Daideo's Book: A special project for Mullaney

It will help if I take some time to give you a little background on my roots, my family, where they came from and some context that sets the stage for my beginnings.

My family came to the United States from Ireland. I believe both my Mom and Dad’s parents were the first in their families to immigrate to the U.S. They probably arrived in the 1890s or 1900s. My mother’s family were the Fitzgerald’s and my father’s were the Connors’. I do not think either set of grandparents were married when they debarked at Ellis Island in New York.

There is a story that young Irish immigrant girls were taken in by a refuge for their protection, located at the tip of Manhattan, close to Ellis Island. The girls then worked as housemaids to the wealthy families of New York. My great grandmothers may well have lived at this Mother Seton House. My great grandfathers raised their families and worked in New York City. Both were named John. John Connors worked as a streetcar conductor in Manhattan. John Fitzgerald was an elevator operator on Wall Street. The Fitzgerald’s had two children a son, Maurice (that’s where I got my middle name) and my mother, Edna Teresa Fitzgerald. [need great grandmother’s name]

Great grandfather, John Connors married Delia Conway (my Nana). Their children were my aunts and uncles, John, Cathleen, Bernard, Rose, Rita, Ann and my father Joseph Patrick Connors.

[picture of Mom and Dad]

Joe was the second youngest (Ann was the baby) and spoiled by his sisters.

Mullaney, you are growing up hearing a lot about the awful Covid pandemic that was so devastating the year you were born. One hundred years earlier the Spanish flu pandemic 1918 - 1920, took the lives of my father’s brothers John and Bernard and his sister Cathleen. Let’s hope that science has helped us learn to deal with events like these and that you will not have another in your long and happy life.

My Dad’s family lived in Yorkville in Manhattan on 89th street. Yorkville was a predominantly German neighborhood but after 1900 waves of immigrant of different ethnicities called Yorkville home. At the time neighborhoods were distinguished by their parishes and Dad’s was Our Lady of Good Council on 90th street where Joe went to grammar school and sang in the choir. He and his friends enjoyed making trouble and Dad told stories about a friend Herbie who brought a water pistol to choir practice. He also told how he and his pals used to swim in the East River.

Moving Forward

I’m not sure where in Manhattan my Mom and her family lived. I do know that Edna graduated from Cathedral High School, a Catholic school for girls that was founded by the Sisters of Charity in 1905. That school is still open and active and now located at East 56th street in New York. Mom was a good student, eager to learn and Cathedral was known for high academic standards. I figure Mom graduated in 1929 and at that time college was a privilege reserved for the boys in the family if anyone at all were to go beyond high school. After Cathedral Mom went to work as a Civil Service employee, for the State of New York in the Finance department in offices near New York’s City Hall.

Her brother Maurice was also a good student. He went to Regis High School, a prestigious high school often ranked #1 in the country. Grandma Kathy’s Dad, Pat went to Regis and so did my sister Joann’s husband Charlie.

I don’t know too much about great grandpa Joe’s doings after Our Lady of Good Counsel. It’s not clear if the schools classes went through high school in those years. At some point though my Dad went to work at the Hayden Planetarium which was part of The American Museum of Natural History. The Planetarium opened in 1935 and Dad celebrated his 25ht anniversary with the museum in 1960.

    I hope that gives you some idea of our family’s early days

John

I don’t know exactly when or under what circumstances but sometime in the 1920s or early 1930s my Mom’s family and Dad’s family moved north to the borough of New York City known as the Bronx. Of the five boroughs that make up the city only one’s name is modified by “THE”. That is unique among place names pretty much worldwide. The Bronx used to be very rural mostly forests, marshes, and wetlands. For a long time it was sparsely inhabited and served as a getaway for well to do New York families escaping the summer heat or outbreaks of disease. Eventually much of the Bronx became farmland as the city grew. Then neighborhoods developed as transportation improved and people could live further outside Manhattan away from crowded tenements.

The Connors and the Fitzgeralds lived in the same general section of the Bronx known now as Westchester Square, Tremont, Castle Hill and Parkchester. My Mom lived in a house on Benedict Avenue. Dad’s family lived on McGraw Avenue. Neither family had much money and didn’t own their houses. They probably rented them and shared them with other relatives.

Sometime after moving there my parents met but we don’t know the specifics of how and when they got together.

