Arboretum
Introduction
The
Bessie McLaughlin O'Dea
Arthur Jerome
O'Dea
Dysert O'Dea
Dancing Under
the Banyan Tree
I remember walking the oak-shaded trees of my
That was
when I'd start to worry. A mother wants to give her children everything
they wish for, especially aunts and uncles and cousins who love you
unconditionally. But my life quite simply demanded that I be elsewhere, as it
does for many nuclear families. At that point those oak trees
seemed to come alive, like that scene in The Wizard of Oz, telling me
in a deep oak-tree voice that I was making one big mistake. Nature simply
did not intend for children to be raised like that.
It was
soon after that walk ten years ago with my son that I began researching my
family at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. I was
equipped with a binder that held
blank pieces of paper, ready to write down, very neatly so my son could read it
once he learned how to read, our family tree.
Some family trees are all neat and tidy. I once knew a woman who had a formal picture of both her and her
husband's parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great
grandparents. Each picture was a 5 x
7, framed in the same style frame,
and hung in chronological order on the
walls of the alcove leading to her dining room.
I discovered, however, that my family's history is not a series of 5
x 7 pictures hung in chronological order, nor does it lend itself to one of
those geneological maps which depict a family as one tree with one set of
roots. That binder of blank paper grew into a collection of stories about
journeys, external journeys and internal
journeys. For example, my father made an external journey to Ireland in 1965 to unearth his
roots. He made an internal journey at a
Paulist Noviatiate, which he entered in
1929 with the intent of becoming a
priest. I was with my father in
1965, and I have vivid memories of Dad
on his search for Irish roots. I was not with him at the Paulist Novitiate, but
I have a collection of letters he
received while he was there from his family and friends, letters which my
father kept until he died, and which somehow, found their
way to me. These stories, and others, are what eventually found their way into
that binder.
We
have all made similar external and internal journeys. The stories of those who journeyed before me
have enabled me to come to understand my ancestors as more than a name listed on the census in the National Archives
and my parents as much more than Mom and Dad. Their stories have enabled me
to understand my own external and internal journeys, of
which there have been so many. And in
the end, I realize that I have nothing
to fear from deep-rooted oak trees.
The Timber Trade Route: Ireland to Maine
On their
own soil, the Irish had learned to
survive without much wood. The Saxons had raped the countryside of its woods and groves centuries earlier. The
people came to rely on the surrounding
peat bogs for the fuel they
needed, and they built their cottages using mud and stone for the walls. However,
a family had to have at least one wooden beam of support over their
heads. So rare were these beams that
when families were being evicted from their homes in the early 1800's, even the
most miserly of landlords would allow the destitute family to carry this one
beam of wood away with them. This was, for some, their only hope of ever having another roof
over their heads.
For
others, there was another source of
hope. By 1830 every seaport village in
the south and west of Ireland
harbored vessels which set sail
in the spring for the St. Lawrence seaway. There was an abundance of wood along
the banks of the St. Lawrence, and the
merchants who owned these vessels prospered from this trade route. But a trade route works best if there is a
two-way trade, and sending empty ships to the St. Lawrence to pick up timber
did not make good business sense. So the merchants offered passage to the maritime provinces for
fifteen shillings, which was far cheaper than the four or five pounds
charged for passage to New York. Furthermore, the merchants
offered immediate employment upon their arrival, as the immigrants would be
paid to help load the ship with her new cargo.
The merchants won through this arrangement; they now had cheap ballast
for their empty ships and a guaranteed labor force on the other side. The Irish
immigrants won in that they had cheap passage to a new world that offered more
hope than the bleak horizon in Ireland.
But this
employment lasted only through the summer. Then the young Irishman who had come
to this new world to make a life for himself had a decision to make. He could go into the Canadian woods,
clear some land, and begin to farm it.
This was lonely and rough; rough he
could handle, but the social instincts of the Irish do not lend themselves
to such a solitary life. His other choice was to become a lumberman
at one of the many lumber camps also back in the woods, where the workers would
spend the winter harvesting the forests for the next spring's shipment of
timber. Here there was plenty of work for the men and plenty of companionship among the company houses supplied by their employer for their now
young families.
Helen
Hamlin, in her book Nine Mile Bridge,
describes life in a lumber camp.
Employed as a schoolteacher in the
lumber camp called Churchill, she
recalls such settlements
as anything but a romantic log cabin colony under the shadows of great
spruces. The shores of the ghostly lake
in Churchill were lined with dri-ki, which were the bleached dead stumps of
drowned trees. The houses in the settlement were identical - one and a half story company houses that had
once, a long time ago, been painted
white. There were few log cabins in the
camp, a couple of woodsheds, outhouses, and pigsties. The boarding house for the bachelors was a
long barracks-like building.
On a
Sunday afternoon late in the fall, Hamlin relates that one of these settlements
would be quiet. Doors would be let open
to let in the late fall sunshine. Children would be playing outside - hopskotch
and skipping rope. Boys would be in the
mud pond on log rafts, falling in and climbing back up again. Men would stand around in small groups
talking. some in suits and some in their lumberjack attire. Women would stand
in the open doorways with their arms crossed under their aprons. On
weekdays Churchill was a droning
beehive - sleds being loaded for the faraway camps, the sawmill in full-buzzing
swing, the air fragrant with freshly-sawed pine and spruce. Hammers pounded all day as the blacksmith
repaired logging chains and made new sleds in preparation for the winter which
was to come.
