[Certainly one of the most evocative tapes.  My brother Jim does a great job of asking my mom about key incidents in her life.  My mother candidly replies and you can get a clear view of her as a person.  Most noteworthy is getting through my brother Ed’s polio sickness and later pneumonia.  My father has passed away (October 1975).  My mother had ovarian cancer and it seems she is taking chemotherapy at the time the tape was made.  I put it about 1992 or 1993.  Matt McGuire, 2010]

 

[Transcriptionist’s Note: Speakers not identified at start of recording, but into the tape, it appears to be Clare McGuire [Bonn Conners, my mother] (C) and James Patrick McGuire [my brother] (J).]

 

C:[inaudible]

 

J:That’s a new one.

 

C:And, Matt’s favorite trick was to get behind her and drop a quarter or a dime …

 

J:Nana was deaf, she had to have – she had a hearing aid.

 

C:She never had a hearing aid.

 

J:No, she didn’t have a hearing aid.

 

C:Course not.  She didn’t have one, she wouldn’t wear glasses either.

 

J:And, that’s why Dad didn’t have a hearing aid, until he was ...?

 

C:Well, he had to, yeah, in court, cause he couldn’t understand the bench conference.  [laughter]

 

J:So, Nana …

 

C:And, Kathleen never wore glasses and her pupils were pinpoints.  I don’t know how she ever said, saw – or read anything, but glasses …

 

J:How long – let me as ask you another question [inaudible].  How long did this pattern of, uh, the medicine being delivered to the front door, I’m not sure whether it was Canadian Club or Seagrams or something being delivered – how long did that go on?

 

C:I have no idea. 

 

J:I knew – when I was older …

 

C:I know that neither Matt nor Jim ever drank until they were 50 and the doctor told Matt simply that he had to when he came home from court – to have a glass of wine with his stuff – relax.  And, Mary Sullivan had us down one New Year’s Eve and, uh, Connie made Southern Comfort that was just pure fruit and Mary just walked in and she just looked at Jim and she said, “Oh, for God’s sakes, come on, it’s New Year’s Eve, won’t hurt you a bit.  Here.  Try one of these.”  And, that was the first time Jim ever drank.  Uh, but, they always had liquor in Nana’s room and every night they went into Nana’s room and shut the door and she and Kathleen had a drink together, or two, or whatever.  Nana loved, um, crème de menthe.  God knows what else she loved.

 

J:How, how old were you when Nana – like early teens, when Nana died?

 

C:Mary Ann was married.

 

J:She was older than Matt.  [I was 16 when my grandmother died.]

 

C:Yeah.  Because, um, Matt was an altar boy and he was twelve.  And, uh …

 

J:I must’ve been 18.

 

C:Yeah.  Mary Ann was eight years older than Matt, so she was like 21 or – 2.

 

J:She married that young?

 

C:She got out of Emmanuel, worked for Computron [actually Raytheon] – uh, no, she went to, uh, Radcliff to, uh – she knew she didn’t want to teach, she was sure, uh, so she took a business course and got a job as a secretary at Computron in Watertown and worked ten months and got married, when you and Eddie were still in college ...

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:... and Matt was in grammar school, or high school.

 

J:I remember, I remember walking down the stairs, I remember, um, her making toast.  I, I don’t remember her reading, I remember always sort of, sort of giving me a nickel or a dime or a quarter. 

 

C:She was very good. 

 

J:And, I remember Kathleen always being a little bit daft.

 

C:I had a big, big fight with Nana after Eddie had polio.  T.J. used to pull him around in the cart because he couldn’t stand up or run.

 

J:T.J. Connors?  [Our backdoor neighbors]

 

C:Yeah, a little red cart.  And, there was always a puddle in front of the front stairs and that was home and, evidently, she got on his back about making a mess of the property, you know.  She was very proud of the fact that, uh …

 

J:Kathleen or Nana?

 

C:Nana.

 

J:She could also get very upset about us crawling all over …

 

C:Anything.

 

J:… the fences.