I have Birthday, Valentine’s and Christmas cards Joe sent to Edna from 1934 up until after World War II.

I imagine life was fun and exciting for Mom and Dad in the years preceding the war. The Bronx neighborhoods were lively with clubs, dance halls, parties and lots of young people getting to know and enjoy one another. It was a difficult time in the country with the depression leaving many people unemployed. New York was one of the better places to be with more opportunities for employment. People depended a great deal on each other, their extended families and network of friends. The neighborhood parishes were central to life providing social as well as spiritual centers of activity. Partying, politics, and piety could all be found at church.

Though times were hard and there was not much money, New York offered many opportunities for amusement, and fun. One favorite for my parents, their families and friends were New York’s beaches. Most especially, Rockaway Beach on Long Island. That beach community was a summertime haven for a massive congregation of Irish American families. The streets of Rockaway were divided into bungalow colonies - these small cottages with very few amenities, were closely packed together providing a home for young and old a short walk from the cool, crashing surf of the Atlantic Ocean. My Mom’s uncle and aunt, PopPop and Mary Fitzgerald rented a bungalow for years on Beach 99th street in Rockaway. The bungalows were a seaside retreat for everyone and their friends. The Fitzgerald’s was no exception. In the course of a summer season their children: Mary (who would become a Barbieri) and seminarian son, John were joined by relatives John and Kay McClafferty, their daughter Maureen and sons Jim and John, Cornelius and Greta Fitzgerald, Jack and Myra Byrnes and their children Rosemary, Eileen, Edmond and Ellen, Niel and Mary Fitzgerald. Besides the blood relatives were all of their friends from work and the neighborhood.

Rockaway’s surf could be dangerous at times with summer storms and rip tides. Each street’s stretch of beach was manned by lifeguards charged with keeping an eye on the waders and swimmers and occasionally having to dash into the waves to perform a rescue. These tanned guardians were revered and admired especially by the women, but there’s a catch. A good number of the lifeguards were recruited from the New York diocesan seminary whose students were home on vacation. This community nepotism may have been justified except little thought was given as to whether the seminarian could swim. Heaven help the swimmer who was dependent on the prayers of a beach bound lifeguard. He might not benefit in this life but perhaps in the next.

Mom and Dad, I’m sure spent courting summers at the Fitzgeralds’ bungalow and in many haunts throughout the Rockaways. I don’t have as good a record of where Dad’s family was based at the beach. They might have been day trippers or avid couch surfers. My Dad tells the story of the first time he had a clam on the half shell. He and friends were at Ed Barbieri’s (Ed, was to marry Mary Fitzgerald) who was shucking clams and drinking beer. Dad was a pretty conservative eater and very reluctant to put a raw clam in his mouth. With a little coaxing, some cocktail sauce and probably a few beers Ed and his friends prevailed and Joe downed his first cherry stone clam. He was a fan from then on and gave me my first clam years later at Weiss’ restaurant in Broad Channel in Jamaica Bay just outside Rockaway. Years later still, he and I would eat cherry stones by the dozens at Boggiano’s on Rockaway Beach Boulevard opposite Playland. Besides Rockaway, popular places Edna and Joe would enjoy together were Coney Island home of the Steeplechase amusement park, Pelham Bay Park, and Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle (famous as a venue for up-and-coming dance bands).

Perhaps the most well known attraction of the era was the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The fair had pavilions from thirty-three countries, many of the states and major companies that drew thousands of people from the U.S. and abroad to get a “peak at the world of tomorrow”. The World’s Fair took place in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens and ran from August 1939 to October 1940. For New Yorkers it was a venue to visit many times to marvel at concepts of the future, eat exotic food from international cultures and enjoy the many shows, bands and celebrities that entertained.

The fair was open three months when Germany invaded Poland and began the second world war. This was a tragic event in many ways but for the purpose of our story the war was a vehicle that provided source material and a rich record of our families’ participation, the influences it had on Grandma Kathy’s parents and my parents and their families. The war was a milestone in their lives and in some ways a gateway to John and Kathy, Grandma Kathy and Daideo.