The
long-timers in these camps in the maritime provinces were French Canadian. They
spoke French. And if you didn't speak French, you did not want to stay on too
long as a lumberjack in the Maritime Provinces.
Stories came back to the camps of others who had left for the States,
where people spoke English, there was
plenty of work , and the wages were high. So
the young Irishman would work as
a lumberjack until enough money had been
saved to start the journey south. No
ships were sailing south. There was only one way to get there. He'd have to
walk.
Bernard
Mclaughlin was one of these young men
who had left Ireland during the potato famine. He left the ship he had come over on, and
went to St. John, in Canada, where he met Mary Dulaharty, also an immigrant,
but from Spain. They were married in St.
John on August 16, 1825. Thousands of immigrants, mostly Irish, followed the coast of New Brunswick to Maine
and continued along the trails and roads into New England. The McLaughlins
followed the St. John River, and then up the Aroostook River, until they
stopped at a logging camp in Aroostook County, Maine. Land this far north had only become part of the United States in
1838.
In
1840, Barney was 42 years old, and his
wife, Mary, was 41years old. They now
had six children, one daughter and five sons, since their marriage fifteen
years ago in St.John, Canada. One can
only imagine walking those riverside trails with your children in tow, looking for a good place to settle down. The McLaughlins would have heard stories
about homesteaders in the West, who were given
land to farm. Appealing to some immigrants, but not so much to the Irish,
according to Marcus Hansen in his book
on immigrants during this time
period. The Irishman's love of land was
only equaled by his love of company.
Tales of the prairies with distances without end, villages without a social
life, and no churches of his faith compelled them to settle in New England.
So,
somewhere between 1830 and 1840 , Barney
McLaughlin and his family stopped walking and
made a home out of a company house in Plymouth Grant, a logging
community in Aroostook County, Maine.
John Dorsey, another Irishman, was a local who was living near a place
called Fort Fairfield, which was in the same vicinity as the logging community.
John and his wife, Mary, were about the
same age as Barney and Mary, and they also had a large family - three sons and
two daughters. In 1840, the census-taker
came into Plymouth Grant. The locals
from the Fort Fairfield area as well as the lumberjacks formed a line to sign
on with the census.. Only five men stood in line between John Dorsey, a local landowner, and Barney McLaughlin, a lumberjack.
Barney
McLaughlin stayed at the lumber camp
until 1843, when the area north of the
Fort Fairfield area, which would come to
be called Limestone, was opened for settlement.
Barney was able to buy lots at $1.25 per acre, 50 cents of which was to
paid in money, and the remainder by road labor.
Barney took land at what would later come to be known "Four
Corners". Thier only neighbor, Andrew Phair, was about two miles away on
the land he had purchased.
A survey
of Limestone done by Rowe and Colby of Philadelphia in 1877 shows a great amount of activity in the area over the course of
those thirty years. "Four Corners" is shown as the
intersection of Caribou Road and Fort
Fairfield Road. If you were to walk down
the Fort Fairfield Road from the Caribou Road, you would have passed four farmhouses each of which held one of the now deceased
Barney's son's families. James
McLaughlin might have been sitting on his front porch, and he would have
explained that he lived in his own house
here behind him, with his wife Bridget, and their five children, all under the age of 10. He could have pointed out his brother John's
house, two doors down, where his
brother lived with his wife Katherine.
Across the street were two more brothers, George, who was 25, and Barney, who
was 26. Between those two brothers there were four more young children, all
under the age of 10. Then, he most
likely would have pointed out a large parcel of land, and told you that it
belongs to his sister, Catherine: this is the only lot on the survey map which
is owned by a woman in 1877.
The
census of 1880 shows these four families
still living on the same road, the four brothers now in their forties and
late thirties, and their children coming
of age. Catherine's lot of land is now
where she lives with her brother George; the census suggests that his wife
Margaret has died, leaving him 8 children to raise with his sister's help. Next
door is his brother Barney and his sister-in-law Susan, who are raising
their 7 children. James is still across the street, with his
wife Bridget, and their four children. Their oldest daughter, Ellen, is now
living across the road with Barney and Susan to help with their family. Next door to James is John McLaughlin and his
wife Katherine; they still have no
children.
If you
were to walk down the Fort Fairfield Road from the Caribou Road twenty years
alter in 1900, the first house on your
right would still be George Mclaughlin's place.
Catherine, known by the children as Aunt Kit, has since left the farm; apparently she died on her way to California with a parson's
family. She would have been in her late
thirties. Most of George's children are
gone, but for his sons, George who is 24
, Michael 21, and a daughter, Catherine 22.
George Jr. might explain to you
that next door lives his Uncle Barney, who is now 65. George might also explain to you that his
Uncle Barney was named after his father, George's grandfather, who was one of the first
settlers of Limestone. George might go on to tell you that he works his father's potato farm with his brother
Mike. He would most likely tell you that the McLaughlin family has always
farmed potatoes in Limestone.
In the
fall of 1905, George McLaughlin Jr. -
now 29 - saw an attractive young woman sitting on the front porch of the house
across the road from his. Limestone
was a small town, and George knew that
the new school teacher who was from Fort
Fairfield was boarding at his neighbor's place.
George walked across the road and
introduced himself to this attractive young schoolteacher, Susie Dorsey. The
next spring, Barney's grandson,
George, married John Dorsey's
great-granddaughter, Susie.
In 1900,
Susie Dorsey had been a sixteen year-old girl living in Fort Fairfield, Maine. Her grandparents, Edward and Hannah, had raised seven children in Fort
Fairfield. Susie had four uncles and two aunts in the small town.
