Derry, the town that had welcomed me and my committee of Quakers when we were investigating Black and Tan atrocities in Ireland. This was before the treaty of 1922 when Britain accepted Irish independence on the condition that the more Protestant parts of the island would remain united with the crown. Then Derry had been firmly part of Ireland. The market town of Donegal, Father Kevin’s county.
“Of course my plane doesn’t have the range to go all the way across, so I turn over escort duty to a fellow who flies out of an airport near the base. It’s called Ballykelly. How’s that for a coincidence, Aunt Nonie? Though,” he’d said and stopped.
“Though what?” I asked.
“Well there’s talk that we’ll be refueling in Gander and sent on to Ireland. Wouldn’t that be something, Aunt Nonie? Me in Ireland. But I’m not supposed to talk about operational matters.”
Better to concentrate on introducing us to his girl. All of us in the Yates apartment. Rose had cooked Mike’s favorite meal—roast beef, browned potatoes, green beans with devil’s food cake for dessert.
A lovely girl, Mariann. She was twenty-two to Mike’s twenty-six. Reminded me a bit of Gene Tierney but with unusual eyes, a kind of golden-brown color that matched her hair. Smallish, nearly a foot shorter than Mike, and slim. Mike had told me she was a fine tennis player. Beat him regularly.
After dinner as we sat at the table, talking, I watched how Mariann listened to Rose, then got up to refill Rose’s empty coffee cup. Mike’s sisters were chatting to each other but aware of Mariann too.
“Mariann has lovely manners,” I said to Mike, who was next to me. “I look forward to meeting her parents.”
“Her father,” Mike said. “Mare’s mother died when she was ten.” We looked at each other.
“Very sad,” I said. “You both…”
“Yes, we have that bond,” he said. Mothers loved and lost. A bond indeed.
They’d met at DePaul University before the war when it still seemed life would follow some kind of known pattern. Before the war—the phrase that divided everything. Mike had been on his way to becoming a lawyer like so many of the next-generation Chicago-Irish. Their grandfathers had been laborers like our great-uncle Patrick, digging the canals, laying the railroad tracks, piling brick upon brick, building Chicago not once but twice, bringing it back after it burned to the ground. Their sons were fellows like Ed Kelly and my brother Michael. They’d scratched their way up with no education to speak of. Politics was one possible path. Now their sons and daughters too were going to college, learning professions. They would be doctors, lawyers with degrees and credentials.
I knew Mike himself wanted nothing so much as to take the family business one step further. Senator Michael J. Kelly, and then, well, advisor to the president? He was always interested in stories of Joseph Kennedy and his boys.
And Mariann? Not a hundred percent Irish. Her mother was German and gone out of her life so young Mariann probably had to raise herself. She had eight brothers and one much older sister married and living out of town. Mike had told me Mariann was the baby of the family. Not easy among all those men to become such a fashionable girl. She seemed unaware of the nets of expectation that still held down so many young women. Not worried about what the ladies of the parish thought. Not trapped in our world. She’d gone off to DePaul University with no Henrietta-type warnings about vanity and getting above yourself. An innocent in regard to jealousy and begrudgery, to judge from the way she ignored the digs Rosemary, who had imbibed bits of Henrietta, threw out.
“You and Mike have known each other for years,” Rosemary said. “Why did it take you so long to say yes to him? But then I suppose you dated a lot of men in the meantime.”
“Sure,” Mariann said. “Very nice fellows too, but Mike and I always…” She smiled up at Mike and he grinned back at her, which seemed to infuriate Rosemary.
“Always what? You know Mike has had girlfriends too. One a daughter of a judge who was a very close friend of our uncle, Mayor Edward J. Kelly.”
“Not uncle, Rosemary,” I said. “Cousin.” I turned to Mariann. “Ed’s father, Stephen, and my father, Patrick, were brothers brought here from Ireland by our granny Honora. She and her sister Máire saved their children from starving to death when—” and Rosemary interrupted me.
