An Orchid for a Silver Lining: If the Kitchen Table Could Talk

By Eileen O’Dea Roach

Awash with humor, insight, love, and the heartbreaks of life, An Orchid for a Silver Lining: If the Kitchen Table Could Talk is a full-length memoir beginning with the author’s parents’ emigration from Newfoundland to New York in 1922. Written in a whimsical, observational style and pace, the author details coming of age in Albany, New York, the military service of her father and brothers in WWI and WWII, alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, and parenthood. The orchid is a gift from her first love; the silver lining is a reward of recovery from alcoholism; and the kitchen table is the author’s voice.

About the Author
Eileen O’Dea Roach is the youngest of nine, lost in the shuffle of siblings, ages spread over twenty-four years. Her story is for those afraid to speak their truth. She earned an AD at Hudson Valley Community College, then a Bachelor of Arts in English from the College of Saint Rose while assistant to the college grant writer during her last year of study. Professionally, she spent years as a legal secretary, legislative assistant for NYS labor union, and is a member of United Steelworkers Staff Union.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: May 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890275455

Book preview

PART ONE

Chapter One:

Journey to America

images_364_Copy134.png Your attention please! New York Central Train No. 23, departing 10:45 p.m. for Harmon, Poughkeepsie, Hudson, and Albany on Track 18. All aboard. Date: October, 1922. Place: Grand Central Station, New York. Destination: Union Station, Albany, New York. Join me, please, on a journey beginning with my parents’ emigration from Newfoundland (ND) to America that ends with, well, read on.

Dad, ninth of fourteen children of John and Catherine (O’Keefe) O’Dea, was born at 16 York Street, St. John’s, ND  December 21, 1893. Baptized Leo Patrick in St. John the Baptist Cathedral by the Very Rev. Archdeacon O’Neill, godparents Sylvester and Mary Ellen O’Brien no family relation to my knowledge. Obituaries report deaths of John and Catherine’s infant daughters, Dad’s sisters, Bridget Maud, eleven months, Ellen Frances, three days old. Only miracles resulted in twelve siblings, Dad included, surviving to adulthood in hardscrabble British Colony St. John’s. Surnames O’Dea, O’Deaghaidh, Day or Deay frequently used sans O’ for political/religious reasons. Thankfully, Christian Brothers of Ireland taught Dad and his brothers in St. John’s Roman Catholic schools, encouraging families to revert to the Irish form (O’) to preserve Irish lineage.

Grandfather John O’Dea was foreman of Reid NL Company, owner and operator of NL Railway. Dad was listed in St. John’s 1913 City Directory as upholsterer for McGrath Brothers with a weekly salary of $9. Surviving eleven siblings – Mary Josephine, Eugene, Maud Mary, John, Edward, Ambrose, Ethel, Victoria, Gertrude, Frederick, and Lillian – worked in various trades as painter, clerk, electrician, milliner, tailoress for St. John’s Carnell Carriage Factory, P.F. Collins Co., J. Maunder, and Mark Chaplin, cousin Samuel listed as cabman for Brewer Lindbergh Brewery.

In The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe performed the role of a grieving Australian widower who, after his wife’s suicide, travels from their Outback farm to Istanbul, Turkey, finding bodies of his three sons killed in the World War I bloody battle at Gallipoli, Turkish port on the Crimean Sea. Wikipedia reports a social media campaign to protest and boycott the movie resulted in the Facebook page "Protest and Boycott the Water Diviner."

Descendants of victims of the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides were incensed by portrayal of Turks as victims while Turks committed atrocities against minorities. Film critics and Greek websites described the movie as "distortion of history that only serves to appease Turkey and its continued agenda of genocide denial."

In a toxic environment of dissention, what mattered most was Dad’s service and survival of the Gallipoli offensive a century ago. Employed as an upholsterer in ND, interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, he was twenty in 1914, when he enlisted as 186th soldier of the "First Five Hundred (521 soldiers/22 officers) of the ND Regiment, nicknamed Blue Puttees," distinguished by uniforms of blue puttee material rather than standard olive drab. Four days after Dad, his brother John enlisted, No. 455 in the First Five Hundred, sailing October 4, 1914, from St. John’s aboard HMS Florizel with 517 volunteers to join a Canadian convoy bound for England. While in the United Kingdom preparing for combat, their mother, Catherine Mary, affectionately called Kitty, died of stomach cancer the day after Christmas. Both devastated, neither allowed to return for her funeral, Dad’s subsequent exposure to trauma of frontline war service triggered later struggles with alcohol, in turn, precipitating mine.