Uncle Edward was the town's
stable keeper,
while her other uncles were farmers like her own father. All except for
Uncle Miles, who listed his occupation
as "capitalist" in the 1900 census: he was the only capitalist
in a community whose members listed
themselves as farmer, farm laborer, day laborer, servant, livery stable keeper,
and town physician. Susie Dorsey had 22
cousins in the small town of Fort Fairfield, who were between the ages of 6 and
20. She could hardly walk through town
without bumping into one of them. And the Dorseys held their heads just a
little higher on the muddy main street of Fort Fairfield, or so the story goes,
because of yet another story.
Susie's
great grandfather, John Dorsey. had come
to this part of Maine around 1825. The
story is that he emigrated from Ireland
to England to work as a groom on the
estate of some English lord. The lord's
lady, Lady Anne, fell deeply in love with this handsome sweet-talking groom,
and they ran away together to the new world.
Edward Dorsey, a descendant of this family line, wrote in 1977:
"John and
Lady Ann Richardson Dorsey were of the first generation and settled at the
mouth of Johnston's Brook around 1820. By the way, John was a stablehand and groom, and from the
information furnished by my late Dad, was quite a Ladie's man. He was born in
Westmeath County, Ireland and went to England where he was employed as a Groom
for a family of nobility by the name of Richardson. He left hastily and
secretly with the wife of Lord Richardson and came to Canada by boat and then settled in Fort Fairfield in 1820.
John did
emigrate to England from Ireland, where
he was born some time between 1790 and 1795.
After serving as a private in the British Service until he was in his
thirties, he received a military land grant, which was lot 107 near
Andover, Maine. He did well there, for
in 1840 he received another land grant closer to Fort Fairfield, which then
became known as the Dorsey Road area. This was the same year he registered with
the census at the logging community known as Plymouth Grant. Another document
states that his wife, Mary Ann Richardson, was born in Condyle City (sp) in 1795 .
She was married before she met John Dorsey, and she
had a son by her first marriage. This boy's name was Robert, and Mary Anne
Richardson brought Robert with her when she left England with John Dorsey. Robert was raised as John's son, and eventually Robert married into another Fort
Fairfield family. If Robert was the
oldest son of an English Lord, he could have returned to England to claim his
inheritance. But he did not.
This
all leaves considerable doubt about the
Lady Ann Richardson story - charming as it is.
Why such stories exist gives an insight to our country in the last quarter of the twentieth century At that time there were
happy diplomatic relations between the U.S. and England - so happy that the
U.S. looked abroad for its standards, and England stood out as the best role model. This was most conspicuous in the cities where
the daily press made a feature of English society news. However, this preoccupation with things from England
reached far into our countryside. Knut
Hamsun, a Norwegian novelist, was a self-proclaimed judge of artistic and
cultural matters in the small Wisconsin village where he lived. However, he understood that his opinion
counted for naught if an Englishman were present. The English newcomer established usages of tone through out society in the second half of
that century. Perhaps Mary Ann, having been born in England, served
such a function in the small community of Fort Fairfield, thus dubbing her Lady
Ann. Susie Dorsey, her
great-granddaughter, left Fort
Fairfield when she was 21 to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in Limestone where
half of her students spoke English and
half of her students spoke French.
The
census of 1910 shows George and Susie McLaughlin living in Limestone with one servant, Iva
Seger, and one day laborer, Henry Fischer.
George's Uncle William and Uncle Barney are still living on their farms,
and two cousins, William and Henry, are also running their own farms and
raising a large brood of children. By 1920, George and Susie have two young
daughters, Eva and Bessie. In 1929
Bessie joined her older sister Eva in New York City, where the two young
women attended The College of Mount
Saint Vincent. One day during her
sophomore year she was walking towards Seton Hall, her dorm, when she saw two
of her classmates, Anne and Helen O'Dea.
Twin sisters, they were standing
near the doorway talking with a young
man. I am not sure who asked for
the introduction:. I do know that Bessie
was introduced to the twin's brother, Arthur. They dated, fell in love, married and had
seven children: Anna, Elizabeth, Arthur, Thomas, Maureen, Joseph, and me.
Bessie McLaughlin O'Dea
I once asked one of my older brother
Arthur what the nicest thing was that Mom ever did for him. He told me a story from the time when he had
finished law school and had begun working for a law firm in the wealthy
northern New Jersey town of Tenafly. He had married during law school and there
were three or four of his eventual nine children at home, in a new house he had
bought, with one tremendous mortgage. He had a briefcase which his wife
had given to him as a graduation gift,
and he laughed when he recalled that all he had to take to work in his
briefcase was his lunch. Back then, Art was just starting out.
One day he was out of the office for some
reason, and he happened to drive by 250 Mill Street on his return. He noticed
that Mom's Dodge Dart was in the driveway, so he decided to stop by and say
hello. Mom looked him over from head to
toe as he came in the kitchen door, telling him how terrific he looked,
and then they sat together in the dining
room drinking tea. Art proudly told her
about this and told her about that - all that was going on with the kids and
with the new job and with the new house.
Mom listened patiently. It was getting near lunch time, so Mom offered to treat
him to lunch in town, and Art readily
agreed. Walking down Main Street in
Westwood, Mom took her oldest son by the
arm and asked if she could treat him to a new pair of shoes. Art blushed,
looking down and seeing the worn leather shoes on his feet. The shoe budget was stretched to the limit as it was just to
cover the four children. Mom asked Art
to let her do this for him. It would make her happy. Art knew it would make him that much more
comfortable with his new
colleagues. So they went in to
the shoe store, and Mom bought him the finest pair of Florsheim shoes the store
had to offer.