“Oh, Aunt Nonie, don’t start with those old stories. Mariann isn’t interested.”
“But I am,” Marian said turning to me.
“Another time,” I said because I could see Rosemary was picking up a head of steam and there was no point in trying to divert her.
“I work in the mayor’s office,” Rosemary said, “and I’ve always called him Uncle Ed. After all we’re his blood relatives.” She looked over at Mariann. “His own children are adopted.”
“Rosemary, please,” I said.
“It’s no secret,” she said. “Though I suppose Aunt Margaret would have preferred to have her own kids. Still she treats the three of them like some kind of a royal family. The clothes she bought for Pat only to have her turn her back on everything and enter the convent. What a pity to leave that wardrobe, but then Pat has always been different. Not one bit interested in clothes even when her mother took her shopping in New York. Where did you buy your dress, Mariann?”
“Fields,” she said.
“Mmmm,” Rosemary said. “Very fancy. Mike said you work as a secretary in a bank. Don’t imagine your salary would cover an outfit like that. Did all those boys you dated give you presents?”
Well that was too much for me. “Rosemary, don’t be rude,” I said.
“I’m just trying to get to know Mike’s fiancée,” she said, drawing out the syllables. But it was Frances, the youngest and quietest of the girls who spoke up.
“Rosemary doesn’t like it that you’re prettier and younger than she is, Mariann.” She stood up, walked over and patted Mariann’s arm. “You mustn’t mind Rosemary, she’s trying to be an actress and is always putting on little plays with us in supporting roles.”
Mike laughed.
“That’s telling her, Fran.” He turned to Rosemary. “Mariann grew up with eight brothers. You won’t be able to get under her skin.”
Rose had gone into the kitchen. I was glad she hadn’t heard Rosemary attack Mariann. For her the girls could do no wrong and Mike was the prince.
“Another helping of dessert, Mike?” She had a plate with a slice of devil’s food cake with buttercream icing.
Rosemary tried one last jab. “Better go easy, Mike,” and then she said to Mariann, “Of course you knew that he had to lose forty pounds to qualify for flight training school.” She turned back to Mike. “If you get fat again and they throw you out of the Navy you might lose your fiancée. Come on, Miss Williams, confess, wasn’t it the uniform and gold wings that finally made you say yes?”
And Mariann smiled. “No, it was when Mike told me how much he loved his aunts and his sisters. What strong women they were and how grateful he was to them. I always promised myself I’d only marry a man who appreciated women,” she said. “Who saw us for what we were.”
“Point, set, and match, Rosemary,” Mike said. I started laughing. The girls joined in. Rose touched Rosemary’s shoulder. “Okay, okay,” Rosemary said. “Welcome to our family and good luck. You’re going to need it.”
As I left, Mike asked me if Ed would have time to meet Mariann and would I arrange it.
“Her brother Jim produces shows at the Auditorium Theater and is a big supporter of the Democratic Party. Two of her brothers are sailors, one in Alaska and the other with the fleet in Pearl Harbor. Then there are the two priests, Jim and the other three are too old to serve. They’re all businessmen,” Mike said.
“Oh,” I said. “What kind of business?”
“Well that’s the thing. They own liquor stores and bars.”
“Oh,” I said. I lowered my voice. “I don’t care, but have you told Rose? She still wears her husband John’s Pioneer pin and has never h
ad a drink herself.”
“I haven’t, but Uncle Ed should know in case he doesn’t—”
“For heaven’s sake, Mike, Ed’s not a prude. After all, liquor’s legal and it’s our bars that have made Chicago the most popular liberty town in the country.”
“Yes, well, I think Mariann’s brothers got into the liquor business pretty early.”
“Ah,” I said. “During Prohibition?”
He nodded.
“But of course you’ve got those aces in the hole,” I said.
“The two brothers who are priests?”
“Yes,” I said. “And Mariann herself.”
