the mayor's aunt

The Mayor’s Aunt

The Mayor’s Aunt✦

A Chronicle Of One LifeSpent In Buffalo NY

During The 20th Century

Thomas Murphy

iUniverse, Inc.New York Lincoln Shanghai

The Mayor’s AuntA Chronicle Of One Life Spent In Buffalo NY During The 20th Century

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by anymeans, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the writtenpermission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in

critical articles and reviews.

Copyright © 2007 by Thomas J. Murphy

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addressesor links contained in this book may have changed

since publication and may no longer be valid.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarilyreflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility

for them.

ISBN: 978-0-595-46821-8 (pbk)

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-0-595-91111-0 (ebk)

v

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Chapter 1 A Youth in the Old First Ward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2 The Man of Her Dreams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 3 Buffalo’s West Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Chapter 4 Contentment—The Middle Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Chapter 5 Arduous Retirement Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

vii

Preface

In the 2003 movie,”Secondhand Lions”, an elder counseled his grand-nephew, “Just because something may not be true, doesn’t mean that youcan’t believe it! Sometimes, the things that may or may not be true are thethings that a (person) needs to believe in the most.”

I respectfully request that you accept this same advice from me as youread this small book. For while this story embellishes, and exaggerates, itnever lies. All of the recorded statements and events could be true, and thisretelling lacks the intention to harm or disparage anyone or anything.

The “Mayor’s Aunt” was my mother, who I loved dearly. She came intothis world, alone, on April 11,1905, although she gave a later birth year formost of her days. Her lifetime, which spanned most of the TwentiethCentury, was spent in Buffalo, New York. These were tumultuous times,and Kay devoted most of her energy to the avoidance of those forces andcircumstances which she deemed threatened her well being. She had littleinclination, or energy, for anything else.

She was a practicing Catholic for all of her life. She truly feared “the lossof heaven and the pains of hell” and therefore it is doubtful that she everdeliberately violated any of the Ten Commandments. She wished no harmto either man nor woman, and therefore fully expected that she would“find her great reward in heaven” as promised her by the Beatitudes. Shenever found the time to practice any of the Corporal Works of Mercy, butshe was sure that these were the responsibility of those who were blessedwith far more material goods than she ever possessed. Nor did Kay everfeel the pain of despair, for she never hoped for more than she receivedfrom life.

If knowing that you are loved is the only one true happiness in life, thenKay Murphy lived an unhappy life. She found no evidence of affection inany home she ever inhabited. Neither her mother, her siblings, her hus-band, nor any of her children, were demonstrably loving. And Kay

The Mayor’s Auntviii

responded in kind, never having learned any other way of living. Mymother didn’t want anything to do with child rearing or housekeeping.But she had to do it, because that was the manner in which respectablewomen made their way in this world.

She met and married a man who nourished and supported her for morethan fifty years In turn, she was his gracious companion and helpmate, asthey established and operated a successful business enterprise. She gavebirth to three beautiful and healthy children, who grew into educated, pro-ductive, wholesome adults. Her children married loving spouses and Kay’sfifteen grandchildren relished her presence and enjoyed her jokes, andworldly counsel. Yet, at the end of her life, Kay was as proud of the factthat her nephew, who she had never known, had been elected Mayor ofBuffalo, as anything she, or her offspring, had accomplished in life.

She left this world on October 11,1988, again alone. Although she hadfound little comfort in life, she had lived each day as she found it, withoutcomplaint and without any expressed regret

ix

“Hold your parents tenderly, for the world will seem a strangeand lonely place when they are gone.”

—‘The Belle of Amherst”by William Luce

1

1A Youth in the Old First Ward

“Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, littleroom, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother’s womba fanatic heart”.

—W B Yeats

Catherine Teresa Griffin was born in Buffalo NY on July 12, 1905. Shewas the third child born to Thomas and Catherine Griffin (nee Quinn).Older siblings were brothers James and Thomas, and a sister, Agnes wasborn a few years later. Finally, the Griffins were blessed with Mary, theirthird daughter. Mary, beautiful but frail, died as an infant. The death cer-tificate cited the cause as “pleurisy”.