Anna, my oldest sister, was also the
oldest child of the seven children. When
she was in high school, she wanted to get a job in town. Berchtold's Bakery
needed a part-timer behind the counter, and Anna wanted to apply. She was sure Dad would not let her work while
she was in high school. So she went to
Mom with her plan to apply, and maybe if she actually got the job, Dad would relent.
Mom agreed, and kept Anna's secret until the job was hers. And Dad mysteriously relented.
My sister Elizabeth told me another story in answer to the same
question. Miss Hughes, her high school Latin teacher, assigned translations
every night. Her students, who did not
like Miss Hughes, had gotten their hands on the answer sheets; these were
passed around the study halls each day so that the next day's homework was not
only complete, but 100% correct. The students felt justified. From their
perspective, this was about as much effort as Miss Hughes was putting into teaching
them. One day in study hall my sister
Liz got caught in the act by Pussy Foot
(alias the principal) on one of his routine spying expeditions.
Liz went home for lunch that day, and sat
at the small kitchen table explaining her plight to Mom. Mom listened silently, with her familiar
"mm-hmmm" following each stage of the story. Liz finished her story, and Mom's only remark
was a final "mm-hmm". Liz went back to school, fully expecting to be
expelled. There was a rumor in the
halls that afternoon that Liz O'Dea's Mom had been seen entering
the school. Liz was sure this was the end of her life.
Liz never heard another word from anybody
about this event. And she certainly did not bring the subject up. Soon afterward, Miss Hughes was replaced by
Mr. O'Connell, and Latin I proceeded in the time-honored way - vocabulary, declensions,
conjugations.....and no answer sheets in sight.
It was years later that Liz learned that Mom had marched directly from the kitchen table to the
principal's office where she revealed her wrath over the Latin class debacle
and demanded a more competent Latin teacher.
My mother married when she was
21. In the next ten years she had
5 children. Then there was this long-and-never-understood-by-me pause of ten years before she had my brother Joseph, and then a year later me. On
the day I was born, my mother was 42. I
won't lie to you; there are pitfalls in having older parents. My father was
even seven years older than my
mother. When "the first five"
tell stories about their experiences growing up with Mom, it is almost as if
they are talking about some one else, for this is not the mother I knew. Yet,
at the same time, it is: I just see her through a different lens.
When I was in elementary school, Mom was
in her fifties. Kathy, the girl who lived across the street,
had a young mother. One spring day Kathy and I
were walking home from school together, and Kathy had gotten into trouble once too often
at school and dreaded going home to her
house to tell her mother. I remember her pleading with me if she could come to
my house and talk to my mother first - her reason being "Your Mom
listens." I have noticed myself that women in their fifties are pretty good listeners.
During my high school years, I never saw
much physical contact or amorous glances between my parents, who were in their
sixties. However, I saw something else. Shortly after I finished high school,
my father was given six months to live due to cancer. I watched my mother nurse
him, at home, till the day he died. She
would gently comb his hair, cut his nails, and
clean his false teeth for him.
When I close my eyes and try to visualize love - what love really is
between a man and a woman - one of the images that always appears is Mom
combing Dad's hair in front of the dining room mirror.
I was in my early twenties when I met the man I would marry. My father had passed away, and Mom had been left a widow. All her married life, her husband had paid all the bills and,
well, taken care of all that stuff - as was the custom for their generation.
Upon my father's death, Mom had to
quickly assume responsibilities that were previously unknown to her. It was
shortly after my engagement party that my mother gave me the three thousand
dollars that Dad had left in his will for my wedding. Mom told me, basically,
to do it myself. She said it would be a good experience for me. And it most
certainly was.
When I called Mom up on my 35th birthday,
I was moaning about how old I felt. Mom's
response was typical: "I always loved it when one of my children turned
35. I could finally have an interesting conversation with them." I took
the hint, and quickly changed the subject. Ever since then, when I hear people
moaning about how old they are, or bragging about how young they are constantly
mistaken for, I think about my mother's
comment, and look forward to their
reaching their "35th" birthday
and being able to talk about something more interesting.
When I was
42, the age my mother was when
she gave birth to me, Mom, at 84, was exactly twice my age. She had suffered a
series of ailments and illnesses that had made her feeble, to say the least.
The last time she was strong enough to
go out for lunch with me, she was far too quiet on the return trip to the
nursing home, sitting shot-gun there next to me
in my car, perhaps wondering if she'd ever go out for lunch again.. Then she said - out of nowhere - "Susie, never be afraid of anything.
Once you give in to fear, it may as well all be over."
My lens on her is different, but this is
the same woman who bought the smart young lawyer a much-needed pair of
shoes, kept the oldest child's secret,
rose to another's defense, cautioned her youngest child from fear. But of all my memories of my mother, none is
as strong as her voice on that early spring day back in 1975.
Flying
across the Atlantic Ocean, I had tried not to think. This was not much of a
battle as I was dog-tired - both physically and emotionally. I knew that the
relationship I had been having for the last six years was over, but that was all
I knew. I had no idea what I would do next. I
stared out the plane's window,
planning to be a librarian. I envisioned myself a petite gray-haired spinster
in some small New England town library - maybe Vergennes, the small town I knew as an eleven year-old girl - and I
would never have much to do with anybody or anything other than dusty dog-eared
books for the rest of my life. I had taken an honest look at myself and was certain that - much like musty old
books - nobody would ever check me out again.