Dad served the entire five years of the Great War, surviving numerous bloody battles, especially Gallipoli, facing snipers, artillery fire, severe cold, cholera, dysentery, typhus, gangrene, and trench foot. John Galishaw’s 1916 memoir, Trenching at Gallipoli. A Newfoundland soldier’s story of the First World War, was a firsthand account of Newfoundlanders at Gallipoli who "stood up well, eating bully beef, one-pound tin cans of pressed corned beef, biscuits, tea, and sugar to ward off starvation."

His first day in the Battle of the Somme at Beaumont-Hamel, France, Dad was among 110 of 780 men who survived compliance with an order to move forward from St. John’s Road support trench. Wounded, "invalided to England July 4, 1916," he sustained a deep scar on his right arm by an enemy bullet that might have pierced his head or heart on the same day America celebrated its 140th anniversary of independence. Wounded in Mesnières, France a year later, he was again invalided to England December 7, 1917.

Mother relished recalling Uncle John’s marriage to a woman while stationed in Ayr, Scotland, not disclosing already married to May Titford in ND, father to Ruby and Mary. In 1918, an investigation ensued when May contacted the Regiment for support allotment checks as a Regiment member’s spouse. Ultimately convicted of bigamy with a pregnant Sarah Durace Jess, Uncle John served eighteen months in Glasgow Barlinnie Prison. Good work, Aunt May. Upon release, he demobilized then directed the Regiment to send his belongings and mail to Sarah’s Scotland residence. Sadly, Aunt May died a year later at age thirty, her loyal brother caring for his children, refusing Uncle John’s offer of financial support. When Uncle John discovered Sarah left Scotland, he married a third woman, fathering three more children. Scoundrel.

Although Dad’s five-year military service largely impeccable, he managed to get into a few scrapes: absent for roll call, improperly dressed on George Street, losing his great coat then giving a false name. Fittingly punished for violations, Dad forfeited two days’ pay per offense noted in documents provided by the Honors and Awards Section of Veteran’s Affairs in Ottawa, Canada. Conversely, Dad’s stellar combat performance trumped all service charges, a force to be reckoned with in military service to the Crown. I also obtained medals awarded to him for honorable service: 1914–15 Star for onshore service within theatres of military operations in Battles of Gallipoli and Beaumont Hamel; British War Medal awarded by King George V in 1919 to record the war successfully concluded and arduous services rendered by the British Expeditionary Force (including His Majesty’s Force), and Victory Medal inscribed: "The Great War for Civilization."

Roach_001.jpg

LEO PATRICK O’DEA Reg. No. 186

Enlisted, Sept. 4, 1914; British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Aug. 20, 1915; British Expeditionary Force, March 14, 1916; Wounded, Beaumont Hamel, July 1, 1916; Invalided to England, July 4, 1916; Returned to British Expeditionary Force, March 25, 1917; Lance Corporal, April 16, 1917; Wounded, Mesnières, Nov. 30, 1917; Invalided to England, Dec. 7, 1917; Acting Corporal, March 6, 1918; Acting Sergeant, May 29, 1918; Returned to Newfoundland, furlough, July 21, 1918; Demobilized, St. John’s, Feb. 15, 1919 (The First Five Hundred, Published by C.F. Williams & Sons, Inc., Albany, New York).

Dad wounded during fierce front line combat in France, an extract from casualties dated 12/10/17 states he’d been "gassed and recuperated" in Fulham Military Hospital in the London Borough of Hammersmith, England. His handwritten Last Will and Testament consists of four lines signed 9/1/1917, leaving his property and personal effects to Grandfather O’Dea who had remarried a few months prior to Alice Walsh from Portugal Cove. Researching NL/Labrador Archives in St. John’s in 1991. Brother Frederick (No. 2172) declared unfit for service was discharged in 1916, making his way to America becoming a barber in Brooklyn. Upon discharge from Regiment service, Dad returned to St. John’s where he met Julia Ann Clarke (with an e, emphasis added) at an Armistice Day dance. Married 11/20/1919, by Rt. Rev. Monsignor McDermott in the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, witnessed by Patrick O’Keefe and Mary Rolls, their son Gerald Francis was born 9/16/1920, daughter Mary Catherine 9/24/1921 at their Water Street home.

