Looking Back 1949: The boy who was missing part of his heart
James “Jim Boy” McKenzie of Lonaconing, Md., had lived nearly four years with only three-quarters of his heart, but time was running out for the young boy. When Jim Boy was born in 1946, it was without the right ventricle of his heart. The right ventricle is one of the four chambers of the heart. It pumps deoxygenated blood from the heart through the lungs and back to the left atrium in the heart. Without the ventricle, Jim Boy was able to live but he suffered from a unique version of the Blue Baby Syndrome. Blue babies have poorly oxygenated blood that is blue in color rather than red and this blue blood causes their bodies to look blue. In Jim Boy’s case, it was only his hands, feet and lips that apparently turned blue. His parents had taken Jim Read more…
Lonaconing, Md., was a phoenix rising from ashes of a devastating fire
It was a summer for Lonaconing in 1881. Even with the changing of the months from August to September and cooling temperatures, it hadn’t rained for four weeks. P.T. Tully and Co.’s store was on the east side of Main Street. On Sept. 7, Mr. Hanlon, one of the store’s employees, was sitting down to a lunch with his family that would never be finished because a fire broke out in the stable behind the store. The fire found fertile ground among the blowing wind, dry conditions and wooden structure. It moved to the store and then the flames began sweeping north along Main Street until there were no more buildings to consume and south to Bridge Street. The last building to burn was the Merchants’ Hotel, kept by William Atkinson, who also kept a store adjoining the hotel. With Read more…
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