“Ma” Griffin, the family matriarch, was born Katherine Quinn, inThree Mile Cross, Ireland and had emigrated to the United States as ayoung girl. “Ma” had few fond memories of the ‘old sod’, refusing to evendiscuss a return visit.. “Tis a terribly poor and dirty place” she often stated.When asked about her family, who remained in Ireland, “Ma” brisklyresponded, “The only time I ever hear from them, they’re asking me tosend them money!”

Shortly after her arrival in Buffalo, the young Katherine Quinn metTom Griffin, a handsome, strapping Irishman, with jet black hair, partedin the middle, and a handlebar mustache. He had a good job, engineer onthe Erie Railroad, and the couple decided to marry, raise their family, andto prosper in Buffalo, New York. They first settled in Buffalo’s Old FirstWard, where their family remained until the very end of their days. Thepopulation of the Old First Ward was almost entirely Irish. Here was Buf-falo’s earliest housing stock. Many of the homes were small cottages, with

The Mayor’s Aunt2

neither basements nor central heat. Employment opportunities were avail-able only a few blocks away,—on Buffalo’s waterfront, on the docks and inthe numerous grain mills along the water.

Buffalo, the eighth largest U.S. city, with a population of 352,387, hadinaugurated the 20th Century with a flamboyant display of vitality andwealth,—The Pan-American Exposition of 1901. This world’s fair fea-tured the “Electric Tower”, encased by “The Court of Fountains”. Morethan two thousand sculptures, some historical, others allegorical, dottedthe 350 acres of the exposition. A ‘Midway’ featured “transplanted nativevillages with real natives in them”. But the highlight of the exposition wasthe ostentatious display of electricity. Incandescent lights outlined eachbuilding. Walter Pages, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, described the emo-tions of seeing the Exposition being lit at dusk: “Here is nocturnal archi-tecture, nocturnal landscapes, nocturnal gardens and long vistas ofnocturnal beauty. At a distance, the Fair presents the appearance of awhole city in illumination”

But for the Griffins, and other residents of Buffalo’s First Ward, thehighlight of the Exposition was an Irish football match. The Buffalo Newsdescribed the ‘sporting event’, “For roughness it has got the regulation col-lege game scraped to a polish. Black eyes, bloody noses and cracked headswere much in evidence by the time the first half was over. The gameresembled a free fight more than anything else”.

In later years Tom Griffin would regale his children with the story ofhow “Ma” and he had attended the Pan-American and paid 50 cents eachto watch the electrocution of Jumbo, a mammoth but crazed elephant.The children would roar each time their father described how 11,000 voltsof electricity had failed to kill old Jumbo, because the elephant’s hide wasso thick that the current didn’t faze him. The children would be silent,and filled with awe, whenever their father whispered the story of how he,and hundreds of others, had waited outside Buffalo police headquarters,hoping that they would be given the opportunity to punish the anarchist,Leon Czolgosz, the man who had shot and killed beloved President McK-inley, while he attended the Fair. This was a side of their congenial father’spersonality that they were seldom allowed to view,—the dark, vindictive

A Youth in the Old First Ward 3

spirit of reprisal and retribution that has marked Irish families and neigh-borhoods throughout Buffalo’s history.

The Griffin family had settled in the Uniontown section of Buffalo’sFirst Ward, near Katherine Street. The First Ward, near the docks, therailroads, and the factories, had been home to most of Buffalo’s Irish sincethe waves of Irish immigrants arrived in the 1840’s and 1850’s. The open-ing of Lackawanna’s Iron and Steel Bessemer Converter, and the correc-tion of Cazenovia and Buffalo Creek flooding problems in 1902 hadspurred a movement of many Irish families from ‘The Ward’ into SouthBuffalo, but the Griffins epitomized the statement, “Once (an Irish family)settled in the First Ward, few left”.

Buffalo’s (Old) First Ward was home to two Roman Catholic Churchesand schools, St. Bridget’s ‘s and Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Employmentopportunities abounded for the unschooled and unskilled Irish work-ers,—the first stockyards in Buffalo were located at Elk and Van RenssalerStreets-, grain scoopers were always needed in the numerous grain eleva-tors that lined the Buffalo River and the lake freighters offered long-shore-man jobs, only a few blocks away. And, of course, with Buffalo being thesecond largest railroad terminus in the nation, there was always work forthe able-bodied in the railroad yards that dotted and defined the bound-aries of the First Ward and the abutting neighborhood, the Valley. It wasnot uncommon for a man to work as a “grain scooper”during the GreatLakes shipping season and then, during the winter, to seek work on therailroads or digging canals and warehouse slips and repairing Buffalo’s seawalls.