First comes love

Then comes marriage

Then comes Edna

With a baby carriage

Mullaney, telling this story has opened my eyes to people, places and events I have not known about or have forgotten until now when I try to tell it to you. So, thank you for the opportunity to research those times. Doing that has involved opening up hundreds of letters and artifacts (pictures, postcards, souvenirs) that my Dad wrote and my Mom saved from the years he was in the Army Air Force. I have not had time to read, organize and sort all of that material so that I understand when it started and the chronology of travels and events during the period. Right now I have to choose to keep putting together our story or to take the considerable time to organize all the material I have uncovered. I’ve decided to continue the story and put off organizing the archive. What I will do is “dip” into that history in a kinda random way and hopefully give you a picture of what life was like as Edna and Joe continued their romance and courtship from a distance leading up to their wedding, the end of the war, settling down again in New York to start our family.

World War Two started on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Initially America was neutral and did not join in the war but in 1940 the U.S. established the draft for men between the ages of 21 and 36. America declared war on Japan in December 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor and joined the war in Europe that same month. Soon the draft was changed to include men from 18 through 37 and the length of service was “through the end of the war, plus six months”. How scary that must have been - to have no idea how long you would be away, (assuming the best, and that you would return at all.)

I have a letter from Joe to Edna, dated May 1943. That maybe one of the earliest after Dad was drafted. It was sent from Tyndal Air Force Base in Florida. Dad writes that he has been on the road for 48 hours and that he has passed through beautiful scenery in Missouri. These early letters tell of Dad stationed at or passing through many places in the U.S. My feeling is that there was a good deal of moving around for training and for duty assignments as they country ramped up its war efforts. Throughout all of these movements and for all the time they were separated Dad was a dedicated correspondent, writing nearly every day. I can only assume Mom was equally diligent, though I do not have her letters. All of Dad’s letters were written in handsome, legible script with a fountain pen (you may not know what that is) in blue or black ink. These days when technology has penetrated and permeated our communications it’s impressive to see few if any cross outs or errors. Another characteristic I find so endearing is Dad’s persistent optimism and cheerful outlook. When the G.I.s (Government Issue) stereotype was seen as is complaining, frustrated, impatient that’s not Dad. His spirit must have been a help to Mom, and his mom and siblings at home through the anxiety and worry of the war years. Dad’s sentiments are found throughout his letters, always, heartfelt, respectful, lovable, charming - usually finishing with, “Always yours XXXXs (kisses), Joe.

It’s not clear if Dad chose the Army Air Force branch of service or if the Selective Service wheel of fortune chose that for him. He was assigned to bomber squadrons where he was responsible for airplane maintenance activity. He was also classified as a B17 tail gunner but there is no indication that he ever flew a combat mission. His letters from so many places do not reveal Dad being in any active combat theater though he was stationed in various locations in the South Pacific. Somewhere during his tour of duty Dad was promoted from private to corporal and to sergeant. But there was an incident that resulted in a demotion and when he was discharged it was with the rank of corporal. The details are sketchy. It’s interesting that soldiers returning from WWII are known for not talking very much about their war time experiences. We’ve heard that at some point Dad was responsible for fastening one of a B17’s canopies. The bomber, called the flying fortress, had several canopies (cockpit, nose, tail). Somehow the fastening failed, and the canopy was lost in flight. No one it seems was injured but Dad was held responsible, and the three-chevron sergeant became a two-chevron corporal.

Dad’s Service Timeline

Mullaney, here is a quick outline of where Dad was during the time he served:

November 1942 Lacrosse, Wisconsin

May ‘43 Tyndal Florida

November ‘43 Sioux City, Iowa

September ‘44 Dalhart, Texas

December ‘44 Barstow, California Mojave Desert

December ‘44 Salina, Kansas

January ‘45 Havana, Cuba

March ‘45 Salina, Kansas

‘45 Chicago, Illinois

‘45 Seattle, Washington

‘45 Honolulu, Hawaii

‘45 Quam

September ‘45 Caroline Islands, Western Pacific

I’ll fill in more detail as I come across it.

It seems that as the war drew to a close, wedding bells were ringing for Mom and Dad and for many of the couples of our extended family. Aunt Rita married uncle Frank McMorrow, Aunt Ann and Jack Malone wed, and Aunt Rose married Pat Gardiner. Mom’s brother Maurice married Aunt Betty. Cousins and friends on both sides of the family returned home celebrated, being together again and began their married lives together.

