was always studying. I remember the room he created in Mississippi was a special room that was. That was. Well, I can't think of the word, but anyway. And I'd go. I'd sneak in there and look at his medical books, which I thought were gorish and ugly and horrible. A soundproof room. This is what it was. But he was always moving from specialty to specialty. Children's, orthopedics, hand surgery, etcetera. Then we moved to San Francisco. And I have to say that San Francisco was my favorite place. We lived on the presidio. And I remember that so well. Bry, do you also remember I have a wound on my left leg. I remember very well climbing a tree. Those eucalyptus trees were so beautiful, right? Yes. But I do remember that area. I remember Halloween there. Lots of different memories from San Francisco. But, yeah, it's one of my favorite places. It really is. And it became a favorite place for the folks, too, because they would go back to San Francisco to visit for many years. Well, then dad decides that he's going to get out of the public health service. So he turns in his papers and we go back to, of all places, Utah. Always back to Utah. We lived in bountiful for a time on Larsen Drive, but. And dad was working with his brother at a medical clinic in Bountiful. His brother had also graduated from the Yuse medical school. But dad was still restless, and so he took a job with a person whom he thought was going to be a good partner. And we moved to Sunnyvale. We moved into an Eichler home. Mom had been reading up about. Well, mom was always reading up about design and architecture. And so we moved into the cycler home again. Dad closed in the garage, made another room out of it. But that only lasted six months at the most. And back to Utah we went because the guy turned out to be a crook. He couldn't deal with him. And so we went back to Salt Lake, and we lived in our grandmother's basement. 1337 colonial circle. And Mark, you remember that?

[10:08] MARK RALPH MCKAY: I do, somewhat. Just to back up a little bit, when you say the guy was a crook, are you talking about a partner.

[10:13] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: That he was in Sunnyvale? In Sunnyvale, yeah.

[10:14] MARK RALPH MCKAY: And mom loved Sunnyvale. She always talked about how much she loved Sunnyvale.

[10:18] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: She did.

[10:19] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Even though they were there for a.

[10:20] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Short time, apparently, it was hard for her to come back. It was really hard. Yeah.

[10:27] MARK RALPH MCKAY: But no, I guess I remember a little bit coming back to bountiful, where Paul was born. I'm sure you're going to get to that in a minute. But I do have some early memories of in the basement, where grandmother would have kind of a washboard that she would do the clothes on and a Crankley device that would dry, kind of squeeze out the water from the clothes. So some vague memories, you know, I was pretty young, but those are some memories that I do have at that point.

[11:00] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: And I remember telling you stories every night before we went to sleep, and you requested the same story in the same words. And I finally convinced you that I didn't want to do the three little pigs anymore. So we switched over to puss in boots.

[11:17] MARK RALPH MCKAY: There you go.

[11:17] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: And we had the same story every night. But it was reassuring to you. It was calming. And I will say this, and I think you'll both agree, we're only twelve years apart, the six of us. And it was important to our folks that we protect each other, that we sustain each other, that we became each other's best friends. And it worked. We still are. We still are. All right, so we then move into a house in bountiful. We get settled that way. But dad is still restless. He wants to do more orthopedic surgery than he's being allowed to do at his brother's clinic. And so he makes a decision to apply for an orthopedic position with an ongoing. It was already an established partnership. This is in Northridge, California. And so we go to California, and again, we were there long enough that I got to graduate from high school and went on to college and actually did a teaching credential at Cal State Northridge. But I know both of you have memories of Northridge that I just don't have. So, Bria, I wonder if you would start out and talk about what it meant for you to live in Northridge. And you went to high school eventually in Northridge? Yeah. No, I think when people ask me, where did you grow up? And I explained kind of what you've been talking about, the different places, but I said, really, the form of all years were in Northridge that I remember so well. Of course, Brent and I were in junior high school there for the three years, and then we went on to Granada Hills High School for three years. And, yeah, lots of different memories from during the januarys, the winter season. You'd have lots of rain, and I don't know if you remember this, but floating down Encino Avenue.

[13:20] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Yeah, we'd always get these boats that we would create out of, you know, paper mache or whatever, and float them down the streets and watch them go down.

[13:28] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: So. But lots of things like that, of course, music. I have lots of memories with my brother Brent. The two of us were in the orchestra together in junior high and high school, and he played the violin. I was on the flute. And those are a lot of memories and in different workshops at Cal State Northridge. But, yeah, Northridge was definitely the place that I remember so many different things. And as I said before, they were the years that I think, as far as educating myself through, you know, my young age there, the teenage years. That's where it was. And, Mark, I wonder if you would talk about the treehouse and the various buildings that dad built in the backyard.