In 1908, while it was true that wages for the unskilled worker were rela-tively low, (Lackawanna Steel was paying it’s mill hands 12 cents per hourfor working a twelve hour work day and seventy-two-hour week with anincredible twenty-four-hour stint every fortnight when the shift changed),anyone in the Ward who was willing to work long, hard and dangeroushours, could earn a living. One Sunday morning, following 8AM Mass atSt. Bridget’s, the Griffins saw a family friend, Tommy Moore, wearing asling on his arm. Moore explained that he had slipped on the ice near thedocks where he had been assigned steam fitting work on a disabled lake

The Mayor’s Aunt4

freighter. After describing an arduous, two mile trek through knee highsnow to return to his employer’s shop, Moore hoarse whispered, “Wouldyou believe it, Tom? McKutchen paid me for the whole day, even thoughI hadn’t done a lick of work!”

“Ma”, a small, sinewy woman, was proud that “her Tom” was a railroadengineer, and not one of the pack of “scoopers” and black-guards whohung around Hagen’s Tavern each night. And, when she, and her brood,visited the Elk street Market, Anthony McGowan, head of the marketalways addressed her as “Mrs. Griffin” and inquired into the health of“himself”(Mr. Griffin).

A City of Buffalo guidebook of that period described the Elk StreetMarket as, “more of a wholesale market and the largest in the city. Thereare probably fifty or more stalls within the market proper, the majority ofwhich are occupied by butchers, both wholesale and retail. Outside will befound many wholesale commission men whose business places are againflanked with numerous stalls, stands etc. where butter eggs, vegetables,fruits and farm produce comprise the principal goods offered for sale.…Saturday is the chief market day and the day when one will find most tointerest him, if disposed to visit.”

The Griffin’s home was typical of most of the residences on the FirstWard. The one and a half story structure, was long and narrow, with littlefront or side yard. There was no basement, but a storage shed was attachedto the rear of the living quarters. In New Orleans, similar homes werecalled “shotgun flats” because the rooms were laid out linearly, and a shot-gun could be fired through the front door and the shell would exit the reardoor, without hitting or damaging a wall.

In the Griffin household, three small bedrooms adjoined the livingroom and (formal) dining room. Heat for the five rooms was provided bya free-standing, wood burning stove. But most of the family’s activitiestook place in the large kitchen, where a large round wooden table, andeight chairs, provided a place for doing homework, reading, sewing,games, food preparation, eating or just doing nothing, although “Ma”always had some chore for the children to do before they could just daw-dle. The kitchen was heated by a large, black cast-iron wood burning stove


and oven. ‘Ma” baked biscuits every day and on most days, rice puddingwas the staple dessert.

One door, to the right of the stove, opened into the bathroom whichcontained a wash basin, toilet, and free standing bathtub. Probablybecause the door was always closed, the heat from the kitchen stove failedto reach this room, and the bathroom was always chilly. A second door, tothe left of the stove, led to a narrow pantry that extended eight to ten feetin length. Here were the cupboards, which held pots and pans, and pietins. Plates, soup bowls, cups and saucers, were stored on upper shelves.There was a sink and a counter. It seemed that there was a half of ham,with the bone in, on the platter, perpetually sitting on the counter. Some-times there would be a lemon pie, sometimes there would be an apple pie,sometimes there would be no pie, or other dessert, but it seemed that therewas always ham. There was no ice box or other means of cooling. The pan-try, however, was cold in the winter, mostly cool in the summer, andserved as storage facilities for perishable food stuffs. A door at the rear ofthe pantry led into the covered and enclosed storage shed, where firewood, tools and miscellaneous paraphernalia were kept. Another doorfrom the kitchen led to stairs to the attic, which was little more than acrawl space and initially was only used for storage.

The Griffin children were baptized in the Roman Catholic faith at St.Bridget’s Church and each completed eight years schooling at the paro-chial school. Father Lanigan was St. Bridget’s pastor, and the Sisters ofMercy taught their pupils the ABC’s, the social graces, Irish songs and talesof historical Irish heroes and saints, and a hatred of anything “British”.