 

C:Yeah, any of those.  She’d be down the minute you started up the fence and – so, he was home and, uh – but, there were two incidences – I didn’t tell him this story.  Anyway, she came downstairs and – I’m thinking there were two of them – she came down one time and she said something to me – she said that, uh, they were out in the – a puddle in front of the steps and Ma wouldn’t like it.  And, uh, I don’t know what I said back to her, but she as much as said – she thought it’d be nice ala Charlestown if he came in the back door instead of the front door – that was for the visitors and company – and, so she got me mad.  And, so I said to her, I had always had a roof over my head as long as I lived and I would continue to have one – and I forget what she said something to the effect that she would tell Pa when he came in, at which point, I punched out the back window in the back door – into smithereens.  I said go ahead and tell her.  I don’t mind a bit.  He came in – a little bit later on he came down and whenever – he came in from wherever he was – and he said something about it and I said, uh, I’ve already spoken to your mother and I said, I will discuss with Jim when he comes home and we will see what we will do, if it’s bothering her that much.  So, I just went on about my business and he went upstairs and then about half to three-quarters of an hour, he came back with a big box of chocolates for me – Brigham’s.  He came in – did I tell you this?

 

J:Yeah, you told me a couple times.  I love hearing it every time.

 

C:But, he just said to me, uh, my mother was on my back.  And, he said, I’m sorry I came down and I said anything, he said, you know, he knew about Eddie and stuff and he said, uh – but, he said, I tell you what, Clare, let’s agree not to say anything to Jim when he comes home because he said, you know, Jim gets ugly.  I said, well, okay, we’ll see.  There’ll be no more discussion about it.  Nana never spoke to me again about anything you did.  But, I had just had – I just would not stay and I wouldn’t have. 

 

J:I remember now her being very upset about Eddie and I climbing along the fence.

 

C:Oh, yeah.

J:When I moved next door.

 

C:But, she loved you and she was responsible.  She was most lenient with your father.

 

J:Mostly what?

 

C:Most lenient.

 

J:Yeah?

 

C:Your father would play cards all night at the, at the, uh, K of C [Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic Men’s Association].  Played cards – poker all night long, come home in the morning.  Did it when they were out here in Belmont and what he would do is, Kathleen and, uh, Mother, and their cat, were all in bed.  They didn’t get up in the morning and when Jim came in, he would go into their bedroom and then – he never put money in any particular place, anything he won, he just stuck in his pocket – odd pockets.  So, he’d go into the bedroom and he’d just empty all his pockets on their bed and they’d be as happy as clams. 

 

J:He’d share his winnings and give all his winnings?

 

C:He’d give all his winnings.

 

J:He was a good card player.

 

C:Yeah.  He loved cards, better than anything else.

 

J:Who was Dad friends, besides yourself?

 

C:There had been many.  All men had a special kinship with him.  Uh …

 

J:But, Dad never really had any of his friends to the house, that I remember.

 

C:T.J. – no, except friends we made here as couples.

 

J:Yeah.

 

C:We’d run around in a group here.  But, you didn’t continue with your school teacher friends who married and many went to different professions, uh, the phone rang here one night and, uh, it’s Monsignor Sheridan, and he asked to speak to your father and so he spoke to your father and, uh, the next thing I knew was, Jim said to me, I’m going over to the rectory for a while and so he did and he came back and I never knew what happened.  I’m pretty sure it was a marriage, uh, that was annulled or something, but that was confidential.  So, I could live to be 133 and your father would never tell me.  I mean, in a sense, he was a man’s man, you know, I don’t mean that he wouldn’t share everything with me, but not anything that was – for him – that he had asked to be quiet about.  Uh, I don’t know anyone who didn’t like him.

 

J:I was talking about who was Dad close to and I don’t remember Dad being close to anybody.

 

C:Monahan.  As a kid.

 

J:Monahan.

 

C:No question.  But, got along well with other people.

J:I’m talking about getting along with other people.

 

C:No, no, he worked.

 

J:The other thing I remember about is I …

 

C:Good father.

 

J:The other thing I remember is [name], was that his name?  [Walter Lawlor (spelling?)]

 

C:Yeah. 

 

J:You really …

 

C:[My father] He hated him.

 

J:And, you didn’t like him very much either.

 

C:I mean, your father did not like him.

 

J:No, but you didn’t like him either.

 

C:Of course, I didn’t.

 

J:And, there was this issue of whether Lawlor should be the …

 

C:Please don’t.

