Today Mom would have been 96 years old. Well, she still will be; it's just she's not here anymore, and hasn't been for 30 years. It's a shame our sons had not been born when she passed away. It's a shame a lot of people missed out on her personality; and there's no telling how much wealthier the world would have been had she had these last three decades to let her wisdom age into a fine vintage.
She was aunt to all of my sister's and my friends, and she was the best friend of those who were her friends. Her father immigrated from Ireland and owned a bar on Wall Street in the 1920s that gave him a living good enough to move his wife and six children to a farm in New Jersey. Of all her brothers and sisters, Mom seemed to have best captured the sagacity, insight, sharp wit, gift of gab and story-telling skill that proves over and over again that the Irish really were responsible for the development of Western Civilization.
She lived in a time when women were said to be repressed whether they knew it or not. But I don't think that concept phased her. She had other concerns. Both of parents died within a year of each other before she graduated from high school in the 1930s. Her job at J.P. Morgan in New York required conformity to a fairly strict dress code, but she described it as more glamorous than confining. Especially the white gloves. Like many other women of the time, she had to wait out the war to marry my Father. Then she experienced the unthinkable, being widowed with two young children when our Father died suddenly, tragically in a commuter train wreck.
My uncle, the black sheep in my Father's family, warned Mom at the funeral if she wanted any kind of life she needed to get away. My grandparents, he said, would come to Red Bank, New Jersey, for the funeral and never leave. Which is what happened. So Mom followed Uncle Mac's advice and decamped from New Jersey for Seattle where he and my aunt lived. In 1952 she bought a new Plymouth Suburban (the original Suburban) station wagon and plopped my sister in the fold-down backseat so she could sleep most of the way while I rode shotgun with no seatbelts. Driving across the country back then was an adventure, to say the least, for anyone, let alone a widow with two children.
We set up shop in Seattle. A new life for Mom and the beginning of one for my sister and me. She married a wonderful man seven years later; intensified her life of service to the community and the poor; practiced a devout, practical brand of Catholicism (even dragging our agnostic stepfather to many liturgical events and ceremonies). While most people who knew her exclaimed how remarkable she was, she never made the claim herself. She never batted an eye at her accomplishments, and always looked forward to tomorrow. For a woman who reached her fullness in the 1950s and nutured it until her death in 1982 when a lot of women were letting loose their frustration and resentment at the inequality of the sexes, she seemed set apart. She already was her own person, and she was happy.
She was aunt to all of my sister's and my friends, and she was the best friend of those who were her friends. Her father immigrated from Ireland and owned a bar on Wall Street in the 1920s that gave him a living good enough to move his wife and six children to a farm in New Jersey. Of all her brothers and sisters, Mom seemed to have best captured the sagacity, insight, sharp wit, gift of gab and story-telling skill that proves over and over again that the Irish really were responsible for the development of Western Civilization.
She lived in a time when women were said to be repressed whether they knew it or not. But I don't think that concept phased her. She had other concerns. Both of parents died within a year of each other before she graduated from high school in the 1930s. Her job at J.P. Morgan in New York required conformity to a fairly strict dress code, but she described it as more glamorous than confining. Especially the white gloves. Like many other women of the time, she had to wait out the war to marry my Father. Then she experienced the unthinkable, being widowed with two young children when our Father died suddenly, tragically in a commuter train wreck.
My uncle, the black sheep in my Father's family, warned Mom at the funeral if she wanted any kind of life she needed to get away. My grandparents, he said, would come to Red Bank, New Jersey, for the funeral and never leave. Which is what happened. So Mom followed Uncle Mac's advice and decamped from New Jersey for Seattle where he and my aunt lived. In 1952 she bought a new Plymouth Suburban (the original Suburban) station wagon and plopped my sister in the fold-down backseat so she could sleep most of the way while I rode shotgun with no seatbelts. Driving across the country back then was an adventure, to say the least, for anyone, let alone a widow with two children.
We set up shop in Seattle. A new life for Mom and the beginning of one for my sister and me. She married a wonderful man seven years later; intensified her life of service to the community and the poor; practiced a devout, practical brand of Catholicism (even dragging our agnostic stepfather to many liturgical events and ceremonies). While most people who knew her exclaimed how remarkable she was, she never made the claim herself. She never batted an eye at her accomplishments, and always looked forward to tomorrow. For a woman who reached her fullness in the 1950s and nutured it until her death in 1982 when a lot of women were letting loose their frustration and resentment at the inequality of the sexes, she seemed set apart. She already was her own person, and she was happy.
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