Making these happy wedding celebrations take place had it’s difficulties. Dates and travel plans had to be carefully orchestrated as furloughs for soldier groomsmen had to be coordinated. Rationing because of the war meant food drink and other supplies were scarce, gas, butter, beer, and liquor were hard to come by. Money was also tight. A letter from Joe to Edna talked about an enclosed $25 dollar, money order, Dad’s part of their wedding present for Ann and Jack.

The big day for Mom and Dad was May 5th, 1945. Letters detail plans for Dad’s leave, and the leave plans for is wedding party. Dad feels bad for Mom having to take care of so much of the details. Mom has a document from work granting her time off for the honeymoon. There is an exchange about where to have the reception with consideration for travel and ease of people attending.

The wedding took place at Saint Helena’s church on Benedict Avenue. Mary (Fitzgerald) Barbieri was Maid of Honor, Henry Batterton was Dad’s Best Man. Mom especially had countless priests among her friends and they all participated in the ceremony. I found the draft of a wedding toast made by Henry Batterton that talked about all the servicemen at the wedding. Each branch of the service was represented by men in uniform.

Father John provided his car for Mom and Dad’s honeymoon. They didn’t travel far because of restrictions on time and supplies but went to Connecticut and stayed in Stamford and in Norwalk. We have a souvenir menu and postcard from The General Putnam Inn in Norwalk. I’m not sure exactly how long that honeymoon trip lasted but it wasn’t many days before Dad was headed back to Kansas.

From then on Dad’s letters count down the days till he can get home to his wife for more kisses and hugs. The summer and fall of 1945 move pretty quickly. Allied Forces (that’s us) celebrate victory in Europe on May 8th. The war in the Pacific escalates with heavy bombing and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th. On September 4th the Japanese surrender. Dad is in the Caroline Islands headed for Okinawa, Japan.

I’m not sure exactly when but believe Dad is home with Mom and his family by Christmas.

1946 is a momentous year for the Connors as peacetime life resumes. Mom is carrying a little secret by April when the New York Journal American photographs her and other contestants competing for the title of “Miss Fire Fighter of 1946” who will reign at the Firemen’s Ball at Madison Square Garden on May 28th. The article says “Nothing less than the most beautiful girl on the city payroll is being sought for the honor” awarded by the Uniformed Firemen’s Association of Greater New York. Chances are by May 28th Mom would be sporting a little baby bump which would turn out to be me.

My First Memories

I was born in Greenwich Village in Manhattan at St. Vincent’s hospital. Mom’s cousin Father John was a Chaplain at St. Vincent’s and I’m sure Mom was well taken care of with a choice room and nurses and attendants who took good care of her and me. My birthday was December 6th, 1946, at about 6:00 a.m. Mom used to tease me that I was born in time to deliver the papers on my paper route, though that job would not come along for another twelve years.

With Dad home from the Air Corp, we were living in a house on McGraw Avenue. The details are not clear but some of both Dad and Mom’s families lived nearby. Dad’s Mom shared the house with us. I am not sure if anyone else lived in that house also. Dad’s Mom’s name was Delia but to me and eventually, to my brother and sisters, she was Nana. Our house was comfortable with a brick front and steps for sitting. There was also a back yard. I can vaguely remember the kitchen which is where we spent a lot of time. I probably don’t remember but feel I do - a baby carriage that Mom would park by the steps where we could enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. These were considered very important for healthy babies at the time. Like you, I always wanted to be Outside! I had cousins living close by, Michelle Malone, a year older than me and Jackie McMorrow who was born one week after me. We were the oldest of the post-war babies in our family. I can picture the baby carriages parked side by side while our Mom’s shared the latest information on child rearing.

A Tap on the Head from Dad

Close to our house on McGraw was the elevated Pelham Bay train line that Dad took to, and from work downtown at the Planetarium. This must have been a long commute with us living way up in the east Bronx and the Planetarium down at 81st street on the west side of Manhattan. I remember Mom would take me to a little park below the Castle Hill train station around the time Dad would be getting home. There was a bench in the park, and we would sit there watching the north bound trains pull into the station waiting until we saw Dad coming down the station stairs. He would come over to the bench and tap me on the head with his newspaper. That is one of my earliest memories. I’m sure I looked forward to those head taps very much.