Eager to find employment and a home for his growing family, Father arrived at Ellis Island from NL on the S.S. Rosalind on 7/13/1922. Awaiting him in Mount Vernon, New York was his beloved sister Mary Jo and husband Edward Murphy who emigrated earlier. They afforded Dad room and board until he found a job as an upholsterer with the New York Central Railroad the next thirty-four years. His sister Ethel emigrated from NL to the USA settling in California with her husband.

Mother showed enormous courage acting on the foresight of her father-in-law who urged her to leave NL before another baby was born or old man winter set in. Eight months pregnant and seasick on the SS Rosalind, she arrived 10/5/1922 at Ellis Island recounting stowaway girls who graciously took care of Gerald and Mary while she recuperated. Happily reunited after long months awaiting passage, the four took a train to Albany, moving into a three-bedroom flat Dad rented at 187 Third Street. He walked to the West Albany Shops, passing the Orchard Tavern where a 1937 photo of him and fellow workers hangs in glory. Three days after their third wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving Eve, their first child born on American soil, Edward Patrick, brought incredible joy. Nineteen months later, Leo John was born 6/4/1924.

 In a poignant letter handwritten in 1925 to the Officer in Charge Militia in NL, Dad wrote:

Sir. It has taken me a long time to take a pen to ask of you a favor of a needed article.

About one year ago, I missed (misplaced) my honnery (honorary) discharge papers connected with my army experiences and as I have on several occasions had opportunities of which I could not get interested in but at present I have been called to the fore this time for promotion.

I have been connected with the NYCRR since my arrival to the U.N.S. (USA) and as I could not find words to express my gratitude and appreciation to the above named company, their system of working and conditions they have for their workmen cannot be excelled. I would be greatly obliged to you if you would forward me a Certificate of Discharge. Also I would like you to send me a recommendation if it is possible. Thanking you in anticipation.

 If the following Vets are alive convey my kindest regards to Geo. Carty, Gerald Barne, Joey Nuns, Hubert Berridge, Charles Field, Willy West and all the boys. I wish success and happiness to all of those who done their part to stem the tide of the Greatest War in History and I hope that Terra Nova will arise out of the depth which she fell in account of that great catastrophe. I feel that I could write on forever, but at present my attentions are fully occupied.

My Best respects to those who may be interested. My family are all well thank God for my success in the past four years. I will expect an answer by return mail. Thanking you again.

Sincerely yours,

#186 Ex. Sergt. Leo O’Dea 187 3rd Street, Albany, New York, U.S.A."

Indeed, at present in July 1925, his attentions fully occupied as he and Mom awaited birth of Eleanor Margaret, fifth child in six years, born eight weeks later on September 30. Dad’s graceful, poetic prose with heartfelt greeting to buddies revealed a passionate husband, father, provider and deepening insight into his character, opening the door for a lifelong relationship I hungered. Compelled to rectify the wreckage of my past, I found my loving father intertwined in the rubble, a marvelous gift.

A century before my birth, great-grandfather Ambrose J. Clarke was b. 5/30/1844 in Loughborough, England to Thomas, stocking framework knitter, and Mary Limmin Clarke. Shoemaker Ambrose married Elizabeth Potter b. 1844 in Loughborough, England, at Christ Church Parish of St. Margaret, County of Leicester. Grandfather Ambrose b. 3/14/1868 in Loughborough emigrated to NL, marrying Mary Josephine Moriarty b. 2/20/1871 in Harbour Grace 11/28/1895. Maternal great-grandparents, Patrick Moriarty and Mary Butts from Carbonear, NL.