It was here that the Griffin children, and their Irish classmates, learnedthe truths that would last them a lifetime: to love America and Ireland; tofear “the loss of heaven and the pains of hell”; and that one’s social stand-ing was determined by nationality, where you lived, and what you did, andnot by what was owned or owed. And above all, that all Roman Catholicswere equal in the sight of God. Every man, woman, and child was a crea-ture of God, and no one should be hated because of the color of his skin,or because he didn’t speak English, or because he ate different foods. Andof all God’s creatures, the Irish were most favored by God. These ‘truths’

The Mayor’s Aunt6

were taught early and often, and once learned they lasted a lifetime, andwere passed on from generation to generation.

In 1911, when politicians and educators were attempting to establishthe University of Buffalo as a Liberal Arts college, which would primarilyserve local high school graduates, the Buffalo Courier quoted a First Wardpriest as opposing any institution where “materialism, atheism, free love asopposed to matrimony and the sanctity of the home, will be taught to thechildren of our laboring classes”.

Catherine’s early years were pleasant. Sure there were always chores todo, and usually “Ma” left the tending and supervision of Agnes to Cathe-rine, but there were also daily errands to be run, to the bakery, or to theA&P market, or to McMahon’s grocery store, where Mrs McMahonalways rewarded Catherine with a few pieces of ‘penny’ candy.

Catherine, and other little girls, could go to Lanigan Playground, onFulton Street near Louisiana, only a few short blocks from the Griffin’shome, where there were swings and slides, and what seemed to be a per-petual baseball game. Of course girls weren’t invited to participate in anyof the athletic contests and in fact the boys who played at Lanigan, BillyDent, Mike Scanlon, Tom Reedy Johnny Collins, and her brothers Jimmyand Tommy, had very little to do with girls at any time.

A particular delight for Catherine was the occasional visit to the Mas-que Theatre, where silent films were shown. Catherine saw comedies star-ring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle; as well as movieswith Zasu Pitts, Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino, all for only theprice of a nickle. And each autumn, St Bridget’s held their Lawn Fete.This three day celebration was the social focus of the entire neighborhood,with it’s children’s rides, carnival games and contests, beer tents, hot dogsand small bands providing dance music for groping couples.

There were no swimming pools located near the Griffin’s home, andthe nearby Buffalo River and the lakefront docks were where men worked,not where children swam. None of the Griffin children had any affinity forwater sports, and in fact, Catherine had a lifelong fear of deep water and ofdrowning.


And then, when Catherine was eight years old, there came the day thatnone of the Griffin children would ever forget,—the first St Patrick’s DayParade in Buffalo’s history.

The march had been planned, and much anticipated, since the previoussummer. 5,000 Irishmen would march from the Elk Street Market, up ElkStreet to Euclid Place and then would turn at Smith Street and marchback along the same route until everyone disbanded at the foot of MainStreet. Of course, no one anticipated that there would be more than a fewtired souls at the disembarkment site, since by that time the First Ward’s119 saloons would be overflowing with the Parade’s marchers, along withtheir male friends, relatives and on-lookers.

The Parade route went right by the Griffin’s front door. Mike Quinn,the Parade’s first marshal, led the procession, followed by Catholic BishopCharles Colton, former pastor of St Bridget’s RC Church, and Father Lan-igan, the current pastor of St Bridgets. Buffalo Mayor Louis Fuhrmannhad been scheduled to march but cancelled at the last moment, due to thesub-zero temperature and harsh weather conditions. Buffalo’s ‘finest’ wererepresented by the men of BFD Engine Companys 8 & 10, with theirshiny pumpers and hook and ladders, along with what seemed to be thebulk of the Buffalo Police Dept., the men of the Louisiana Street Station,all dressed in their navy blue uniforms.

And of course, other prominent Irish businessmen and politicians,including Jack White, Anthony McGowan, William “Fingy” Conners,William H Fitzpatrick, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be seen “wear-ing the green” as each waved to their constituents who lined the street andstood on their stoops, bundled against the icy blasts coming off Lake Erie.

But neither red, runny noses, nor numbing finger tips and toes, coulddim the glint in the eyes of the four Griffin kids when their “Dad”, march-ing in the front row of the Knights of Equity members, flashed his lumi-nous smile and broadly waved to his “woman”, his two strapping sons andhis “little darlings”.