From JFK
International Airport, I took a bus which was headed to Northern Jersey's Route
17. The driver told me that he could
drop me at The Fireplace, which is a hamburger hangout from my high school days
and about 15 minutes from home. On the bus I figured that the five dollars I
had in my wallet was not enough for a taxi to the house on Mill Street, so I
would have to call for a ride. I hoped Mom would be home - if not, I would just
wait for her. I had not even called her to say I was coming home. And now I was
afraid of the questions Mom had every right to ask: Is the engagement off? What engagement? What went wrong? I haven't figured that out yet. Are you
OK? I forget what ok is, Mom. When I
got this far in this imagined conversation
sitting in the back of that bus, the tears would well up in my
eyes. I quickly closed my eyes, leaving
the one escaped tear to dry at the corner of my eyes while I tried to recreate the smell of that library in
my mind. I suppose some would call it
the musty smell of old books and wrinkle their noses in disgust. But as
I sat on that bus, that recreated smell brought me back to a childhood
innocence of summer afternoons spent buried in a book where love conquered all,
to a time before I knew what musty was.
Before I knew what musty felt like.
It was
early April, and on that day I walked into The Fireplace, it was very much a
warm spring day. As it was now near lunch time,
people were sitting around eating burgers in jeans and light sweatshirts. I had been traveling for a long time, and I
guess I looked pretty bad, as I noticed some
people stop eating to stare at me. I carried two pieces of worn luggage
and I was wearing some tattered jeans. Because my two suitcases were packed
full with everything I owned,
I had had no choice but to wear the knee-length raccoon and leather coat that my father had given me
when I had come home for the Christmas holidays two years ago. I had never worn the coat, as it made me stand
out too much on the streets of London,
just as it seemed to be making me stand out there at The Fireplace. Only that
day I didn't have time to care about standing out.
I walked
over to the public phone and dialed that
familiar number: 666-0040. Mom answered on the third ring. She thought I
was calling from England, so I told her I was at The Fireplace, and I was
hoping that she could come and get me. There was a pause, and then she said
"I'm on my way, Susie."
I do not
remember our conversation on the ride home. But I distinctly remember this: Mom
did not ask me one single question. Perhaps she updated me on what my older brothers and sisters were up to, what
she 'd done to the house lately, or who she'd seen around town recently that I
might know. As she spoke, I felt her love caressing me through that familiar
voice; an unspoken love which understood
without explanation and soothed without being told what hurt. That day
she did not ask me a single question that in any way addressed why or how I
suddenly appeared at The Fireplace - and she never did. Whenever I want to, I can close my eyes
and hear her voice that day.
I suppose
that New York City was as far away from my mother's home in Northern Maine as
London was from my hometown in northern
New Jersey. In 1932, during my mother's
junior year of college, there was an argument
between my mother and father, who had been dating for some time. Mom once referred to it as a
fight. "We had a fight" she'd
say. For some reason, I don't know why,
I could never ask her what it was about.
But I wondered about it. Had she secretly dated someone else? Had he? Or
was it about sex? Did young couples fight about sex back in the 1930's? Or was it his sisters, whom my mother was
deeply suspicious of for the rest of her
life? Did they do something which deeply angered my mother, and my father stood up for his sisters?
Anyway,
Mom packed her suitcases, and put on her full-length beaver coat her father had
given her as a going-away-to-college present, and headed back to the potato
farm. I had known about this story for years, and my imagination was always
tied to figuring out what they fought about.
But now a mother myself, my imagination is firmly fixed on another
scene: how my grandmother, Susie Dorsey McLaughlin, received my mother. I will never know what my
parents fought about, but I do know how
my mother was received at the end of that journey, for that is how she received
me at the end of mine. And I know what my role will be when one of my own
children limps home in defeat.
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the Earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
I was
sitting at the kitchen table of an Irish bungalow situated on the back street
of a small Irish town when my father's voice, reciting this poem by Joyce
Kilmer, came over the radio. His
translation of the poem into Irish had recently appeared in the local
newspaper, and Radio Eire had subsequently invited him to their Sunday
afternoon broadcast. I sat and listened with Mrs.Lynch and several
of her children. We had been reading the Sunday papers, but for a moment the
room stood still and listened to
what must have been a most unusual
sound - Irish spoken with an American
accent. Not sure at all
what the response would be - was
my father making a fool of himself here ? - I was greatly relieved when he
ended and Angela, 16 at the time, turned
to me and said "Ah sure, Susan, your
father’s a great man."
I can still close my eyes and remember the
warmth of that kitchen in Tuam. At that time I was living in a sparsely
furnished bedsit, which is the Irish version of an efficiency. It was a room with a bed in it on which I
could sit if I was not sleeping. I
shared "the loo" down the hall with four or five other bedsit people.
I was working as a waitress at a coffee shop on Galway's High Street and would
hitch a ride out to see my friends in Tuam, about twenty miles away, when I had
the rare Sunday off. Sitting at their
kitchen table with a mug of heavily-sugared hot tea in one
hand and a thick slice of brown
bread blanketed with rich creamy Irish
butter in the other was the closest thing I had to home
that summer in Ireland. I would
devour this bounty while listening to
the banter between the brothers and sisters - a banter which sounded more like
music than any symphony I have ever heard. Irish English, spoken with an accent
from the West of Ireland and freckled with the slang found on its streets, is
pure poetry.