 

J:Whether Lawlor should be the chief probation officer or whether Dad should have been.

 

C:Well, Matt was always inclined to tell him he could be anything – that Matt could do it.  Your father would never go for that.  I will not walk over somebody else’s body to get something. 

J:Good.

 

C:He would never do that.  And, he was a wonderful speaker and I never knew it and they asked him to speak at St. Joseph’s [the Catholic elementary school we went to in Belmont, MA] and he did and I went down and listened to him – he gave an excellent talk.  Uh, Matt was known to be a wonderful speaker, but I was actually surprised to find your father was just as good if not better than Matt – from the reaction of the, uh, parent-teachers down at St. Joseph’s.  But, I was always very, very much in love with him.

 

J:Good.  So, Marianne – what would you – how would you describe Marianne as a, as a baby?

 

C:Cute as a button.  Couldn’t be cuter.  Damn near got killed.  Father went out the door without saying goodbye to her and went to work.  They used to leave their house that way, they never said goodbye, they just disappeared and, uh, he was backing out and she had run out.  The woman across the street almost had a fainting spell because she was sure he was going to run over her, but he didn’t, thank God.  I evidently discovered that she was gone and ran …

 

J:How old was she then, two?

 

C:Maybe three.  Two or three.  We had lots of – the year that my mother died – she was here, Mary [my mother’s sister, Mary Gravelle Bonn Connors] was pregnant – Mary had placenta previa.

 

J:That was a bad year.

 

C:God-awful.  Up on the top shelf there was digitalis, my mother was taking digitalis.  Lyle, he managed to have about four or five.  He’d climb up to that top shelf and get the digitalis down.  And, there were 11 of us in the house.

 

J:In this house?

 

C:In this house.  On this floor.  [about 800 square feet]  With my mother dying and with Mary in the hospital …

 

J:Sure.

 

C:… with Fred [Aunt Mary’s husband] here and with Larry [Aunt Mary’s son] here and with you three …

 

J:Molly [Aunt Mary’s daughter] must have been around.

 

C:Probably.  And, me taking, uh, the pep pill that made you use weight.

 

J:Dexedrine?

 

C:I forget the name of it.

 

J:It must have made you feel pretty good, too, because then …

 

C:Wonderful.  And, Pat came home from England and came out to take a look at Eddie and visit – he would visit anyway upstairs and down, cause I fed them, I fed Matt and Pat and made jelly and stuff like that and they’d come down and have crackers and talk half the night and Pat’s moseying around and he’s – gets a hold of Jim and he says to Jim, what’s Clare taking, and Jim said, I don’t know, some kind of pill, she’s trying to lose weight.  He said, and find it and dump it down the toilet right away.  And, that was all, because I couldn’t find it and the house was crazy to begin with. 

 

J:Must have been.

 

C:And, quite – quite a while later, I said to him, Pat, why did you tell Jim that?  He says because you never should take anything like that when you’re under stress.  It’s alright with you’re under no stress, but at your time, it was no time for you take anything.  So …

 

J:So, he sounds like a good brother.

 

C:Oh, yeah, yeah.  He was a great man.

 

J:And, he died young.

 

C:Uh, his mother controlled his life.  His mother used the hell out of him.  And, he had a bunch of loafer brothers.  His father had a big valve business and none of them had any business sense at all.  And, they really ruined the business and Pat knew it.  Course Pat was the smart one in the family and, you know, you can’t turn around and say, you’re dumb, brother.

 

J:So, how – so, and, Pat never got married?

 

C:No.  He had a, a girl, but …

 

J:That was ugly to, to look at?

 

C:No, she was nice looking.

 

J:No, I mean he.

 

C:Uh, well, not to me.

 

J:Not to you.

C:Never to me.  Uh, he had a lion head.

 

J:That’s right, big head.

 

C:Yup.  And, curly, curly hair.

 

J:So, when you named me James Patrick – and my …

 

C:I named you and he, he was your godfather.

 

J:Right.

 

C:And, was that the Pat for Patrick?

 

J:That was the Patrick you’re named for.

 

C:And, I couldn’t have named you for a better man.

 

J:So, and Kathleen was godmother.  [laughter]

 

C:Well, she was his only sister, there wasn’t anything I could about that.  I figured when you had one so good, a bad one wouldn’t matter.  Wouldn’t anyway. 