As soon as the Knights of Equity contingent had passed by, the Griffinfamily went inside, where they could warm themselves by the heat of thestove, while “Ma” prepared hot cocoa and biscuits to fill their stomach and

The Mayor’s Aunt8

warm their hearts. They figured that it would take at least one half hourfor the marchers to proceed the three city blocks to Smith Street, turnaround and retrace the march to Griffin’s home, for yet another smile andwave of the hand from their dad.

Suddenly, there was Tom Griffin slouched in the kitchen doorway. Nolonger smiling, his face ashen, he said only, “Kate! I’m not feeling well. I’vegot the chills”.

“Ma” shushed the children, and acted as Tom’s crutch, as he staggeredtoward the bedroom.

Once he was in bed, ‘Ma’ layered quilts and blankets atop the shiveringgiant of a man, to produce a sweat that would empty his body of all illness.

Two days later, Tom Griffin died, never regaining consciousness. Thedeath certificate listed the cause of death as “pneumonia”.

The following three days were a blur for the children. Women of allages and descriptions brought food to the Griffin kitchen, where theystopped to say a few prayers at the bier and trade gossip and make sand-wiches and boil cabbage and potatoes. In the evenings the kitchen area wastaken over by what appeared to the children to be very large and very loudmen. All of the men seemed to be smoking cigars or pipes, and there wereeven a few cigarette smokers.

They sat and stood around a keg of beer, drinking, swapping sport sto-ries, having political arguments and retelling boisterous and happy talesthat often began … “Do you remember the time that Tom …” Therewere a few tears, but no weeping or bewailing, for deep in his heart, everyIrishman knows that there never can be life before death, and this was aFirst Ward Irish wake,—a send off for good ol’ Tom Griffin, who hadgone to his final reward in heaven.

On March 23, 1913, after a burial Mass at St Bridget’s Church, Tho-mas Griffin was interred in Our Lady of Victory Cemetery on Ridge Road.

After the funeral ceremony, “Ma” and her children stopped at StPatrick’s Church to say a few final prayers. The pastor of St Patrick’s wasFather Nelson Baker, renowned for his fund raising abilities in behalf ofunwed mothers and orphans. Father Baker was also the Superintendent ofSt Joseph’s Orphanage and had recently supervised the construction of


Our Lady of Victory Infant Home, where refuge, prenatal care and adop-tive services was provided for hundreds of infants and unwed mothers.

“Ma” shepherded her brood to the orphanage grounds where sherecounted the horrific tales of life in the orphanages and ‘work houses’ thatyoung Katie Quinn (herself) had heard while she was a girl living in Ire-land. With pursed lips “Ma” emphasized that the “bad boys and girls”confined in these institutions were deserving of “the wages of sin” and thatthose committing the sin of adultery could expect nothing better thanhardship, cruelty and scorn from ‘decent people’.

“Ma” assured her bug-eyed audience that they had nothing to fear aslong as they ‘behaved themselves’ as good Catholics, and showed theirrespect to their mother, to members of the clergy, and to God. “Ma” saidthat she would only send any of her children to “Father Baker’s” if theymisbehaved.

All ethereal quality of life for the Griffins disappeared when they awokethe following morning.

“Ma” immediately announced that Jimmy, the oldest child, would nolonger be attending school. Rather, she instructed him to take the trolleyto Michigan Avenue and then to walk over to Gansen Street, where Wash-burn Crosby was operating a grain mill. “Ma” lectured that her boy was toget a full time job, but to tell people that he was an educated man and thathe wasn’t interested in ‘scooper’ work or unskilled labor in the mills. Fur-ther, she pronounced that Tommy, one year younger than Jim, couldcomplete his seventh and eighth years of education at St Bridgets only if hesucceeded in obtaining a newspaper route, or work at a newspaper stand,after school hours.

The two girls, too young for paid employment, were disabused of allnotions of a “life of leisure” when “Ma” announced that henceforth shewould have to take in ‘boarders’ to defray household expenses and that thegirls would be responsible for daily housekeeping duties.