Much
better than anything Joyce Kilmer ever
wrote.
At the
time, I did not understand why my father had chosen what seemed to me an overly
simplistic prayer-poem about trees.
I knew of only one road due west
out of Galway, the road which still takes you into Connemara.
This road loops around Connemara country, a favorite route for the tour
bus, and takes you through the small towns and villages of Spiddal, Clifden,
Leenane, and Cong. The towns appear
colorless, with houses and shops made of cement, some painted, most not.
Between these towns, which look
forbidding to the outsider, there are endless expanses of rolling green hills.
However, this is not a soft, lush green.
The fields are pockmarked with stone and rock, as if the earth's hard core lies just beneath
this slim layer of sod. The only thing that gives any sense of dimension
to the landscape are the stone walls separating
the fields. There is not one tree
in sight.
The Irish
have been clearing these fields for centuries. As these rocks were pulled out
of the land, they were stacked neatly in a single line, about three feet
high, which determined where one farmer's field would end and another
start. There is not a pattern to the field system. Some fields are a quarter of
an acre while others as large as an acre. Some are roughly square, others
suggest a parallelogram, while others
are triangular. Your eye can get caught into following these random lines
across a sweeping hill, at first trying to determine a pattern, and giving up,
trying to determine if the shade of green in one field differs from the shade
of green on the other side of the wall.
Unfortunately,
it's usually raining in Connemara. And on a rainy day, the place is truly
miserable. In the rain, Connemara appears to be endless expanses of rock and
soggy soil. And the rain has no pattern.
It falls from above, hits you from the side, and seems to bounce up at you from
the ground. There is no natural shelter from the wet on the treeless ridges.
The landscape is, in a word, stark. In fact, upon the televising of the lunar
landing in 1969, a man from the west of Ireland remarked that it was "a
grand picture, but surely just a hill or
mountain they were on - not the moon." The landscape of the moon
looked remarkably familiar to a Connemara man.
But on a
sunny day, these stretches of green come
alive as the rocks seem to sparkle in the sunshine. Your eye follows the line
of rock wall up to the tip where the
ridge of the green hill draws a line and the blue sky begins.
You are quite sure that if you were to walk up there, you could touch
the sky. Then you see it. One stone wall
runs along a ridge, and on this day, from that spot, the sun is behind that
ridge. For a moment, as the warm light
of the sun filters through the spaces
between the rocks, the stone wall
appears to be lace. The sun is so strong that you have to squint now, which only accentuates
your vision.
My father
loved Connemara country. He would rent a
house on Lough Corrib in Oughterard for
a few weeks each summer, and spend quiet mornings fishing in the lough in the landlord's wooden rowboat. He would cook
wonderful meals using the fresh vegetables from the landlord's extensive
vegetable garden round back. He would listen to his Irish music on the record player, and sit with a cup of
tea by the living room bay window, look
out over Lough Corrib, and work on his translations
of Joyce Kilmer's ode to trees. Connemara must have spoken to him in some
way, for my father managed to unearth his roots within this
treeless landscape, roots which, for
this man in his late sixties, manifested themselves through those lines of
Kilmer's that are a hybrid of poetry and prayer.
In
1920, Arthur O'Dea was a freshman at Park High School on Park
Avenue in Rutherford, New Jersey. He was
an avid fan of his high school football team. The 1920 Football Schedule was
the compliments of Wallach Brothers, a
mens' haberdashery on Broadway in New York City. Written over Compliments of Wallach Bros. is Property
of Art O'Dea. That would be my father's writing, when he was just boy of fifteen. When you open the football schedule,
which is a cardboard card measuring 5" x 4", there is a list of the dates and the opposing teams
for that season. Dad wrote Skedyouell at the top of this list. He also wrote in the score for each game.
Rutherford had a winning season that year, 10 and 0, according to the totals he wrote in at the bottom of the
Skedyouell. However, there was a tie on
November 20 between Chattle High School and Rutherford at Rutherford (7-7). He
also rewrote Property of Arthur O'Dea
on the very bottom of his Skedyouell.
On the
opposite page is the list of players,
starting with the team captain, and
listing the varsity squad. My
father had some fifteen-year-old fun with these names. just
as he did with the word schedule. The Manager is listed as D. Keep. Next
to Keep's name Dad has inked your mouth shut. A member of the varsity squad is listed as F.
Lightfoot. Dad has inked in heavy hand. R. Thorne is followed by brier, C. Kiel by rudder, and E. Luke by
warm. Some of the varsity players have
an asterisk next to their names, and it is noted at the end of this list that
this marks the Letter Men. Dad has crossed out Men and inked in children.
In 1924
Dad was a senior in high school and he ran track. The Official Program from the Sixth Annual
Championship Track and Field Meet of the New Jersey State Interscholastic
Athletic Association says that this track meet was held in Palmer Stadium at
Princeton University on Saturday, June 7, 1924 from 10:30 - 2:00. Dad ran
as number 3 in the 100 Yard Dash
Class A High Schools, and the 220 Yard Dash in the Class A High Schools. He received a medal for his performance in
the 100 yard dash. My father started New
York University in the fall of that
year, and he was living at the Zeta Psi
House in University Heights. His high
school friend, "Bres" , was
living in Brownson Hall at the University of Notre Dame, and wrote the
following letter to his former high
school buddy.
October 23, 1924.
Dear Art,
John informs me that you think I owe you a letter. Well, I think the
Jews are causing you to lose your memory. However, I'll favor you with a little
news.