[14:19] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Absolutely. And before that, I was just thinking that one of my earliest memories was in kindergarten when I was in a sandbox and heard that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And that was, you know, I'm sure everybody around that time remembered where they were. And it's interesting that I remembered that as in kindergarten. But anyway, Los Angeles area, Northridge, of course, at that time, early sixties, was quite polluted. I remember a lot of times coming home from school just kind of wheezing from the smog. That, of course, got better over time, you know, as the EPA and so forth was brought into play. But in. In terms of our backyard, we had a great big backyard that my dad, again, the builder that he is, decided to build us all playhouses. So we, Paul and I got a little cabana, if you will. Well, actually, Brian Brint had a cabana, which was next to the pool. And we could tell you some stories about the pool, too. Paul driving his little tricycle a couple of times in the pool. I saved him one time. I can't remember who saved him the second.

[15:28] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: I think Brent and Brian dived in that time.

[15:31] MARK RALPH MCKAY: I remember running into the house and said, paul's in the pool. Paul's in the pool. And Brian, of course, dove in and saved him. He did it again. But anyway. But, yeah, the playhouses were great. You know, we would each have a playhouse in one of them. We had even a model railroad, which was on a table, you know, and we could fold up into the wall, but. And that brought back, you know, brings back a lot of memories thinking about that. And, of course, our tree house and a place where we had a pool table. Everything in the backyard was just magical to us. You know, my dad built all these special places for us. We. And then, of course, my older brothers, Brian, Brent, particularly Brent, helped to dig a tunnel underneath one of our playhouses that we really enjoyed and would scare other people who would come in for Halloween. You know, we'd have some speaker, and we would be on the end of the tunnel. Anyway, lots of fun memories there.

[16:33] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: And Michelle had her own security room. That's what I loved, that dad built her a security room in the backyard because she was surrounded by brothers and she needed a place of her own. And so she'd hide out in the security room.

[16:49] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Yeah, but it was great. Lots of fond memories of that house in Northridge. And I was there until 1212 years old. Then we move to.

[16:58] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Yes. Okay. So then dad ever restless again, I find this remarkable. I've been trying to figure out how many moves they made, and I'm up to 26. But anyway, so they moved to paradise. And what drew them to paradise were these friends that they had met in New Orleans some several years ago. And they all went into a practice. They built a set of offices together. And so they created this community that was so important.

[17:38] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Before you go on, I just wanted to mention there's something that you may not be aware of. But when we traveled to paradise, when we were moving, we had a ryder truck that you could rent. So we had a lot of our stuff, obviously, in that. And on halfway, this was on June. I'm sorry, July 20, dad's birthday in 1969.

[18:01] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: 69, 60.

[18:03] MARK RALPH MCKAY: 919. 69. And that was when the first landing of the moon occurred. And we actually stopped, I think it was in Fresno or someplace. Stopped at a motel where they were broadcasting on the television. Walter Cronkite was doing the play by play. And we stopped there, watched the landing, and then traveled on to paradise.

[18:22] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: That's great.

[18:23] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Just to kind of.

[18:25] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: That's great. Also in 69, I moved to Utah, and dad and I drove across Nevada, and I moved into grandma's house. She was recently widowed, and the idea was that I was going to sort of look after her. And I was also avoiding getting married. But that's a whole other story. At any rate, I ended up going to the University of Utah for graduate school. But that left you all behind. And, Mark, I'm now going to rely on your memories for most of the rest of what I want us to talk about. The first house in paradise was a mess. It was a rental property, and they had these horrible dogs, and it was a mess. But eventually, dad built what was always there after known as the big house. And it was a big man's big house. It had tall, tall ceilings. It was on the edge of the canyon. He ended up buying or building three houses in paradise, none of which survived the paradise fire. Regrettably, all of them came down in the paradise fire. But I want you to talk about. Because dad got involved in other kinds of things. He got involved in a machine shop. He got involved in a peach orchard. Poor mom had to sell peaches. I mean, talk about those experiences, if you would, Mark.

[19:47] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Sure. Well, just like you said. I mean, dad was always interested in either building something, whether it was, you know, physically building something with wood and nails or these kind of side businesses. One of which, like you mentioned, was a tool shop where he had designed this, what was known as a hydro pruner, which was a water pressurized mechanism for pruning way up high these tree limbs. And anyway, we used that in the orchard. He was introduced to a local.

[20:24] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Farmer.