At that time, running a boarding house was one of the Ward’s principal‘cottage industries’. There were fourteen of them on Ohio Street alone.Each month hundreds of Irish immigrants came to the Ward seeking workin the freight yards, grain elevators, docks, slips and railroads that perme-

The Mayor’s Aunt10

ated the area. Of course, the largest ‘cottage industry’ in this Irish commu-nity was the saloon, and most of the boarding houses were run inconjunction with the liquor business. The saloon also served as a hiringhall, with the bar owner acting as hirer, supervisor, and provider of food,drink and shelter to the newcomer to “the land of milk and honey”. It’s nowonder that so many of the workers found themselves at the end of theshipping season, not only out of money, but deeply in debt to their land-lord.

‘Ma’ Griffin had determined that she could run a ‘decent’ place for aman to live. First, there would be no drinking on the premises. Second,meals would be wholesome, but served only on a regular, scheduled basis.And lastly, boarders would not be allowed to have visitors, male or female,for any reason. This was to provide privacy for the other boarders and toinsure security for the Griffin children.

It was, of course, necessary that the children make other adjustmentsand adopt new disciplines. All of the Griffin children had to forego theirbedroom spaces and henceforth the children would sleep on mattresses inthe attic, which was little more than a crawl space. Boarders had first callon the bathroom facilities. Jim was now the ‘man of the house’ and as suchwas allowed to take his meals with the boarders and was relieved of house-hold tasks. The other children would assist in the preparation and serviceof food, as well as the clean-up after meals. Naturally, they would waituntil the men had finished their meals before they could partake of theleft-overs. Each of the Griffin children was instructed to spend their leisuretime, what little they had, outside of the home, so that they wouldn’t beunderfoot much of the time.

Thus, in one breakfast meeting, a familial hierarchy was established thatwas to last a lifetime.

James D Griffin, the eldest son, was designated “man of the house”, thebreadwinner, disciplinarian and arbitrator of all disputes. Thomas was des-tined to remain the second son, not given many responsibilities, notexpected to accomplish great deeds, and not accorded any undue respect.The two daughters, Catherine and Agnes, were handmaidens to theirmother, and while neither could be gracious, they accepted their servile


duties and responsibilities as their ‘lot in life’. And, Tom Griffin, husbandand father, was never mentioned or discussed in family circles again!

From that day forward, life would be harsh for the Griffins. Nicetieswould be hard won and rare. Luxuries would be beyond their imaginationand therefore would seem to be ill-gotten and only acquired by thewicked. Bitterness had no ‘statute of limitations’ and was best tempered byself-deception and masked by deceitfulness toward others.

In one respect, Jim Griffin’s first search for employment came at a mostopportune time, for Washburn Crosby was beginning an expansion pro-gram that would make their Buffalo facility the fourth largest elevatingand milling complex in the nation. In only a week or two, construction ofa fireproof, concrete structure was to begin. Once finished this electricallydriven, efficient and economical facility would make the traditional steampowered mills, all but obsolete. Young Jim had been hired as a messengerboy, who would carry orders and messages between the six story brick piermilling building, the existing nine tile storage bins and the constructionsite of Elevator C2.

As he grew into manhood, Jim developed an easy grace and athleticismusually associated with actor/dancer Gene Kelly. He was blessed with aready smile and gleam in his eye that characterizes the ‘handsome’ Irish-man. Jim remained a bachelor and lived the rest of his life in the small cot-tage where he was born. He never smoked, occasionally would have a tasteof beer, and though at times he flashed a hot temper, he was never knownto use foul language of any kind. His demeanor announced to one and toall that ‘Jim Griffin was beholden to no one’.

The younger Griffin boy, Tommy, now known as ‘Rocko’, was slight ofbuild, yet was considered by many to be the superior athlete of the twoGriffin boys. His diffident manner, characterized by a reflexive downwardglance, and a quiet smile, bespoke shyness. Rocko obtained a morningpaper route shortly after his father’s death and despite a life-long propen-sity toward early morning drowsiness, he held this position until his grad-uation from St Bridget’s Parochial School in 1915. He then applied foremployment at Beals, McCarthy and Rogers, a large hardware and tooloutlet, which was located at the southeast corner of Katherine and Elk


Streets, near the Griffin’s home. He remained an employee of Beals for therest of his working life, until his retirement in 1978.