Another memory from those early days was a temper tantrum I threw in the kitchen of our house. As I recall, and from the stories about me as a baby I was pretty easy going and a happy baby. Maybe that’s why I remember this tantrum. Nana and Mom were in the kitchen with me and I vaguely remember Nana doing something like peeling potatoes. I have no idea what set me off but I remember crying and yelling and I gave Nana a good kick in the shins. Well, I didn’t get away with that for long - I remember getting a good swat on the back of my legs, a stern warning to never kick Nana or anyone else again and then spending time drying my tears and being generally remorseful.

As traumatic as that episode seamed, there was no lasting harm. Mom and Dad didn’t put me out on the streets and Nana lived to be nearly a hundred. We spent much happier times together in the years to come.

That title is a corruption of a song written 1n the 1920’s called My Blue Heaven. It also describes our happy little family until 1948 when my sister and your aunt Joanne was born. Joanne was born in September and we were still living on McGraw avenue but I don’t remember her there except as an infant. Soon after however we would cross a significant milestone for me and our family when we moved to the PROJECTS.

Mullaney, a lot of this story so far has been about neighborhoods and also about World War II and its effects on our family. The creation of housing projects continues that theme since they were built to address a need caused by the war and they became the physical and cultural neighborhood where my Mom and Dad and my sisters and brother lived, where I grew up and lived till I met and married Grandma Kathy. When the war ended all the servicemen and women returned to the U.S. get on with life, return to their jobs and school, get together with their friends, girl friends, wives, and husbands. They were getting married, and starting new families. But, they also needed places to live. The war had put a stop to all house construction. Cities were also building new infrastructure roads, bridges, highways. Many of the older neighborhoods were being torn down and replaced. People were moving out beyond the downtown areas to live in the suburbs. This was possible because of all the new cars and trains and busses that were built after the war. That’s also why so many new roads and highways were needed. The late 1940s and 1950s were a time of tremendous growth and change.

Cities that wanted to replace neighborhoods and the people’s houses in those neighborhoods made up a rule called eminent domain, saying they could take your house and tear it down if it was in the way of what they wanted to build. Our house on McGraw Avenue was in the way of a road New York wanted to build across the Bronx from the George Washington bridge on the Hudson River to the Long Island Sound. Eminent domain was the rule they used to take our house and hundreds of other houses to build that road. Turns out, when that road was built it by-passed our house, but New York built a playground where our house used to be. The man in charge of building that road was Robert Moses. He used eminent domain to replace thousands of houses in neighborhoods all over New York. Many of the things he built in their place were real improvements to the area like Jones Beach, and Orchard beach and many beautiful roads and bridges. At the time many people admired Robert Moses for the changes he brought to New York City and State. Eventually though people realized the damage he had caused and the disruption he brought to the lives of so many people.

You may read more about him and have a chance to make up your mind about him and the good things and not-so-good things he was responsible for.

So, eminent domain took away our house on McGraw, but at the same time the country was taking steps to find housing for all those returning service men and their new families. Many new cookie cutter housing developments were built in suburbs surrounding cities. Closer in to the cities a different housing solution was being built - the housing project. These projects consisted of multi-story buildings, three to 14 stories high, with apartments on each floor. The buildings were all on one site, maybe half a mile square, they were connected by walkways and common areas land scaped with lawns, trees and shrubs and paved recreation areas with benches, tables, and play equipment.

Mom and Dad were able to get an apartment at a newly built project called Eastchester Gardens (though we always just called it Eastchester Projects). Our new home was at 1245 Adee Avenue, about ten miles from the McGraw Avenue house. There were 15 apartment buildings in the project. Our building was eight stories high with eight families on each floor. Apartments were addressed A through H and ours was apartment 5H. We looked out into the interior of the project as opposed to the street and our building had a lawn and sycamore trees. We had a recreation area with benches between us and the project buildings opposite ours. The apartment had three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining area, and a bathroom. The building had an elevator and two staircases.

