David MacKenzie took over the reins of the Barbados Ford dealership Charles McEnearney from his father Charles Straghan MacKenzie.  He was responsible for relocating the business from the Chapel Street, Bridgetown site to Wildey, St. Michael in 1968.  In 1980 the holding company McEnearney Alstons (Barbados) Ltd. was established, in which McEnearney Alstons of Trinidad took an equity interest.   David was appointed Chairman and CEO of McEnearney Alstons (Barbados) Ltd. and held that position until he retired at age 65 in April 1998.   He was then invited to remain as Chairman for a further couple of years.

 

Through an unexpected and tragic turn of events in my life in 1984, I became a part of the MacKenzie family when I married Charles MacKenzie's third son,  David.  I never knew my MacKenzie father-in-law as he and his wife Ella Winston (née Cole) had already passed away in the seventies.   Author Simon Kreindler, childhood friend of Charles MacKenzie's younger son Douglas (Doug), describes Charles in his book "Peddlers All" as "a tall imposing man with a deep, booming voice, he was quite deaf and communicating with him was a challenge. He smoked a pipe and kept a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun in the corner of his bedroom.  Even as kids we understood it was meant to warn the help that burglary would have serious repercussions."   David always spoke fondly of his father. I gathered that he was a larger-than-life man with a wry sense of humour.  He often recalled that when his father  presided over a board meeting and an important matter was tabled he would declare, "All those in favour say 'aye', all those against say 'aye' resign!".  Although it was said tongue-in-cheek, I believe David admired and emulated his father's management style. He spoke about the great friendship between "Mr. Mac", as Charles McEnearney was known, and his father who was also known in Barbados as "Mr. Mac."  The two partners, he said “got on like a house on fire” and went on many business-cum-pleasure trips together.

 

David had a meticulous eye for detail - oftentimes to a fault.  He was measured, determined and decisive in both his business affairs and private life.  Not surprisingly then, he proposed marriage to me just a couple of months after we first met. We were introduced at mutual friends' home on 24 February 1985.  Nine months later, we were married at St. Dominic's Catholic Church, with a reception at the Barbados Yacht Club. It was 30 November 1985.  There were fireworks and celebrations all over the island that night as it was Independence Day in Barbados - the 19th year of Independence.  Apart from family members from both sides, many of the guests at our wedding were David's Barbadian business associates and several fellow directors who had flown in from Trinidad, including Conrad O'Brien, Chairman/CEO of the McEnearney Alstons group.  Since David was a director of the daily newspaper, The Barbados Advocate published a photo of us on their front page with the headlines "MacKenzie Weds Again".

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It was a second marriage for both of us.  His first wife Dr. Anne Bayley had died in December 1984 after a short illness of cancer, and my husband J.A.K (Tony) Archer, a well-known Barbadian equestrian sportsman and businessman, had died suddenly of cardiac arrest during an asthma attack in July of that same year.  I was a 37 year old widow with a family of five children ages 7 - 18 and David was a 52 year old widower with two adult children studying abroad at university.  We were brave and optimistic, both of us, to undertake this merger of families with very different family roots and backgrounds.   In many ways, it was an unforgettable period of my life and the lives of our families and extended families on both sides.  David and I separated in 2008 and divorced in 2009.

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The intention of this chapter, however, is not to write about the private life we shared during a span of 22 years, nor about the character of my former husband.  Nevertheless, it was within those years that the Ford business David had taken over from his father expanded, becoming one the most well-known and successful conglomerates in Barbados.  It was during this period that he reached the peak of his business career.  As the Chairman's wife, I  was by his side at all the countless corporate events and social occasions associated with such a position.  He was unaware that I kept newspaper clippings of some of the more important ones - special milestones that may otherwise have been forgotten.  In 2001, our friend  Conrad O'Brien called me to say he wanted to nominate David for a national honour in acknowledgement of his contribution to business.  David and I prepared a detailed CV which was submitted to the relevant authorities under Prime Minister Owen Arthur's government and I kept a copy of it among my memorabilia.  For reasons unknown to me, that honour was not granted.

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"Friendships~Partnerships~Family Ties" -  I muse on the twists and turns of life.   In 1933 my father's sister Ida married Robert de Sousa, son of the owner and co-founder of Charles McEnearney in Trinidad.  In 1985 I married David MacKenzie, son of the co-founder of Charles McEnearney in Barbados.  Had I known my family history back then, it would have been fun to talk with Aunt Ida about how she met her husband Leslie de Sousa at the Ford dealership across their street in Trinidad.  During a visit with David a few years ago, I told him about what I'd discovered.  It was then that he handed me the book "The History of the ANSA McAL Group of Companies – 125 Years of Business in the Caribbean". I should have also reminded him that my Trinidadian Aunt Ida came to our wedding.  It was she who played a piano duet with her sister Jessie (Sheppard) Brash at the family party held the night before that  blew him away.  He said he'd never before seen the likes of it. 

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On my last trip to Barbados in April 2023, I visited David at his home, the same home we shared from 1985 to 2008.  It was soon after his 90th birthday.  When we said our goodbyes at the familiar front door, we both knew it would be the very last time.  I had paid my respects and left feeling that he was already at peace.  David passed away on 17th September, 2023 and was interred at his family plot at Westbury Cemetery, Barbados, after a private funeral service on 24 October, 2023.

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