* * *
We waited for Ed outside the radio studio set up in a room at the top of city hall. Every day the mayor broadcast at noon for five minutes, and all the radio stations in the city carried the program. Ed was head of Civil Defense for the entire Midwest region and so he could talk about any topic that contributed to the war effort at home. Ten seconds of the song “Keep the Home Fires Burning” introduced each program, though once Ed had used almost the entire time to play Kate Smith singing “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland,” the number one song on the hit parade in March 1942. The first US expeditionary force headed to Europe to push out the Nazis had landed in Belfast and would undergo training in the north of Ireland. Tens of thousands of American soldiers wore the soup bowl helmets of World War I and were still called doughboys.
They’d been plopped down in the middle of a population of one million spread out through every village. Quite a ratio especially considering that so many of the fellows were Irish-American. The song described how they heard their mothers’ brogue in the voices of the girls they met. And didn’t distinguish the north of Ireland from the south. Johnny fell in love and “Wanted to make an American beauty of his Irish Rose.” Ed had gotten a great kick out of “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland” and so had his listeners, who sent thousands of packages to the troops, encouraged by Ed.
“And be sure to include Milky Ways and Baby Ruths,” he’d said. “Those people of North Ireland have been feeling the effects of the war for four years. With sugar rationed, many Irish kids have never even tasted a candy bar.” That show had gotten the biggest response of any and the city hall switchboard couldn’t handle all the requests. How could people send candy directly to the children, the callers had wondered. Ed had turned to me, “You’re the expert on Ireland,” he’d said. “What do we do?”
“Go to the cardinal,” I’d said. And sure enough Cardinal Stritch had called Cardinal John D’Alton, Primate of All Ireland, who was still located in Armagh, St. Patrick’s city, and he sent us a list of Catholic schools so Ed could broadcast the addresses.
“And, of course, the children will invite their little Protestant friends to share the sweets,” Ed assured the listeners. Johnny Doughboy was busy alright, and now Mike had told me the Navy was in Ireland too.
Now we heard Ed conclude the program with an announcement of a free concert in Grant Park. The Chicago Symphony would be playing popular songs from Broadway musicals. All visiting servicemen were welcome, he said. “And your mayor expects the citizens of the city of Chicago to show them every kindness.”
Ed had turned a twenty-story office building on Madison into a USO with free food and lodging for any service member on leave. All transportation in the city was free too. He’d made Margaret and Lucky Davis co-chairwomen of the USO in Chicago, charging them with providing entertainment for the soldiers. There was another center on the South Side that was just as nice, he’d assured me, that was for Negro soldiers and sailors.
“Segregation?” I’d asked Ed. “That’s terrible.”
“The Department of Defense insisted on separate facilities. They’re afraid of offending Southern servicemen who are not accustomed to mixing with Negroes,” he’d said.
“And Congressman Dawson went along with that?”
“What could he do? I explained the situation. Told him their center would have a big budget and that he would recommend the companies that would supply furniture and beds and linen. All the food would come from South Side restaurants.” The city would also contribute $10,000 to the Bud Billiken Parade, in which the Negro soldiers and sailors would march.
“Mmmmm,” I’d said.
Now the door of the studio opened and Ed stepped out, still talking over his shoulder to the technician. “WGN wants to rebroadcast the program at eleven p.m. so be sure to send a tape over to them,” he said.
Very technological now, our Ed. He stopped when he saw me with Mike and Mariann. I’d told him to expect us and he reached out and took Mariann’s hand in both of his.
“Well,” Ed said, “you’re a lucky man, Mike.”
Mariann smiled at him. She was used to having her good looks acknowledged, I thought, but I’d hoped Ed would see her strength and character. Ed had always been supportive of me and now he was in charge of defense plants where girls as young as eighteen worked on the assembly line making aircraft parts by pounding rivets into B-52s.
Mariann did look lovely in her gray wool suit with a fitted jacket and slim skirt. Very self-possessed as she shook Ed’s hand. She didn’t gush but said, “You’re a hero in my house, Mr. Mayor. My father said you saved the city from bankruptcy and my brother Jim thinks no one but you could have corralled all the transit companies and gotten the money to finally build a subway in Chicago.”