 

J:Kathleen was very fond of me.

 

C:She was a riot.  She was terrible.Boy, did they work as a team.

 

J:Who?

 

C:Kathleen, her mother, Matt.  Poor Eleanor [my Uncle Matt’s wife, Eleanor McCarthy Bonn].  I’ve always been very fond of Eleanor because Eleanor and I were somewhat in the same position, but we were able to hold our own.

 

J:Actually, Eleanor – I mean, I think Eleanor very much enjoyed the kids were here.

 

C:Oh, she loved you.

 

J:But, she, uh, found us McGuire[s] as opposed to the rest of the world.

 

C:Oh,  no question.  She never – she always – she, she wants more than anything to get Matt’s body moved up here.  And, it’s a bit of revenge in a way because he never spent the time with her family that she spent with his and now she wants him alone up where all the rest of her family is buried.

 

J:Maybe she’ll listen to him.

 

C:Huh?

 

J:Maybe he’ll listen to her.

 

C:I don’t know, she’s asking Billy [name] who probably is a mover and a doer and if he gets in touch with the right person.  She …

 

J:What she said to me is that Matt very rarely listened to anybody.

 

C:Well, that’s true.  Listened to your father Jim though – if necessary.

 

J:Well, I think, uh, he envied Dad.

 

C:He envied Dad like Mary envied me.  Very subtle, crazy about us, but I married before Mary.  They take her right away to, uh, Washington on a trip with Aunt Ann [Anna Barrett, my great-aunt] and mother and father and my father had a wonderful time because he sat in the Willard Hotel and had a mint julep in honor of his father [John Conners] the young Irish immigrant who walked down that street in the defenses of Washington, as a young …

 

J:His father?

 

C:His father.  His father and his brother both enlisted in a rather famous Company K 77th New York.  He went through 13 or 15 battles, uh, Antietam [including the Wilderness, Cold Harbor] …

 

J:In the Civil War?

 

C:In the Civil War.  And, he just sat there and had a mint julep and tears came to his eyes and he thought of his father – was a young immigrant who dug the Erie Canal and then for $30.00 bought his way into the Civil War – for some young, rich New Yorker, whose father could pay conscription.  And, he was in the war for two or three years.  You have a set of the books and that.  Yeah.  And, so, Mary was down there for a week or more and they were – she went around to different famous spots and stuff.  And, when I look back at it, I realized it was because her youngest sister was married and gone and stuff, you know.  Then Fred [Fred Gravelle, my Aunt Mary’s husband] was, Fred was touch and go for a long time.  [inaudible] Actually, proposing getting married. 

 

J:But, she had known Fred since she was little.

 

C:More when we were old enough to go to dances and things.

 

J:Yeah.

 

C:Oh ...

J:How was it when Eddie had polio?  That must have been just remarkably ...

 

C:Scary as hell.  We were up in New York.  My life was not without a certain amount of turmoil.

 

J:Something tells me very, very hard time.

 

C:I was up in New York with you and Mary Ann and Eddie and Marianne was having a low period and needed some rest, so I also had Molly and Larry.

 

J:So, how old was, uh, how old was Eddie, he was about four?

 

C:Four.  So, Larry was three ...

 

J:Molly was two.

 

C:... you were five.

 

J:And, Mary Ann was six.

 

C:Yeah.

 

J:And, Larry, six.

 

J:You had six, five, four, three, two.

 

C:Yeah, and Larry just, Larry just did not think you should be Eddie’s brother.  He really thought it’d be alright if Donnie [Aunt Mary’s youngest son] was Eddie’s brother.  But, uh, that Donnie was your brother and Eddie was his brother.

 

J:Sounds like a fair trade.

 

C:Cause I never – I, I can see the scar now, when he picked up a rock and hurled it. 

 

J:So, it wasn’t Eddie who threw the rock at me, it was ...

 

C:No, no, it was Larry.

 

J:Larry threw a rock at me.

 

C:Cause I saw it.  You were out in the yard.

 

J:Out by the barn?

 

C:Huh?

 

J:Out by the barn.

 

C:Out in the backyard.

 

J:Yeah.