The Griffin brothers remained friends their entire lives. As young menthey were usually teammates and traveled to athletic contests together.Neither man ever owned an automobile, but the City of Buffalo was tra-versed by inexpensive public transportation. Thirteen streetcar lines andconnecting bus routes made playing fields and entertainment centersreadily accessible. For a dime, and using free ‘transfers’, one could ride allover the city. The South Park trolley went right by the Griffin front doorand made going to Cazenovia Park to play baseball, or to downtown tocatch a movie, or even attending a boxing match at the Broadway Audito-rium, a small inconvenience.

Boxing,”the manly art of self defense”, was a major sport in Buffaloduring the 1920’s In particular the Griffins liked to follow the career ofRocky Kansas, a boxer born and raised in Buffalo, who eventually becameWorld Lightweight Champion. Kansas, was a short, powerful, scrappybattler with a solid build, who was knocked out only twice, in a career of165 bouts. Jimmy and Tommy Griffin were in attendance at the Broad-way Auditorium in 1925, when Kansas defeated Jimmy Goodrich tobecome Lightweight Champion. They also held tickets to watch WorldHeavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey, fight a four round exhibitionbout in Bison Stadium in July 1922.

But the sports idol of the 1920’s, for the Griffins, and for the entireFirst Ward, was Jimmy (Slats) Slattery. ‘Slats’, born in the First Ward, wasa long, rangy, handsome kid, who wore green trucks whenever he fought.In his hey-dey, he was like the hero of some Irish fable, a black haired,dancing, will-o’-the wisp Irish imp, who out-boxed, out-guessed, and out-fought the best fighters in the world.. Gentleman Jim Corbett, formerChampion, who had defeated the Great John L Sullivan for the heavy-weight crown, attended every Slattery bout. Gene Tunny, who haddefeated Jack Dempsey to become heavyweight Champion, named ‘Slats”as the greatest boxer of that time. A highlight in the Griffin boys life wasbeing part of the packed house at Broadway Auditorium, when in 1930,


Slattery won a grueling 15-round decision over Lou Scozza, to regain theLight Heavyweight title that he had lost two years before.

Their younger sister, Catherine, knew a different Jimmy Slattery. Onceshe had completed her education at St Mary’s Business School, she quicklyobtained full-time employment as a stenographer/typist at Beals, McCar-thy and Rogers, where her brother Tommy was employed as a sales clerk.She had developed a fast friendship with two girls, both First Ward resi-dents, and both schoolmates of Catherine at St. Mary’s. Jean Devine, oneyear older than Catherine, lived with her family in the corner house atTennessee and O’Connell Streets. Marion McGilligott, short and a littleplump, was two years younger than Catherine, and played the part of tag-along to the two older, and more attractive girls. Marian lived on AlabamaStreet, between Elk Street and Mackinaw Street, just around the cornerfrom the Masque Theater. The three girls would meet each weekend toattend movies at the’ Masque’. By the end of the 1920’s talking pictureshad replaced ‘the silents’ on America’s movie screens and with talking pic-tures came a whole new cast of movie celebrities. Robert Taylor, FrederickMarch, Robert Preston and Robert Montgomery had replaced the earlier‘heartthrobs’, Rudolph Valentino, John Barrymore and Douglas FairbanksSr. The girls had a whole new set of role models. Greta Garbo, Joan Craw-ford and Jean Harlow dominated the screens and the tabloids. Bobbedhair, short skirts and the ‘flapper’ lifestyle had become the rage. CatherineGriffin, who in her late teens had grown into a beautiful and curvaceousyoung lady, was so taken by the appearance, charms and allure of a beauti-ful and carefree young movie actress, Kay Francis, that she insisted that shebe called ‘Kay’, and she was known as ‘Kay’ for the rest of her life.

The three ‘Ward’ girls continued to travel together and often attendedsocial events, in the First Ward and in South Buffalo, as a ‘threesome’. Kayexplained that “plain looking, or unattractive girls, liked to travel withgood looking girls because the ‘good lookers’ always attracted handsomeyoung men”. She then would add that she traveled with girls less attractivethan herself because she “didn’t want any competition” in the dating ritu-als of the day.


The Volstead Act (Prohibition) had been enacted in 1919, when Kaywas fourteen years old. Since all sales of alcoholic beverages were illegal,the stigma against underage age drinking didn’t exist,—it was illegal foranyone to drink! Saloons were closed, and while there were speakeasys inevery neighborhood, the most congenial social gatherings were held in pri-vate homes. It was at these social gatherings that Buffalo girls got to meet,and to know, the “light heavyweight champion of the world”, Jimmy(Slats) Slattery.