John alias "Joe Health" says that his remarks concerning the
Jews at NYU are not received with a great deal of sincerity on your part. We
have Weinberger on the warpath. His new name doesn't seem to fit him, and he
declares that he will administer a couple of beatings within the next
twenty-four hours. John is treated pretty roughly by his companions, whose
ideas don't coincide with his.
Well, the football startled the East by beating the Army. They will
meet a worthy opponent in Princeton, but will come out on top. How did you like the playing of our captain
on Saturday? He has certainly landed a place in football history. NYU is having a a hard time according to the
latest scores. They are not as you thought.
You seem to be taking every subject in college. John wants to know if
you are taking sewing while Clate would also like to know if they show you how
to push the carriage. 25 hours a week must be pretty hard. We are only taking
eighteen hours. the quarter exams come in a couple of weeks. Latin and Biology will give us the
most trouble.
I suppose you take your daily beating from the sophs. Well, this is a
real school! We have our fun without some one giving it to you. Hogan says that
if you bring any more of these sad stories to his ears, he will disgrace you
in public by calling you a liar. John
has developed into a hard nut, so hard that he claims he will beat a guy who
calls him by his new name.
John feels that it in only right in dissolving the law firm of
Weinberger and Falvinavo for the simple reason that his partner is lost in the
eternal clutches of the women at St. Lawrence University in the wilds of New
York State. So you see, his new name is both fitting and proper.
Now it is your turn to write; and don't wait a couple of weeks and then say I have not written
you.
I will close now as the stuff that they call food is waiting to be
devoured.
Your friend, Bres.
Joe Health
sends his regards to you and your Jewish friends, especially Cohan, Abrams,
Moskowitz, etc.
Two years later, in the fall of 1926, Dad received the following letter from his
Zeta Psi fraternity brother, John G. MacKnight.
Sunday. September 10, 1926
My dear Art,
I have your letter and I must confess that it leaves me puzzled. From
the letterhead of the Paulist Novitiate and from your inquiry as to your
standing in the fraternity, I was inclined to think that you were contemplating
entering the priesthood. As this is a very serious step for anyone to take, I
was wondering whether or not you had this in mind. I wish you would tell me if such is your decision and let me
know what your plans are.
I was extremely sorry to hear that you were not coming to New York to
finish up this year, but after all you are the one who must decide on his
future.
Best wishes from all of the brothers at the Phi.
Fraternally yours,
John G. MacKnight
During his first three months at the Paulist Novitiate in Oak Ridge, New Jersey, his
father would drive the family to visit
him on the weekends. The following letter suggests that sometime in November he wrote to his mother
that the family should be preparing for Christmas in some way during the season
of advent.
November 30, 1926
My dear Son,
When I awoke at 6:30 this morning I was so happy in the the thought
that my child, my little boy, had already served at a mass for my dear mother.
The mass here was at 7:30 and we were all present.
I am sure you would like to hear about my wonderful retreat. Mother Lynch was my mother and we became
great friends. She is the dearest
loveliest woman and was extremely kind to me. I think she assigned me the best
rooms and I surely appreciated it. I
told her that perhaps she thought I was
old and decrepit and need a few luxuries in my old age. She also said I needed no introduction as she
knew I was your mother the minute she
laid eyes on me. Who shall take the compliment, you or I? I could never begin to tell you in a letter
all that I think of dear Father O'Keefe. His conferences were a joy never to be
forgotten. When I see you I will try to
tell you about them.
In your letter you made the remark that you thought that I should
prepare the family during the season of advent for the coming of our lord.
Well, I had that very thought and am going to begin by including you. As a good
means for this purpose I have asked the family to stay home from Oak Ridge
until Christmas Day and all have consented although it will be a hard sacrifice
for Helen and Anne. It will be a family
mortification and I hope it will be of great benefit to all.
Dad is as busy as he can be u p on the third floor. As usual he had a
few surprises for me when I returned from the retreat. He has an old tin waste
basket that was in the cellar for ages painted a vivid green beside his desk. He also received the Duraut radiator cover for the
Packard (imagine my feelings). He was so
proud of his artcraft. I am going to
mail this on my way to pay the taxes a job which every good citizen make
believe they are proud to do. Grandma O'Dea will be so happy to hear form you
and I am sure it will make her understand a little better. I will now close with love from all and may
God bless you and keep you.
Lovingly, Mother
On February 8 of the following year, 1927, she
writes:
Dear Arthur,
Tuesday is the day of the week in this house for me to look for your
letter. When Helen and Nan arrive at home the first question is "did
Arthur write?' and there is a scramble to see who will get it first. Your letter today was unusually interesting
and I quite agree with you that
every church in the land should
have a Paulist book rack. But my dear
boy don't ask me to approach Father Smith on this subject for I am almost
certain he would not do it. However, if
I have the opportunity to suggest it,, I won't let it pass. Father smith never
refused me anything I asked of him, but I am always careful to study him well
first.
And so you did see the tracks (of our car) in the ice out where we
skidded. It was well Larry was aware of
the situation and got the car out very easily. I started to walk down the hill
but changed my mind for I thought I might better roll down in the car than on
my head. Dad is working hard to get away tonight, I don't know just where and I
don't think he does either. He wrote to Mr Wilkins about the matter and I hope
all will be stilled and rid this
controversy.
March 3, 1927
Dear Arthur,
I bought the life of Father Doyle and
have read some of it. My usually was you know and last night I started
it in earnest and have read about half of the preface. Helen and Nan would devour it if they got hold of it, but I
was wondering if I should allow them to read it Don't you think they are too
young?