 

C:But, that was innate with him, he evidently resented Donnie, so – and, I don’t blame him because I’m sure that Donnie was always rather clever at blaming the blame on Larry rather than himself.  But ...

 

J:So, you were up there with six, five, four, three, and two?

 

C:You were very sick up there, too, you had a very high blood count.

 

J:With mono?

 

C:One summer.  No, you just had a high blood count that they didn’t know what it was, but it was taken over in Saratoga Hospital, but then it cleared up, it was an infection of some kind and it just was you were very sick.  Uh, when Eddie had his, he – I can see him on the side porch and he had a gun that went rat-tat-tat-tat and he went around shooting butterflies.  And, his color was high [August 26] and it was his birthday and he went to bed and he began to hallucinate and then the temperature was wild and he had, uh – he just was – he would go from a perfectly prone position to his feet in one movement, so the fever was running sky-high.  Uh, the doctor there was Gregory Robb, he was medical school.  Uh, next to Pat, one of the finest doctors I ever knew and he came up and that was when I was still, but – there was couch downstairs and Ed was down there and I – Bob wanted to carry him upstairs at night, but he wouldn’t let Bob touch him.  The only one that could carry him upstairs at night was me, of course, but then we decided it would be better if I stayed down and, uh, one night I brought him up and he insisted that these creatures from outer space, uh, were climbing, they had a ladder, they got in the barn and they were climbing up and they were gonna come in the window and get him.  So, the doctor said to me, the best thing you can do if the fever doesn’t break – which it does in 24 hours or so – and, he said, if he doesn’t have any other – any complaints – he said, you’re fine, but he said, uh, I would suggest since, since you live right outside of Boston, you would go home as quickly as you could and, uh  – any further complaints, take him to Children’s.  So, I had to, we had to get a hold of Mary, so Mary and Fred could come up and get their children and, uh ...

 

J:Was Dad there? 

 

C:Yeah.  It was like Labor Day weekend.  It was right after his birthday.  And, so we came down.  It was quite a ride and we get down here and ...

 

J:What was special about the ride?

 

C:Uh ...

 

J:Sick kids in the car?

 

C:Nerves, yeah, whole thing all ...

 

J:You were still worrying about whether Eddie’s gonna die.

 

C:Yeah, absolutely.  And, so, we got down, got everybody in, got everybody to bed and we – you had bunk beds in the backroom.

 

J:Um, huh.  Blue bunk beds.

 

C:Uh, huh, I forget the color.  But, in the morning, I heard Eddie’s voice and Eddie said to me, uh, I can’t stand or I can’t stand up, and I said, oh, you’ll be fine Eddie and I walked in to be sure everything was fine, which it wasn’t.  Uh, but he had a little tricycle and, uh – but he said, I can ride my tricycle and he got on his tricycle and came out here.  And, children – he was just four – and, at that age, they can sit on the floor for hours or sit in the backyard for hours and do things like that, so you never could tell, and what the doctor told me to be sure of was to be sure that I didn’t play into any, uh – I have muscle pains or this or that.

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:But, anyway, I took him to Bennett, whom I never liked, uh, he replaced Pat – they were friends, but Bennett wasn’t the doctor Pat was – and, um, I didn’t take him, I called him and he said, uh, oh, pay no attention to him, kids that age very often have muscle cramps and stuff, and so he said, just don’t pay any attention to him.  And, so it was obvious that he needed paying attention to and it was the feast of St. Francis Xavier and it’s rather bizarre to speak of now the way religion has gone, but, uh, the arm of St. Francis Xavier was here as a relic at the Jesuit House in Boston ...

 

J:[laughter]

 

C:... and Matt knew about it and, so, Matt, of course, was well-known.

 

J:Which of St. Francis’ arms were there?

 

C:Assisi.  Assisi.  [Saint Francis of Assisi]

 

J:Actually, I’m saying to you that the way the things work out they, they checked his, uh, arms and if there as many pieces of arms as they say, that probably he was a multi-armed individual.

 

C:I don’t believe that either. 

 

J:Which one?

 

C:What, what you just told me.

 

J:You think it was a real arm?

 

C:Yes, I do.

 

J:Okay.

 

C:And, I don’t care who doesn’t.  That’s ...

 

J:Okay.