The Clarke homestead on Stretton’s Hill overlooked Conception Bay on the Atlantic, Whalen and Moores families nearby. Mom b. 4/10/1898, Easter Sunday, second of eight children was baptized Julia Ann, for grandfather’s sister Julianna, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception by Rev. John March, grandmother’s brother William Moriarty and grandfather’s sister Bridget Clarke grandparents.

Mom’s oldest sister Margaret and three younger sisters (Joan) Mary, Madeleine, and Bridget Rose were born congenitally deaf and mute. Home birthing an ordeal in itself, delivering four such children brought untold anguish to my grandparents. With limited economic social means for special education, their beloved daughters went to the earliest educational facility for deaf children in the Maritimes, School for the Deaf in Halifax, Nova Scotia, learning sign language while integrating into the culture of the deaf community where three met and married their beloved deaf husbands. One died there.

Roach_002.jpg

1893 photo of children learning sign language at the School

for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Roach_003.jpg

1905 photo of Nana Clarke with Edward on her lap

   Julia, Margaret, Joan Mary, John, clockwise

In an American Sign Language course, I learned, due to pride and self-acceptance of the deaf movement, many parents in the deaf community prefer deaf over a hearing child, considering deafness an identity not a medical affliction. My grandparents most likely held a different point of view, anticipating stigma their daughters would endure growing up deaf and mute.

By divine intervention, Mom and brothers John, Edward, Patrick (Jack, Ned, Paddy) eluded genetics and later theories that inbreeding caused by marriage patterns in certain geographic locations resulted in deaf/mute offspring. Separated from beloved sisters for long periods, the amiable foursome grew hail and hardy in unforgiving NL winters chopping wood, milking cows, raising chickens, pigs, and goats. Mom recalled being locked in a pen with a goat who chewed her clothes while she cried for help. In blissful summer, they swam and fished in the bay. Since Grandfather was a fisherman by trade, a catch of fish for breakfast not uncommon in the Clarke household. Mom remembered her father as a soft-spoken, gentle, and religious man who rarely raised his voice. At the end of fishing season, he worked as a miner in Bell Island iron ore mines, accessible by ferryboat not far from Harbour Grace.

In Wendy Martin’s Once Upon a Mine, One of the finest sights in Newfoundland is the early morning sun on Conception Bay warming the cliffs of Bell Island.

Bell Island Mines

"Whether in Cambrian or in other earth

Conceived; or yet in Protozoic slime

And ooze in the abysmal depths of time,

Dawn has concealed thine elemental birth;

Or whether yet, on-creeping man in dearth

Of tool offensive, welcomed thee sublime,

Perverting all thy virtues but to crime

While unmatured lay the finer worth.

It matters naught-save only this-that now-

Man’s better nature to thy baser yields;

His heart is steeled with temper of thine own;

His soul is hardened with thy touch, and thou

Dost send him blindly forth to reap these fields-

‘Blood, sweat and tears’ - thine iron hand has sown."

Mine No. 2 offers a glimpse into the stark reality of life as a mineworker:

Roach_004.jpgRoach_005.jpg

Miners worked by candlelight, shovelers of iron ore required to load a minimum of ten cars at 1.8 ton capacity during ten-hour shifts at a mere 12.5 cents per hour. Over the course of seventy-one years of operations were 101 fatalities, my grandfather one of them. Making a prophetic promise to Nana it was his last winter away from her and the children, he was killed in a fall of ground at Wabana Facility Mines in Bell Island 3/21/1914, one week after his 46th birthday, three weeks before Mom’s sixteenth. The earth shifted and he was gone. One newspaper account read:

"Tragic Accident at Bell Island.The community was horrified to hear on last Saturday that one of our citizens working at Bell Island had been instantly killed and another man belonging to Carbonear seriously injured, Mr. Ambrose Clarke of the Hill and Mr. William Pye. The two men were engaged with others  propping up the roof of the underground mine when a large body of rock fell from the roof and completely buried poor Clarke, killing him instantly-doubtless without suffering and crushing his body completely. The young man Pye was so injured  that he had to get a bruised leg cut off and will likely be very much enfeebled for life, but his life has been spared. Mr. Clarke was a native of Carbonear, but has been living here for a number of years. He was a prosperous Labrador planter, fishing from his room at Murray’s Harbor during the summer and working home here during the rest of the year. He had a fine house with a good deal of land attached on the Hill back of the Railway Station. He was a very industrious, capable man,  much liked and his tragic death is much regretted, and much sympathy is felt for his afflicted widow and eight children, four of whom are deaf and dumb. He was in the prime of life, about 47 years of age. His remains followed by a large concourse of citizens were placed in mother earth in the R.C. Cemetery on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Pye is a much younger man and unmarried."