Mike spoke up. “Mariann’s family is from the West Side. Austin. Isn’t that Tom Casey’s district?”
“Oh, we know the Williams brothers,” Ed said.
Yikes! Was he going to go straight to the bootlegging stories? Make some joke? I hadn’t told him much about Mariann’s family but five minutes with any West Side alderman and he’d know everything. I saw Mariann stiffen.
Ed still held her hand. “Such a blessing to have two brothers priests,” he said. “Viatorian fathers, aren’t they?” Sometimes I really do love my cousin Ed.
He took us to lunch at Henrici’s and invited Mariann’s oldest brother, Jim, a regular there, to join our table.
Jim and Ed started to reminisce about the old days of Prohibition, and Jim told us how two of his younger brothers would deliver three bottles of bonded whiskey every Saturday night to a certain rectory. They wouldn’t go to the door but would leave their car in the driveway with the trunk unlocked while they made a visit to the church. They’d return to find the trunk empty.
“A donation?” Ed asked.
“Well, a healthy discount.”
They laughed. Chicago men full of tall tales about how tough they had been.
But Mariann and I held our own. She said Mike had shown her my photographs from the Century of Progress in an old edition of the Chicagoan and asked how I’d started my career. Nice to hear the word “career.” The whole table listened as I told a few stories of my time in Paris, taking pictures of American tourists and the gowns created by the great women couturiers. But then I stopped. “Poor, poor Paris,” I said. By unspoken agreement we’d avoided talking about the war. But there it was. We’d all seen the newsreels of Hitler posing in front of the Arc de Triomphe, bringing darkness to the City of Light. He’d made the French sign surrender papers in the same railroad car where the Germans had agreed to the armistice in 1919 after the “war to end all wars.” Still unbelievable that only twenty years later here were the same horrors, only much worse.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to spoil our lunch with…”
“We’ll drive the Nazis out, Aunt Nonie,” Mike said. “You’ll have your Paris back again. You will.”
“And I hope you’ll come with Mike and me. He’s promised we’ll go to Paris one day. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were our guide?”
“Yes,” I said. “As the Irish say, ‘God willing.’”
* * *
“We’re getting married in New York,” Mariann said. She and Rose and I were having lunch in the Walnut Room at Fields. May now, 1942. Th
e Nazis held Europe in their iron fist while the Japanese were winning battle after battle on the Pacific islands whose exotic names hid devastating US casualties. Bataan, Corregidor, and the whole of the Philippines.
Mike was still stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, flying escort duty for the convoys crossing the Atlantic in ever-greater numbers. U-boats were still out there torpedoing ships and then surfacing to shoot at US planes with ever more sophisticated antiaircraft guns.
Mariann told us that two fellows in Mike’s group had simply disappeared. No real explanation, Mike had told her. It happens, he’d said. Some kind of malfunction and they just drop into the ocean.
Mariann was pushing the mandarin orange sections in her Ambrosia salad around on her plate as she talked. She touched the engagement ring on her finger. Not a big diamond but nicely cut so the facets picked up the light, making rainbows on the starched white Fields tablecloth.
“Mike won’t talk much but he said there are rumors that his squadron might go to the Pacific, be assigned to aircraft carriers. My brother Jim told me that there were lots of casualties even during training on aircraft carriers,” Mariann said.
“That wasn’t very helpful,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I think Jim wants me to wait to get married in case…” She stopped.
“Yes, well,” I said. I looked at Rose. Widows both of us and yet did either one of us regret the time we’d been married? Would we have spared ourselves the sorrow of losing our young husbands? I tried to find something to say to Mariann but it was Rose who spoke up.
“Mariann, with so much sorrow in the world it seems to me we have to hold on to joy whenever it comes. And we do have our faith to lean on. I was at the novena at Our Lady of Sorrows last night. Full to the rafters with mothers, wives, sisters of servicemen.”
Irish Above All Page 34