 

C:... beside the point.  But, at that time, as far as belief holding a person dear, uh, the fact that it was here and considered a relic.  Matt had called the home house of the Jesuits in Boston, probably the Immaculate ...

 

J:Okay.

 

C:... because that’s where they began more or less and so we took Ed in and, uh, Matt and your father brought him up and, uh, they blessed him with the arm and we went straight into Children’s Hospital and, at that time, Dr. Wyman – that the Wyman House is named for was there. 

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:And, it was a big scare, it wasn’t a true raging epidemic, but it was epidemic enough and so we went with him up to this big, big hall like, with lots of tables, just plain tables on it and what, uh, Wyman did was have Eddie lay out – lay Eddie out on the table and then he just took a hold of his feet and brought it up to his waist, bringing it straight up, and instead of getting it up like this, he got it up like that.  There was just kind of a slant.

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:And, so he just said, uh, the hamstrings are what has been affected.  And, he said normal child’s play – just let him do normal child’s play and that will eventually stretch those hamstrings, which was true.

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:Except that it also eventually did this to his feet, as it pull up – pulled the – his ...

 

J:His feet, uh, turned down?

 

C:No.  The arch became like this.

 

J:Yeah, big around.

 

C:Very high.

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:  And, then, of course, all the trouble he’s had since and there’s naturally arthritis and all that stuff in his spine.  But, if you consider up until the time he was in the Navy with all the deep sea diving and stuff, uh ...

 

J:He was in great shape.

 

C:... and began to get face squashes after a certain depth, you know, he’d come up with a face full of blood – red from blood – he did, he did certainly – for anyone who had even mild polio, if polio can be mild, uh, he did very well.

 

J:So, when they had this arm, a whole arm or did they have ...

 

C:I think it was a whole arm.  Why the hell they would cut off his arm, to make people better, it’s kind of bizarre, but ...

 

J:Well, I, I didn’t mean – I think what you believe in is really what happens.  St. Francis of Assisi – I, I would think that, uh, believing in St. Francis of Assisi, I believe in St. Francis of Assisi, what I’m saying to you is that, is that during the Middle Ages when the Church knew that they can make money ...

 

C:Oh ...

 

J:... on relics ...

 

C:Oh, Jim ...

 

J:... that they took the pieces of the cross ...

 

C:Um, huh.

 

J:... they had more pieces of the cross than you could have for a hundred crosses and St. Francis of Assisi who I think – I told you he’s the one who was responsible for the crib – that he’s the person who devised the crib and he did it, uh, because, uh, that they had these other kinds of ceremonies for the for the rich people and he brought theater to, uh, Christmas ...

 

C: Well...

 

J:... and had people like, uh, the manger scene.

 

C:When you consider what he was in, uh, China or Japan, I mean – how well respected he was, uh, he was certainly a man of very unusual talents.  I don’t know, I have – Mary Ann gave me a relic of Mother Seton and I keep looking at it and I keep saying to myself, it’s – there’s a bone of some kind – it’s infinitesimal, but I was happy she had it and I was happy that she gave it to me and I put it on my nightgown at night. 

 

J:Good.

 

C:Uh, some ...

 

J:I think that St. Francis of Assisi will stand upon you and is concerned about you and will take good care of you.

C:Um, huh.  Well, of course, [inaudible] was St. Clare.  [inaudible]

 

J:Sounds like they’re back.

 

C:That just, yeah, that’s right Mary Ann’s car was here.  Gonna say hello to ‘em?  Like a niece and nephew?

 

J:Probably.

 

C:You like the punch line. 

 

J:Yeah.

 

[pause on tape]

 

C:She’s just a name on the letter of somebody testing, uh, and for the bed, she has charge of my bed when I go in for the chemo.

 

J:Um, huh.

 

C:... uh, she said something about, uh – I asked her about – am I in your way?

 

J:No.

 

C:Call Donna.

 

J:No, actually, I’m not gonna do that, what I’m going to do is I’m gonna take this out and I’m gonna – you sit down and I’m just gonna take this out and put the other back in cause that was charging your battery.

 

C:Oh, that’s all right. My battery, I think was overcharged most of the time. 

 

J:So, Jennie Anderson said ...