A second article read:

The very deepest sorrow filled all our citizens on Saturday evening, when the sad news of the death at Bell Island of Mr. Ambrose Clarke became known. The particulars of Mr. Clark’s death are that while at work with another man named Pye of Carbonear, an immense pile of clay and rock fell on them, killing Mr. Clarke instantly, and breaking legs and arms of the other man. The remains of our citizen was convoyed here yesterday afternoon, and the funeral took place from the stormer’s side. A very large number attending. Mr. Clarke was one of our most industrious citizens. Kind, pleasant at all times, and a hard worker, he made many friends. He was about 47 years of age, and leaves besides a widow with eight little children to mourn their loss. Two of his children are at Halifax in the Deaf and Dumb Institute there, and two more younger children are similarly afflicted at home. The family have the sympathy of the whole community, in which your correspondent joins. Hr. Grace, March 23, 1914.

My grandfather’s remains were brought to the family in a body bag for burial, Mom and siblings overcome with grief. Nana, forty-three, with eight children to raise, was inconsolable. Four years later, Mom packed meager belongings, tucked hopes and dreams in her pocket, heading down Stretton’s Hill to the Railway Station boarding a train to St. John’s, capital city, finding work as a seamstress in a dress shop. Earning enough to eat and rent a room in a boarding house, she lived with other seamstresses.

Consumption (tuberculosis) rampant, NL had the highest TB rate in the western world from 1901 to 1975 when nearly 32,000 NDs died. During the Great War of 1914–1918, 1295 young men in the NL Regiment died in defense of freedom. In the same period, 3500 NL died of TB, leading cause of death until 1947. Miraculously escaping infection, Mom lost dear friends, but in later years, evidence of TB was found in her lungs.

Uncles Jack and Ned moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1920 to become steelworkers in Sydney mills. Sadly, their sister Madeleine died at sixteen of leukemia in 1925 at deaf school, buried in Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Halifax (where nineteen victims of the Titanic were buried thirteen years earlier, bodies recovered at sea). To keep her memory forever in their hearts, Mom, brothers Jack and Paddy named daughters Madeleine.

In 1928, Nana sold the Harbour Grace homestead, moving to 184 Townsend Street, Sydney, Nova Scotia to be near her sons. Margaret, Mary, Bridget and husbands met at deaf school moved to Sydney to build homes. Uncle Paddy remained in Harbour Grace, married Mary White, and had two daughters Mercedes and Madeleine. Bridget married Louis Luedee, had daughters Irene Catherine and Mary Joan in Windsor, Ontario. Margaret, Archibald, Ned and Mae had no children while Uncle Jack and Margaret Gertrude (Gert) Hanrahan had seven: Marie, Madeleine, John, Carmella, Karen, Robert (Sheldon), and Marguerite. Aunt Gert died of heart disease at fifty when Marguerite was five. Later, Jack married Margaret Rolls, having two more sons, Raymond and Patrick. Like Mom, Jack had nine children. Also a mother of nine, his oldest Marie was in her fifties before siblings learned she was their sister. Not long after their reunion, she died, soon followed by Karen, fifty-three. Like Uncles Jack and Ned, all died of leukemia while Jack’s daughter Madeleine who died of a brain tumor in 2008, son John of cancer in the nineties, Sheldon of cancer in 2015. Ferocious loss.

A 1998 health study in Canada revealed high cancer rates in industrial Cape Breton. Residents had a greater chance of dying of cancer than Canadians with a shorter life span than the rest of the country. Cape Breton County mortality rates between 1951 and 1994 16% higher than the national average, scientists reluctant to point fingers at its polluted landscape. "Not a single cause can explain all of this," said one federal researcher speaking to a community committee examining ways to clean up Sydney tar ponds, the country’s worst toxic mess. Rates of leukemia, breast, cervical, pancreas, stomach and lung cancer deaths higher than national average. Release of the study came just days after Ottawa and Nova Scotia governments signed an agreement to cover costs of cleaning coke oven and tar pond sites at Muggah Creek Watershed, downtown Sydney, far too late for my uncles and cousins.

