David Buchanan
18 October 1887-26 January 1953
Our Paternal Grandfather
By Bruce Forrest Buchanan
David, known as Davy and Pops to those of us in the family, was born in Glasgow, District of Gorbals, Lanarkshire, Scotland on October 18, 1887. He was the third of six children of Robert Buchanan and Mary Anderson. He met his future wife, Annie Mackie McAlister, possibly at a dance hall according to his niece, Margaret Truman (Buchanan) Lynn.
Davy and Annie made plans to emigrate to the United States with Davy arriving first in 1913 in Boston, MA. He promptly joined the United States Army where he only served for a few months until he was discharged due to the discovery of a heart murmur. Davy and then Annie, as his widow, received a 10% disability from the US Army until her death at the age of 97, in 1986. He was a bugler in the Army, as he had played the trumpet as a boy in the Boys Brigade in Scotland (similar to our Boy Scouts). Unfortunately, with the start of WWI, Annie was not able to join him until after the war in 1919. They were married in Boston on October 8, 1919. Their only child, Stanley Mackie, was born on December 16, 1921.
Annie and Davy on their wedding day
Davy was a pattern maker by trade. He
probably performed that work in Gorbals at the shipyards prior to coming to the
US. And we assume he was able secure that type of employment in his early life
here as well. At some point he was hired by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) as a pattern maker and eventually became an instructor there
as well. He made patterns and wooden models for the engineers there. His eighth
grade education in Scotland served him well.
I
have very limited memories of him as he died just after my third birthday. But
I do remember visiting Davy and Annie, or Granny and Pops, at their home in
Dorchester, MA. They lived in a duplex and I remember being in their living
room with Pops sitting in his chair and smiling as I was playing on a rug on
the floor. I also remember the night he died. Davy and Annie were temporarily
staying with us in Bedford while Granny healed from a broken arm. My father took
Davy to work at MIT every day (neither Pops nor Granny ever drove) and then
picked him up after work.
One
afternoon Davy told my father that he didn't feel well, so they went to the Doctor
on the main street in Bedford. While they were sitting in the waiting room Davy
had a heart attack and died. I remember my father arriving home and going into
our living room with Granny and my mother. My sister and I were ushered to
another room. The local family doctor arrived at our house shortly after, as he
just lived down the street. Davy was 65. My father later said "it was a
long drive home." After his death, Annie received a handwritten note of
sympathy from E. L. (Edward Lull) Cochrane, Vice Admiral, USN, Dean of
Engineering at MIT. In the note, he commented that “he was a man for whom we
all had a deep affection, one whom I felt privileged to call by his Christian name,
David.”
Pops made quite a few pieces of furniture for Granny. She would take him to a furniture store and show him what she wanted. Then he would salvage wood, mostly mahogany, from MIT and other places and build her the pieces she wanted. He had a full set of wood chisels, many of which I now have. He mostly made tables of various shapes and sizes. Pops and Granny were very frugal, having grown up in Glasgow at a time when that city was no longer the thriving metropolis it had earlier been during the height of the ship building period of the 19th century there.
Pops generally worked Monday through Saturday at noon, and Granny told me that on Saturdays he would regularly stop for a hamburger and a beer on his way home from work, a treat he relished. I often drink a beer with my lunch on Saturdays in his memory. He also was a soccer referee on Sunday afternoons, so he had an opportunity for exercise every week. Soccer was played as a semi-pro and professional sport in the early to mid-1900’s in Massachusetts, with games often drawing more fans than the Boston Red Sox baseball team. These fans were very passionate supporters of their teams. Once when Davy made a call the home team and their fans didn’t like, he had to be escorted off the field and out of the stadium by the police after the game because he was being physically threatened by the rowdy crowd.
Pops was not a large man, only standing 5’5 tall, about the same height as Granny. And he was known to be a quiet man. They were a handsome couple, and in spite of living through the Great Depression, they seemed to truly enjoy the adventure they had embarked on early in the 20th century together.