 

C:Uh, I, oh, Dr., uh, oh, I said, this is supposed to consultation.  I don’t need these tubes, do I, Jim, so I should tear them up.  I don’t need that one for nausea and I don’t need the other one.  Okay. 

 

J:You need the one for [inaudible], it’s been very helpful.

 

C:I have those, yeah.  Uh, and so, uh, I said this is supposed to be a consultation as to whether I will need another, um, chemotherapy, and she said, oh, I have nothing to do with that.  She said be sure and ask Dr. Fuller.  I said, I saw Dr. Fuller once before I came out of there.  She said, well, be sure that you tell them that you want to hear.  You wanta speak to Dr. Fuller.  I said, after I’ve had the chemotherapy?  And she said, yes.  And, I’m thinking, that’s great, I won’t know my name, let alone ask him ...

 

J:He hasn’t been an easy man to reach either.

 

C:I’m going to call Dr. Dalton tomorrow and tell him when I’m going in and he can manage to say – he told me he wants to be there.  Okay?

 

J:Sounds good to me. 

 

C:So, did you get everything packed? 

 

J:I think so. 

 

C:Do you want a sleeping pill?  Are you taking the antibiotic?  How many glasses of pure wholesome water have you had so far today? 

 

J:This is mother’s sweet revenge to minor surgery as opposed to major surgery.  Uh, and, Patrick died in a Marine hospital where?

 

C:In Brighton.

 

J:And, why a Marine hospital as opposed to ...

 

C:I don’t know, he was a veteran and he chose to go there.  He served during the war.

 

J:And, he died of hypertension.

 

C:Yup.  Didn’t want anyone to know he was there.

 

J:And, Kathleen was, uh, particularly fond of him, why didn’t she ...

 

C:No, she just was sure she was as close to him as Matt if not closer.

J:Um, huh.

 

C:She wasn’t exactly his kind of date.

 

J:I remember Kathleen coming down here.  I’m not sure who was sick, I think it was Mary Ann or Eddie ...

 

C:Eddie.

 

J:... and she was just nuts.

 

C:I had a big easy chair, original furniture, moved into that small one because that was when Eddie had, truly had pneumonia, truly had the crisis.  God, Eddie had everything the best way you could possibly get it, so I knew the only way I would sleep was to sleep in the chair and, uh, so Bennett was taking care of him and, uh, he was like the red over there in that – that’s the color of his face – and I knew from his breathing that he was at a crisis and I ran up the stairs and I opened the door without going all the way up and just said, Nana – she was in the kitchen – I said, come down.  And, I ran right back down because I did not wish Eddie to die alone, that was my thought at the time.  And, I came back down and I held his hand and eventually the breathing eased.  I had put in a call and Bennett did come out, maybe half an hour later or sometime, and so, he came in and he looked at him and he said, um, he’s alright, his fever has broken, he’s been through the crisis, so that was fine, so all he had to do then was get better.  So, Kathleen came in that night and – from work – and asked me if she could go in and see Eddie, I said, yes, on one condition, I said that you don’t, uh, do anything to dramatic and you don’t cry or you don’t yell or do any of those things.  And, she came – and she walked in the room and I was sitting there ahead of her and – [wailing] oh, my poor baby – I just took her by the shoulders and pushed her right out of the room.

 

J:She did that more than once.

 

C:Oh, yeah, but that was the time it was important because it was not a time to upset Eddie unnecessarily.

 

J:Right.

 

C:And, I pushed her right out and I said you can’t come in, can’t come in until you can control yourself, but she was the dramatist in the family.

 

J:So, what was I like as a kid – little kid?

 

C:Happy. 

 

J:Played a lot with Mary Ann?  How did I feel about having Eddie as a brother?

 

C:You were close.

 

J:How did I feel about having [inaudible], did we do the same thing that this is Jimmy’s brother?

 

C:You were really, yeah, and you were really  ...

 

J:What a great idea.  What a great idea.

 

C:... you both were really so young that who’s another thing sort of with arms and legs,  you know.  You’re not rivals when you’re a year apart.  I don’t think.  Uh, Matt was wonderful to try to make you rivals, but it never did happen.  You were pretty clear-headed kids.  And, you got along well with all your friends and you had similar friends.  You had different friends, but you also had similar friends.  You were close with Billy Fallon.  Uh, I don’t know who Eddie was close with. 

