In the 1950s, A Severely Disabled Child Could Wreak Havoc on a Family

How my brother came to be institutionalized, my mother made something good out of a terrible tragedy, and our family found peace

My mother, Lillian Secrest Buie, gave birth to her third child, John McNair Buie Jr. in 1949. But as Jon-Jon seemed not to pass any of the developmental milestones, Lil and John became deeply worried. Gradually, they learned of the severity of his condition – he had Down Syndrome, and would probably never mentally develop beyond an infantile state.

“Before disbelief and denial were overcome, Lil was expecting a fourth baby,” her brother Mac recalled in his autobiography, Curses and Blessings. She was “slow to accept a definitive diagnosis, and had taken him from one medical clinic to another, from Charlotte to Wilmington. Yet at nearly two, Jon-Jon still hadn't developed at all, weighing nearly the same as he had at birth.

“Trying to get food into his mouth, much less swallow, was an exhausting enterprise. He cried most of the waking hours of the day and nearly all night.

When he was quiet it was worse. Then one was more aware of his overall deformity.

“Lil was a demonstrative mother. She held him close to her breast, rocking and swaying, singing songs, telling stories, cooing, and whispering sweet nothings in his ears. If nurturing could do it, Jon-Jon should thrive.

"But he didn't, and there was nothing anyone could do about that,” Mac continued.