[20:24] MARK RALPH MCKAY: For lack of a better term, that had this orchard. And so we decided to plant additional peach trees beyond what was already there. And so, as I was growing up, I was involved in selling and taking care of the peach orchard. I say involved. I mean, it was pretty much everything I did as a young man, when I had the time to do so, involved laying pipe, moving pipe, learning everything I could about tractors and how to drive them, how to repair them, how to take the peaches down to the south San Francisco airport location, where in particular, the Asians would really love these white fleshed babcock peaches that we sold. In addition to that, paradise was a dream location for me growing up. I mean, they had these log flumes that I would run along. It was in, you know, paradise was a forest between two canyons up on a hill. And just. I have such great memories of paradise. Fishing, hiking, you name it. It was kind of a Huckleberry Finn type memory for me. If you will. Growing up, it was a fantastic place to live. And, of course, I haven't been back since it burned down. My memories of that are so strong. I don't know if I could go back for a while until things rebuild a little bit. We still have a brother there who lives there was a dentist, recently retired, Brian's twin. And he, of course, lived through all that. And that's a whole other set of stories in that regard. But anyway, paradise still holds some great, great memories for me.

[22:10] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: So then you would suppose that dad would stay put, but no, no, he goes off to Wyoming, Rawlins, Wyoming, of all places. Of all places. He lives in an apartment for a while, and then he builds another house. And I was then working for Utah state out of the Uinta basin. And I would go on weekends up to Rawlins to visit. And I think mom eventually became reconciled to Rollins, although she was always a little bit uneasy about living there. But his, he and he had a partner, and it worked pretty well for, what, two or three years? And then the partner got restless, and dad got restless. And now here's where my memory fades. Did he go to Arkansas first before they went to Rancho Cucamonga, or they went to Rancho Cucamonga and they went to, okay, Arkansas. So then he gets a job working for a major. It was a. It was a business that did physical therapy, physical exams. They worked for insurance companies. And dad took this job again. What's remarkable about dad is he has three sets of boards. He has a board in general surgery, in orthopedic surgery, and forensic medicine, of all things. I was always studying, always trying to figure out how to do a better job with things. So he was a valuable asset to this company, Rancho Cucamonga. But something happened, I think a partner retired, but it all fell apart. And so he moved mom to Arkansas. And you have some story to tell us about Arkansas, Brian, because you were one of the few of us that ever went there. Yeah, I mean, it was not. Well, I'm trying to think of what exact city they were in, but it was not one of the major cities. I mean, but it was. It was very pretty. They were living alongside of a lake. Shona and I and our children drove down there and had a couple of visits that we enjoyed, and it was a very pretty area. I again, to the. This day, I'm not sure, you know, all places, Arkansas, but it was a place for them, and they had a good time there. I mean, they enjoyed it, but it was short lived. And so off they go again. And they went to Provo. They went to Salt Lake for a while. Because they had a condominium in Salt Lake that they lived in. But then dad built another house. He built a house. He claimed he always wanted a house on a river. And so Provo river was where he built this house. And I liked that house because it had enough rooms that we could all be there. And I had a room. I'd come down on weekends. Because I was living in Salt Lake. And I felt that that was a good place to be. And it was right on the river. Mom did have an incident where she fell in the river. A little scary. But a guy came along. He was fishing, I think. And he came along and rescued her. So that was good. And dad kept planting stuff in the backyard. He planted all these roses. And he planted trees. And he planted, of all things, azaleas, which he knew darn well would never make it through the winter. But he kept planting them and planting them and planting them. But mom just couldn't keep up with the house. And so they moved. It's still in Provo into a condominium. And that condominium was still big enough that we could all stay. But it was on the second floor, and mom wanted to walk in. And unfortunately, she died before dad moved into the second condominium in Provo. Mark, what memories do you have of Provo? I haven't even mentioned Shadowbrook.

[26:26] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But Shadowbrook was just another condo in Provo. Which I got to stay in while I was going to school. And I think. Well, everybody, I think, at one point or another, stayed there. Not you, I guess, because you had already been in other places. But anyway, yeah, Provo. Between the. Between Shadowbrook and then, of course, the other two condos. It was more of a. More places that we would come to visit, really. Not necessarily memories other than, you know, just your normal stuff.

[27:04] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Yeah. Our mother. Our mother died in 2012. Dad fought hard to save her. He was haunted by her death. He blamed himself again. Dad felt that he could do anything. He felt that. And I am often reminded he never lost a patient on the operating table. He never lost one. He lost them afterwards, but he never lost one on the operating table.

[27:40] MARK RALPH MCKAY: And a lot of times we didn't know about that until later. I'll tell you a real quick story that you may or may not know. When I was probably 17, living in paradise, Chico was about 20 miles away. I went down there to get a suit at a place called Kaufman's. And I mentioned my name to the owner. Mister Kaufman? And he said, oh, are you related to Doctor McKay? And I said, yeah, he's my dad. And he said, well, you know, your dad saved my life. He was operating on my back, trying to remove a disc or I can't remember what the surgery was, but all of a sudden, my heart stopped. So he sewed up my back, flipped me over, opened up my chest, massaged my heart back to life, sewed me back up, turned me back over, and continued working on my back. I'm going, you're kidding. But anyway, stories like that, you know, dad would rarely disclose. We would either hear these stories from people such as Mister Kaufman or nurses or other doctors. And so, yeah, it's just kind of a testament to his ability, skills, and just his humility.