*House, Edgar. Light at Last: Triumph over Tuberculosis in NL/Labrador 1900–1975. Jespersen Press, 1981 www. nald.ca/CLR/social/book5/p51.htm*

By 1950, Aunt Margaret was widowed, living with Nana and Frankie in Aunt Mary and Uncle John’s home. A gifted carpenter, Uncle John built 436 Atlantic Street in 1943, a peaceful, quiet place we stayed at for three weeks in August, 1950. Mom hadn’t seen her mother or siblings in twenty years. Without free passage courtesy of Dad’s employer, New York Central Railroad, my parents could not afford vacations. Crossing rivers on high railroad trestles, certain if I moved a hair, the train would tumble into depths below. Imagine such power at six years old!

Leaving Albany, we changed trains in Boston onto Maine spending one night in a boarding house while Dad worked out immigration problems pertaining to reentry into Canada, neither parent U.S. citizens yet. Resolved, we continued through New Brunswick, Truro, on to Sydney, NS in Cape Breton. Sisters Jean, Pat, and I shared an upper berth, Mom and Dad lower. When Mom went to the bathroom, Dad poked his foot outside the privacy drape for her to find him. Instead, she grabbed a stranger’s foot who leapt from his berth, startling her, mumbling an apology while we three laughed from our upper berth.

Warmly greeted with hugs and kisses, I met Nana, aunts, uncles, cousins for the first time. I was six. While the Clarkes surely had more than a nodding acquaintance with tragedy, they weren’t embittered, swarming us with love. Shortly after arrival, I was whisked off to spend the night at Uncle Jack’s cottage. Far too rustic for me, Mommy’s girl, I didn’t stray far from the roost. Balking, I preferred the tranquil magic of Atlantic Street, aunts lavishing bountiful meals morning, noon, and night. Splendid bakers and cooks, biscuits, muffins, scones, cakes, and eggs with Canadian ham were served at breakfast on fine English china with linen napkins. Homemade blueberry and apple pies cooled on the counter for after-dinner dessert, a kettle whistling for tea drank by the gallons. Like royalty, waited on hand and foot while Mom spent hours talking with Nana, both of us simply overjoyed with her company. Love radiated from her eyes. Mom’s too. Devout Catholics, everyone attended Sunday Mass faithfully. Afterward, Uncle John took us for a leisurely drive in the country, stopping to introduce us to an acquaintance. During a brief conversation, the man snidely referred to Uncle John as the dummy. Aunt Mary grimaced at the hurtful remark she lip-read while Mom shouted from the back seat, "That ignoramus!" Redeemed by his American sister-in-law’s gutsy response, affable Uncle John drove off smiling, unperturbed.

Splashing about in the Atlantic, a first, waves snagged me under. Gagging, choking on saltwater, eyes burning, knees scraping pebbles on the ocean floor, cousin Frankie, sixteen, tall, dark, handsome, plucked me from the ocean, soothing my battered ego. My hero, I followed him around like a puppy. Too young to understand why Frankie was adopted by Nana, I learned years later he was actually Aunt Mary’s son, fathered while in school for the deaf by a Portuguese sailor who took advantage of her. No further inquiries ever made on the topic, Mom went to her grave knowing or not the truth I never brought up to her.

Aunts crocheted fine lace doilies sent to Mom on birthdays and holidays. Thoughtful, kind, living active, productive lives among many endearing friends in the deaf community, visitors came frequently during our stay. Masters of lip-reading and sign language, aunts taught me rudimentary signs-vowels, name of the family’s black cocker spaniel Toby, signing among themselves with one hand adeptly, teaching me with two. When one conversation became heated between Aunt Mary and Uncle John, in one fell swoop, she drew five fingers to her lips, swinging fingers across her plump backside. Mom laughed and for a moment, I was privy to the startling realization she told Uncle John to kiss her ass! Blushing, I hid my smile, ashamed of the gap between two front teeth.