 

J:[inaudible]

 

C:You were well-liked.

 

J:Charlie O’Connor and ...

 

C:You were all well-liked.

 

J:... and Regens and ...

 

C:I’m not saying you were loved, I’m just saying like ordinary kids, you were liked.

 

J:Yeah.

 

C:And, you were certainly liked at school and so was Ed.

 

J:Well, I can remember, I, I was not treated very well, I can roaming through that building ...

 

C:I’ll never forget the day that everybody was in church as they were and, uh, Sister Clarice – I was out in back someplace and Sister Clarice walked down and quietly extricated you from wherever you were and brought you back and sitting beside her so when you came home – could’ve been May Procession – could’ve been anything ...

 

J:May Procession was a wonderful thing.  [inaudible]

 

C:Yeah, anyway, this was in church here, of course, that she took you back – it must have been Benediction or something – and I said to you, Jimmy, uh, by the way why did Sister Clarice, uh, take you, uh, back to sit beside her?  And, you looked up at me and said to me, I don’t know, I guess she just likes me.  Since I’d taught school myself, I thought, well, that’s a very good cover story, the best one I ever heard.

 

J:Well, I probably believed it at the time.

 

C:I don’t doubt it.  Sister Mary John ...

 

J:There was one that was, uh – was that the – I, I remember Dad really playing the clarinet.

 

C:Yeah.

J:And, and, uh, there was this real desire to, uh, have some kind of musical sense in me and then I tried one instrument after another for about, uh, six weeks or six months, but, uh, none of them ...

 

C:She didn’t consider you gifted in music?

 

J:No, I think that she was ready to chase me out of the room a couple times.  There was some mischief about me because sometimes, just like being underneath the pews or – I can’t remember – they, they were building something at Trinity Academy and I got my hand caught under brick pile.  That’s why this finger’s like this.

 

C:You didn’t tell your mother that, that I remember.

 

J:I wasn’t smart enough.

 

C:You were smart enough.  Certain things you didn’t tell your mother.  You gonna have me worried if you don’t go home, I’m worried about your surgery.

 

J:Well, it’s time for me to go home then.

 

[My Side one tape copy ended here, so there’s a bit of a lapse.]

 

C:When I don’t wear it, I miss it.

 

J:I’m gonna have this stuff, Mother, that you were gonna have.

 

C:Fine.

 

J:So, that you have the, uh, the right stuff.

 

C:Fine, fine.  That’s one I made up.

 

J:The cognac is very good.

 

C:Oh, great. 

J:I’ll put it down here and that’s for me.

 

C:Listen, Jimmy ...

 

J:And, anyone you’d like to have it, but, uh ...

 

C:Jimmy, I want you to hide the cognac.

 

J:Who else drinks it?

 

C:I don’t know of anybody does. 

 

J:[inaudible] wants to drink it.

 

C:No, I don’t want anybody to drink it.  I buy Tanqueray for her.

 

J:Where do we, where do we put our cognac?

 

C:Uh ...

 

J:My cognac?

 

C:I myself would say, please put it in Mary Ann’s closet and take out a box – check for something and stick it in back.  I don’t want anybody to see it, Jim. 

 

J:[walking away to closet]  Okay, well, I know where it is.

 

C:Cause I just don’t trust it, I know Donnie’s an alcoholic and he’s probably wonderful, but ...

 

J:I don’t want anything in my cognac.

 

C:I don’t want it either.  He wants to become an alcoholic, he [inaudible].  Did I get sugar and a spoon?  I got a spoon.

 

J:Equal?

 

C:Uh, Sweet & Low.  Help yourself.  Well, how is the doggy and how is Donna. 

 

J:They’re fine.

 

C:Good.  I’m so glad you came. 

 

J:So, tell me about your mother’s illness again so that I understand that.

 

C:Well, she had asthma ...

J:The last thing we were talking about was your mother’s mother ...

 

C:Yeah.

 

J:... Mary Gannon married Robert Barrett and they had five kids.

 

C:Six.

 

J:Six kids.  And, then ...

 

C:Five of them died in the month of February.

 

J:In what year?

 

C:I don’t know, it’s, uh, famous for the diphtheria plague.  Everybody died.