In some respect the projects were experiments in a new way of living. Ever since our grandparents came to America from Ireland; where they lived and who they lived among, were guided by who they were, what ethnic group, what family group, what race, what religion, what class. Extended families lived relatively, physically close where they could support and depend on one another. For servicemen, the war had broken those ties, transporting them physically and socially to a new place where they were exposed to a different mix of people and cultures. This, it turned out was good preparation. Now it was the turn of the whole family to break ties and acclimate in a new place, with new neighbors of diverse backgrounds. Separation from the old neighborhoods, family, stores, parishes, and neighbors might not involve great distances, but those distances were real. The newly built housing projects were a fresh start for all the new tenants. This part of the Bronx was new urban land. For New Yorkers born to the crowded streets of Manhattan, the Eastchester Projects must have seemed like the Oklahoma Territory. There were few if any stores. Any there were new. there were no churches, no schools, no parishes, bars, restaurants, hospitals. Blocks from the projects off Gun Hill Road people were living in shanty towns, home built dwellings surrounded by vegetable gardens and pens with goats, sheep, pigs and chickens. The closest New York City train was the Dyre Avenue line which provided only daytime shuttle service to 180th street until 1952. The station closest to the project was at Gun Hill Road and Seymour Avenue.

Starting School and the Blue Bird Bus

At four years old, in 1951 I started kindergarten at Immaculate Conception, a Catholic elementary school on Gun Hill Road. The school was a mile from our apartment building so walking to school was not an option. I got to school on a big blue school bus that was called the Blue Bird bus. Each morning my Mom would walk me to the bus stop where me and other kids would wave goodbye and get on board for the ride to school. I remember my first day in kindergarten. My aunt Rita and uncle Frank lived in a different project called Gun Hill projects that was very close to Immaculate Conception. Their son, Jackie was one week younger than me (his birthday was December 12th). Jackie started school the same year as me and I can remember meeting him and his Mom as we gathered outside the building and our Moms coaxed us across the milestone and into our school years. I handled the first day transition pretty well but as I recall Jackie had a melt down. I liked school and was a good student through elementary school. For the first couple of years though I was always afraid that someone or all of us would do something bad and we would be “kept after school and not allowed to go home”. I think I worried about missing the bus, not knowing how I would get home, how worried my Mom would be. That dread was silly and unreasonable but real and I think it was because I was still very young, one of the youngest in my class. I got over worrying by 3rd grade, by then I was walking to school and no longer afraid of being kept after. Having started school much younger than my classmates was an issue I would have to wrestle with later in high school where maturity is important.

First though a Blue Bird Bus story that stands out in our family lore.

Remember my Mom used to walk me to the bus stop each morning. My sister Joanne would be with us on those walks since with Dad gone to work there would be no one to watch the baby so she had to come with us.

Joanne was fascinated with the idea of school - curious and jealous of my Blue Bird Bus ride and day spent with kindergarten activities playing, learning and bring home the fruits of my artistic endeavors. One morning, while at the bus stop, Mom was no doubt chatting with the moms of other kids. I was preoccupied an unaware of both Mom and Joanne. The big Blue Bird Bus pulled up and the driver opened the doors. With no one noticing, there was an extra passenger climbed aboard that morning. The doors closed and our trip to school got underway.

It was about then when Mom frantically realized that Joanne was nowhere in sight! Had she been snatched! Grabbed by some villain prowling the project streets! No one knew. A posse of moms searched the area, benches, ramps, building entrances - no Joanne. One of the moms suggested that maybe she had boarded the bus and not been noticed by the driver. I forget, or never knew the specific logistics of how the hunt got underway. My mother must have been absolutely beside herself with worry and reluctant to leave where she last saw my sister. Someone came up with a car or was able to get a taxi and the pursuit began - follow that Blue Bird Bus. The bus made it all the way to Immaculate Conception without interception. The door opened and there among the bevy of K to eight graders was my three-year-old sister, anticipating her academic debut. Instead, she no doubt got a hug, a smack, and another hug and was hustled off to home. That story set the stage for Joanne’s accomplishments over many years as a student and established itself as a family legend.

Beware of those Times Tables

I went to Immaculate Conception for Kindergarten and First grade. I don’t have too many memories of those years. Strangely I remember the ceiling light fixtures - round lamp shades, concentric circles around a center light bulb, the outside one, maybe two feet in diameter. They resembled the rings of Saturn. I guess I spent a lot of time gazing at the ceiling.