Showered with love, Aunt Mary fussed over my hair, braiding, tying ends on top of my head like hers, an ally who consoled me with gentle touch on my shoulder when I stood my ground, stubbornly refusing to smile for an umpteenth photo. A grumpy, scowling face, mulish posture, arms across my chest, the furl in Aunt Mary’s brow smacks of concern for me. I adored her. Caring expressions of love left an indelible mark, like the moment Uncle Jack laid eyes on Mom then picked her up swinging her in circles or when a more subtle Uncle Ned glowed as he embraced her. Eyes sparkling, Uncle Ned hollered whenever he entered a room, "Where’s Me Duck, where’s Me Duck?"

I felt special. Except for brothers, I hadn’t seen such abundant, open displays of affection from other men toward Mom or me. Dad seemed jealous, a good thing.

The smell of blacktop permeated the air as sisters, cousins, and I strolled the neighborhood promising to write letters from home. In the early hours on day of departure, we ate breakfast, tears brimming all around. Mom and I wouldn’t see them for eight years, the last time they ever saw Dad, Jean, or Pat. I returned, though, again and again to those serene people in that serene place that calmed my mind and nourished my soul. Marguerite and I exchanged letters many years, now texts. To this day, the smell of steaming blacktop tar conjures vivid memories of a splendid vacation in the life of a six-year-old.

Chapter Two:

West End

images_363_Copy145.png Imagining a letter to Nana Clarke in the fifties, I write:

"Dearest Nana, Oh how I wish you would come visit. We live at 644 Central Avenue in the West End of Albany. Our house, a railroad flat built in 1880 smack in the middle of a diverse block of immigrant Italian, Armenian, Jewish, Irish, German, Russian, Greek families who own a variety of businesses. Rent $40 a month, landlady Mrs. Fitzgerald lives downstairs, saying she’s honored to have the family of two soldiers who fought for our country overseas as tenants.

"My friend Lois’s aunt, uncle, and cousins live on Central at West Lawrence on one side of Malconian Pharmacy & Soda Fountain, grandparents and cousins on the other in a two-story house. Only in their yard once, you wouldn’t believe the vegetables in the huge garden with grapevines to make wine. Josephine and Tony own a grocery store, the grandfather a shoemaker. Cousins Veronica, Joe and Carmella created VECAJO Productions, hiring Lois and me as non-speaking extras in home movies for a nominal fee-root beer floats at Malconian. Lois, parents, and sister live over Mrs. Weir’s Bakery on North Allen where Mom sent a huge turkey in a baby carriage Thanksgiving for her to bake in her oven, ours not big enough.

"My friend Charlotte lives with her parents and sister in a beautiful flat over Albany Public Market. Her dad a meat salesman, her mom a seamstress for Marcus Fabric Interior Decorators who sews exquisite doll clothes for us. My absolute favorite is a royal blue satin dress with lace netting and sequins I slip over my dolly’s head. Wait ’til you see it. Charlotte plays piano and taught Joanne and me how to play Heart and Soul. Practicing a duet while Charlotte ate lunch with her parents, Joanne said, "There’s an ugly green bug on your shoulder." I thought she was teasing until I saw a gigantic praying mantis perched on my shoulder, bulging eyes glaring at me. I tore through the house shrieking until it fell off. We never found its body, but Charlotte’s father said it was good luck. He must have been kidding.

"Next to Charlotte’s house was Roxy Cleaners, Whalen Pharmacy, Central Florist, and Schaffer Department Store where Mom shops for quality clothes, shoes, games, and toys on the installment plan. An alleyway separates Schaffer’s from a brownstone where Lois’s aunt and a friend live. Under strict orders never to answer their phone, we don’t ask why men come and go all day placing bets on horse races. Do you know what a ‘bookie’ is, Nana? Our house adjoins theirs. The quiet man in the basement a widower, the family in the middle swear at their kitchen table filled with beer bottles, aroma of Lucky Strikes waft the air-shaft directly into Dad’s bedroom. Last week, horsing around with their sons, a girl pushed me off a tree stump in their yard, my head slamming into their brick house. Blood gushing, I ran upstairs to Mom who slapped undies she was handwashing on my face to stop the bleeding then ran off crying, blood, soap and tears