March 31, 1927
My dear son,
A year ago today if you remember
you started for Washington and I shall never forget how happy it made us all to
see you start. Usually I worried a little more or less whenever you took a
trip, but not on that occasion for I knew you were in a holy place. And when
you came home, I read your eyes as usual and then I knew. I am sure you often wonder if we miss you and
while I never say that we do, you may be sure that there are many lonely hours, especially the evenings. We are
getting used to it now, and offer it all up and thank God for his goodness to
us.
Dad is in Buffalo this week
giving several talks on the revision of the regulations. I am enclosing a
picture of Bishop O'Dea that I discovered in the NCNC paper and while I don't
know if he is a relation I think it is nice to know there is some one making
the name so exalted in the church.
I was wondering if you didn't need socks or a tie and if so , may I bring them to you on Easter Sunday? Also
ask Father Skinner if he will allow us to pay your dentist bill and if we use
that blank check that you have or is you
have destroyed it I will send you
another. Dad and I would be happy to send money for you necessities if permitted, so let me know.
April 26, 1927
My dear son,
Your letter arrived early this morning and so Helen and Nan read it
before they left for school. Needless to say the contents delighted them,
particularly the fact the you are going to try to preach. If they could only
"listen in" We will all be praying for you and all the other novices
that the Holy Ghost may inspire you to do very well.
Uncle Ben was unable to visit you last week as he had been very busy
and half sick too. He had a very trying case at the hospital and after every
means known was used, the young man died. He was only twenty-four and Ben was
all broken up over it. He and Bub are
going to Buck Hill Falls over the weekend
for a rest and he needs it. he looks miserable.
The Easter collection here amounted to $2283 and the proceeds form the
Passion play the week before was $1000/ I though you might like to know how
well we are doing. The collection East
Rutherford was around $1400,a and in Hasbrouck Heights $750.
May 5, 1927
My dear son,
We reached home Sunday at 7:45 as the traffic was heavy through
The Ford was towed out of ht yard yesterday for which I am thankful and
I never want see another piece of such art ion my premises. Mr.
brown was here yesterday and he is thinking that he may buy a nother car
if he can find a good second hand one, and if he only would their place would
look respectable again.
There remains but one letter from his father dated
March 9, 1927. The letterhead reads "Hotel Woodruff,
Dear Son Arthur,
A few lines which I presume will surprise you coming from this place which you will remember so
well as our stopping place for the night of August 26. The next day you will recall from your tiresome ordeal in
the part you occupied as chauffeur over the long strange roads to
I was home yesterday when your letter arrived. All were glad that you
are keeping well and happy and thus far
find no hardships with the Lenten requirements assigned to Romans. It is a
welcome period for the Catholic butcher, but as I have had to confine myself to
slight ration more or less for some time
I do not find it hard to refrain from the forbidden eats.
I was at
All are well and filling their usual routine duties, the girls at
school, music, etc, your mother with the housework, meals. NY. shopping and
occasional town visit. All the other rattled families are well and apparently
prosperous of late indicated by new vehicles, house improvement, etc.
My business trips of the usual
touring order, hard to tell when or where I am going next. Fortunately I have
not had a call from headquarters to go anywhere, so my itinerary has been left
to my own promiscuous selections. It is
well that I have district confines or I might have strayed and been lost in
Yellowstone Park or other district quarters worthy of my inspection.
We have visited the novitiate so regularly we will all miss the trip during the lenten period. I believe your
mother and the girls have consoled themselves to is as a Lenten sacrifice. Of course it deprives me of considerable practice necessary to acquire the title of efficient
auto pilot - but so long as the mechanism of the chariot behaves itself, I am
well satisfied not to exert it.
Trusting that you will remain in good health and be happy and
successful with your work, I am as ever,
Your loving father,
D.J.O'Dea
In the
summer of 1928, my father went to Haiti with Father Lynahan, another Paulist
and friend of the O'Dea family. However, sometime in the next year after his
return, my father left the Paulist
Novitiate with three of his Novitiate friends. Together they pooled their money
and bought a car and drove to California and back to celebrate their decision.
In January of 1931 he received a letter from a
Novitiate buddy who was now the assistant sacristan at St.
Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park California.
Dear Art,
I was sure glad to receive your
letter Art and I am sure you know that
this delay in replying does not indicate anything to the contrary. Although you
would like to do a lot of moaning about it if you could get hold of me. You
still kill the women, you big virile brute, and one cannot blame the poor damsels for finding a weakness in you as
I have often told you before. Your real future lies in Hollywood but I know
you. You hate to leave the home talent to despair to satisfy merely popular
demand. I was just wondering whether you are laughing or whether it is down on the table. Sure wish I
was there to see you, but please let me know as I know you will in might strong
language. All kidding aside I appreciate your telling me about that little
affair and I wish I had seen the girl.
But now I know there is another, s o write and tell me about her. Remember when we used to talk those things and many others
over...There is much more I would like to say but I must bring this letter to a
close. By the way, if you still have the negatives of some of those pictures we
took on the trip, I would like to have them, especially the one with the
indian, and those around the lake, and that one of myself in your back
yard. I have an album now, so please
enclose a snapshot of yourself.
In early February
of 1931 my father received a letter from one of his novitiate buddies
who was now in Rome.
Dear Arthur,
Well, as I've already agreed, our class is certainly well scattered with three of them here; Paul Ward and Bob Murphy ordained and doing priestly work; you