Much of First grade was dedicated to preparation for two big sacraments Catholic children took part in around the age of seven. These were important milestones for us and our families and the preparation and reception of these sacraments with all of the ritual that accompanied them set the course and the stage that would be an important part of our lives up to and into our adult lives. The two sacraments were our first confession and then the reception of holy communion. First grade was the setting for most of the preparation which involved learning the basic tenants of the Catholic faith and how those beliefs were a part of each of our lives. Our teacher (I can’t remember her name) used a book called a Catechism to teach us what we needed to know to be ready for confession and communion. Along with the beginnings of reading, writing and arithmetic, first grade was spent learning the Catechism being ready to demonstrate our knowledge and understanding about the sacraments. All the preparation lead up to early May when we told the priest that we committed sins, that we were sorry, wanted forgiveness and would try not to sin anymore. The confession forgave the sins and the priest asked us to pray as a penance and a thanks for forgiveness. The next Saturday May, 7th our whole First grade class went to church to receive holy communion. All of our families were there to celebrate. All the boys were dressed up, had flowers on our jackets and carried prayer books. The girls wore special white dresses with lace veils and carried flowers. After communion we all went home to a big party and to continue celebrating. Nana, aunts, uncles, and cousins were there, and I got many cards with checks and money, congratulating me, commemorating the day. Mom and Dad were proud, and I was feeling very special.

During my years at Immaculate Conception another parish was being established closer to our home in the projects. The area where we lived has grown extensively with many one- and two-family houses and apartment buildings and developments. The new parish was Saints Philip and James . A new church and school were built on Boston Road for the families and children in the parish. Even before the church was finished being built, mass was held in the Jewish synagogue on Seymour Avenue. The church and school were completed by September 1953, and that’s where I began 2nd grade and would attend school until graduating to go to high school.

Sister Cyprian was my 2nd grade teacher. The school had a mix of nuns (religious sisters) and lay teachers. Sister Cyprian was a Sister of Saint Dominic, a Dominican nun from an order based in Blauvelt New York. She was among the older nuns very strict but very nice. My one real memory of her concerned a classmate Bobby Doonan, who also lived in the projects. Bobbies father, Michael was a bread delivery man who drove a truck for Wonder Bread. He would regularly stop by school and leave bread and baked goods with sister Cyprian. Naturally, Bobbie was a favorite of our teacher. Bobbie was a friend and classmate right up through 8th grade. We lost contact after that, but he was a helicopter pilot during the Viet Nam war and an air traffic controller after that. Unfortunately, he was one of the air traffic controllers fired by President Ronald Regan when the controllers went on strike in 1981.

My days at Saints Philip and James were wonderful. Our class was very large - sixty boys and girls. We were the vanguard of the baby boomer generation. The happy consequence of all those soldiers returning from the 2nd World War to their wives and sweethearts. I’m pleased to say that I remember most of those classmates their names and personalities. We shared many good times. I was a good student, an altar boy with religious aspirations that put me on the good side of my teachers.

Now about those times tables. Second grade was a breeze, no major academic challenges. Our “readers” were full of stories about Dick and Jane their sister Sally and dog Spot. There may have been a cat but I might be suppressing that. The stories were all based on American suburban life, very little diversity.

Third grade started well enough and it ended well also but along the way I encountered multiplication. Multiplication in its worst form the times tables. I’ve tried to analyze the root of my problem over the years and think I have some insight.

To start though let me tell you the symptoms. A common teaching device for the tables was the drill. Someone, in my case my Mom would randomly pull a number pair and present it as - what’s Number 1 x Number 2, (say seven times eight). That was enough to throw me into a panic. I would find myself “fishing” for the right answer. Not arithmetically by adding eight to some known quantity or subtracting eight from another number, I would try to come up with the right answer the way you would answer - “What’s the capital of South Dakota?” -trying desperately to remember what “seven times eight” was the last time I had seen or heard the right answer. Often my Mom would start these drills in the back seat of our car on what would otherwise have been a pleasant outing, maybe an errand or just an afternoon drive. To be honest i don’t even remember us having a car at the time. Anyway I would soon be in tears, terribly frustrated by not being able to respond correctly. After an agonizing pause Mom would offer up, - “ok what’s five times six?” That would compound the panic, hell “five time six” isn’t even in the same part of the country as “seven times eight”. This could lead to a complete melt down complete with a tantrum and breath holding. Meantime Joanne would sit quietly but smugly figuring out fifty-six and thirty. To her credit and with my gratitude she never shouted these answers out but clearly, she had a mathematical orientation that I was missing.