The Last of the Priestleys: Sports Legends

By Eddie Brady

The Priestleys have been described as “one of the most noted athletic families in this section of the country in a generation.”

This unique tribute described four brothers, whose potential professional hockey and football careers with the Chicago Black Hawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Philadelphia Eagles were cut short by their service with the United States military during World War II. The sports they excelled in ranged from ice hockey, football, baseball, track, and golf. Despite the travails of the Great Depression and World War II, this family overcame unbearable personal tragedies and traumas to lead successful lives that inspired their era and to this day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796012194

Eddie Brady

He graduated from Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, with a major in business as well as graduating from Suffolk University School of Law, also in Boston, Massachusetts. He was invited to be a guest columnist and was published in suburban newspapers in the Boston Metropolitan area. He practiced law as in a corporate environment, as well as being a self-employed sole practitioner, specializing in personal injury law and civil trial practice. His published writings included memoirs, short story collections, a novel, a novelette, and a screenplay.

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Copyright © 2019 by Eddie Brady.

ISBN:                Softcover                978-1-7960-1220-0

                          eBook                     978-1-7960-1219-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Photo used with the permission of the Melrose Free Press.

Rev. date: 03/28/2019

Xlibris

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Contents

PART ONE

Chapter 1     Joseph Priestley

Chapter 2     J.B. Priestley

Chapter 3     The British Bridge to Melrose, Massachusetts

Chapter 4     Bernard Priestley

PART TWO

Chapter 5     Gilbert Priestley

Chapter 6     Robert B. Priestley

Chapter 7     Olive Marie Priestley

Chapter 8     Warren Priestley

PART THREE

Chapter 9     Russell Priestley

Chapter 10   Infamous Cocoanut Grove Fire

Chapter 11   Pilot Training

Chapter 12   Home

Chapter 13   The Eyes Have It

PUBLICATIONS BY EDDIE BRADY

LAST IN MY CLASS

How Gallows Humor helped me to survive an alcoholic father.

GOOD GRIEF!

About relationships. And other short stories that make you wish they were shorter.

GEORGIE! MY GEORGIE!

The Story of America’s greatest forgotten War hero.

A CASE OF FIRST IMPRESSION

Massachusetts had never seen its like. And other stories.

Continued:

OVER THE RAIL

Courtroom Trauma

MALPRACTICE

Courtroom Trauma, 2nd Edition

GENDER WARS

How humor can make peace (or war).

THE LAST OF THE PRIESTLEYS

Sports Legends

SCREEN PLAY

Dilboy’s Wars

A tragedy in love and war.

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DEDICATION

TO NANCY

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Joseph Priestley

J OSEPH PRIESTLEY WAS born on March 13, 1733 in Fieldhead, Birstall, in the West Riding section of Yorkshire, about six miles southwest of Leeds, England, not to put too fine a point to it.

He was a scientist, clergyman & author. In fact, he authored more than one hundred fifty works of publication. He had a contentious & controversial nature that clashed with traditional thinking. For example, he supported the French Revolution, raising the ire of the British aristocracy & government. He audaciously wrote against the religious doctrines of the Church of England, challenging their belief system. As a clergyman, he helped found the more liberal Unitarian Church in England.

Oblivious to his critics, he ruffled the feathers of the scientific community by his contrary findings against the current of thought in science. For example, he conducted experiments in the properties of air that led him to discover oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state. He was a chemist who invented soda water, wrote about electricity that was inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s discoveries, and with whom he consulted when Franklin lived for a time in England. Priestley had his own scientific discoveries of several airs, as gases were then called. His most famous discovery was of oxygen. Breathing the intake of air was always available, and universally taken for granted, until it was restricted. Then some scientific thinkers began to wonder what it was; what were its constituent elements, and different types of gases; chlorine gas, mustard gas, etc…

Priestley’s second great discovery was carbonated water in 1767, or soda water as it was also called. But since it had a strange and disagreeable taste, Priestley quickly discarded it. However, forty years later a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA druggist took a longer look at Priestley’s carbonated water, mixed it with different flavorings to make it more palatable, and discovered soda pop. Unfortunately, for Joseph Priestley, todays popular colas could have been pre-discovered as Priestley Colas had he experimented further. Such is fate.

In any event, back in his day, for Priestley’s daring & inflexible views against popular thought, he aroused the public to riot. After a mob burned down both his house and his church in Birmingham, he fled England in 1791 to the American Colonies, where there was more tolerance for variant opinions. He spent his last ten years in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, where he died February 6, 1804, mourned & revered by Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States of America.

CHAPTER TWO

J.B. Priestley

J OHN BOYNTON PRIESTLEY was born on September 13, 1894 and died on August 14, 1984 at age 89 in Stratford-Upon- Avon, Warwickshire, England. He appears to be related to the aforementioned Joseph Priestley inasmuch as he also was born i n West Riding Section of Yorkshire, England. He was a noted novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, social commentator and broadcaster.

At age sixteen he worked as a junior clerk at a wool firm from 1910-1914. During this period of time he started writing at night and had articles published in local & London newspapers.

Priestley thereafter served in the British Army in World War One as a volunteer and joined the 10th Battalion, Duke of Wellington Regiment. Badly wounded in France in 1916, when he was buried alive by a trench-mortar,