[28:52] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Absolutely. Absolutely. So after mom died, needless to say, he was pretty shaken, but he was determined to continue on. So he took classes at BYU. And of all things, he got interested in studying Arabic because he wanted to read the Quran in the original Arabic. And he met these students who were just intrigued by this older gentleman going back to school and studying languages. I think he studied Japanese for a while, even. And so I'd go down to visit, and there'd be this wedding invitation or this invitation to a special event. And I kept saying, well, dad, are these young women that you're mucking about with? They said, oh, no, they're just helping me with my studies. And they were good to him. They were really good to him. And of course, we've got a niece, Megan, who tells a wonderful story about how she and the man that she married, Michael Derrick, would go down quite regularly. They were both in school at BYU, and they would cook dinner for him and visit him. And I really didn't know anything about that, you know, that's true. I hadn't either. Just till recently at your gala, we started talking, and they were so kind to him. They were. They did so many things. So. So dad fell one day and he got hurt, and that was it. We moved him to a care facility in Ogden because I was the one person that could steadily look after him and take him out and about. And while he was there, he learned everybody's names. He would always be the most pleasant person to the staff. And I just found that remarkable because he wanted to know how they were doing. He kept up on his medical license. I helped him doing it online, of all things. But he taught himself to operate a computer and a printer and all kinds of things because he was writing these awful religious tracts. But that's a whole nother story. But my dad, our dad. Our dad was truly a remarkable person. He died four years ago in 2018, and I miss him very much.

[31:29] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Yeah, he really was, you know, the nomad that he was, I think, just kind of added to his character. I mean, I know we all feel about dad as just the great mentor and example for us. You know, they talk about the greatest generation. I didn't really know what that meant when I was growing up, but truly, truly, he represented part of the greatest generation. And that's something that I'll always admire about dad, just embodying that term, if you will.

[32:01] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: He struggled with prejudices. He struggled with that. Our mom didn't. Mom loved Hawaii. She loved. She seemed to get past the racism that she was raised with that is so pervasive in our society. Dad had trouble with that, but he kept trying. And what is remarkable to me is that he decided he'd learn Spanish so that he could talk to his patients. This was in Rancho Cucamonga. And again, this commitment that he makes, it came down to two things for him. His patience. He would do anything and everything and his family, and he would do anything and everything for us. And it was truly remarkable. Brian, any last thoughts from you? Yeah, he summed it up very nicely. I think that there's so many memories talking about. We can go into so many stories about fishing, playing basketball, going on trips without notice, where we just take off and just able to do anything. He was so strong. I remember the campout. He had this giant stone that he would hold out on his. Extend his arm. Everybody's going, drop it. Drop it. No, he was amazingly strong, but he was a remarkable individual and very caring. I remember in high school that those days, they had these church tournaments, and he actually paid the way for, I think there was eight of us to go from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City to be in this tournament. I mean, he didn't need to do that, but he did. You know, those are things that he just. Yeah, so he bought a young woman a car. So he was generous with his money. In fact, more generous than he really had. But generosity. And I think that legacy is one of the things that all of us are pretty generous folks. Mark, any last comments from you?

[34:16] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Well, I think. I think we've summed it up pretty well. The other thing that I so admired about dad is he said, you know, if you can read a book, you can do just about anything. And he had books that he was reading four or five at a time in different rooms. That I would find the books with, you know, that he was.

[34:33] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Kleenex.

[34:35] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Yeah, exactly. Kleenex to.

[34:36] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: Yeah, that's right.

[34:38] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Keep track what page he's on. But, yeah, he was certainly one who believed in being able to learn and do.

[34:45] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: That's right. That's exactly right. Exactly right. Again, he had written papers. He'd researched papers. That was. He always claimed that's how he got his residency, that he'd written these papers and that they were published in medical journals. And he was always trying to. I think that's all. I think that's why we all have good educations, because he and mom. Mom was only one of two women in her high school that graduated from college, and they both put a lot of emphasis on education. So, fellows, it's been great to talk to you again. We focused on dad, but he's the notorious character in our family. And I thank you for being part of this all.

[35:31] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Thank you, Katherine.

[35:33] BRIAN REYNOLDS MCKAY: It was our pleasure. It was wonderful.

[35:35] MARK RALPH MCKAY: Yeah, absolutely.