For it seemed that at every party, at all times of the day or night, therewas ‘Slats”, surrounded by girls and booze, playing his harmonica andbemoaning that he would give up the fight game in a minute if he couldonly learn to “play the piano” for his living. He was every man’sfriend,—fun loving and generous to a fault. He was also every girl’s dreamdate,—and at times it seemed as if he intended to squire each of the‘Ward’s’ loveliest young ladies, for at least an hour.

Kay’s hour had not yet come, but she knew that it would. Increasingly,she and ‘Slats’ were making eye contact and several times recently he hadseemed on the verge of asking Kay to dance. The very thought of an idyllwith such a heroic figure was both erotically arousing and frightening, forKay loved to party, and to dance, but she had never developed a taste for,nor a tolerance of alcoholic beverages. She had heard stories of the calami-tous effects of ‘bathtub gin’ and other ‘bootleg hooch’,—blindness, syphi-lis and infertility. Besides, her friend Marion ‘drank like a fish’ and Kaywas convinced that was the reason that she was ‘fat’. To Kay, plumpnesswas the worst scourge that could befall a maiden.

It was also obvious that even moderate imbibing could result in a girllowering her resistance to sinful behavior. On several occasions Kay hadwitnessed her other good friend Jean, in a warm and relaxed mood after afew drinks, leave a party with a new, male acquaintance, not to be seenagain until the next day. All of her life Kay had heard ‘Ma’ Griffin warnagainst the’wages of sin’, and she knew that there was a special place in hellreserved for adulteresses. Frankly, Kay didn’t know a thing about debauch-ery, or even how to commit adultery, and she had no intention of letting a


few drops of booze cause her to do anything that would result in eternaldamnation, or worse yet, cause the neighbors to talk about her.

It was a cold, blustery and snowy March evening when Kay and her twofriends stood huddled against the wind at the corner of Hamburg and ElkStreet, waiting for a trolley that was to take them to a house party onMcKinley Parkway. Kay was in a foul mood. They were going to have toget off the trolley at St. Theresa’s Church on South Park Ave., then walktwo long blocks up Olcott Ave, in this rotten weather, to reach the ‘partyhouse’. And Kay knew that Jimmy Slattery wouldn’t be at this party. Herbrothers had watched ‘Slats’ win a warm up bout against Len Darcy in theBroadway Auditorium on the previous night, and Kay had read whereSlattery was scheduled to fight Jim Braddock in Madison Square Gardenin New York City in less than two weeks. Certainly, Slattery would be in astrict training regimen before this important bout. Kay had wanted to godowntown to see the latest Kay Francis picture, “The Marriage Play-ground”, which was playing at the Shea’s Hippodrome Theater, but Jeanhad insisted that this party could be ‘fun’. Marion, of course, had gonealong with Jean, as long as there was a chance of getting some free drinks.

Kay grew even more morose once the trio had boarded the trolley and itbecame apparent that Marion already had been drinking. Answering Kay’sglower, Marion giggled as she explained, “I found a bottle of Dago Redwine that my mother had stashed. I only had two glasses of it.” It was achilled and chilly trio that eventually ascended the snow ladened steps ofthe imposing red brick mansion on McKinley Parkway, where a party wasevidently well under way.

Kay had no more than doffed her coat when she heard a familiar voiceshout, “Kay! I’ve been wondering where you were! Come and give me akiss!” It was Jimmy Slattery, disheveled, unwashed and unshaven, stum-bling toward her, arms splayed, with a drink in each hand.

Kay recoiled intuitively. “Keep away from me, you dirty drunk! Yousmell like a saloon!” she blurted.

‘Slats’ feigned slipping an opponent’s punch, but as he brought hishands into their defensive position, ice flew from his drinks. Instinctively,he tried to catch the errant cubes, lurching as if to fall in the process.


Marion McGilligott was at ‘Slat’s” side in a flash, steadying him againsta fall. She cradled him and led him to a bar stool, as a second would assista defeated boxer back to his corner.

Kay was mortified. “I’m going home!”, she said as she spun on her heeland headed for the large oaken, front door. “Kay, don’t forget your coat!”,Jean shouted as she followed her friend into the wintery night air, wavingthe faux fur that Kay prized so dearly.

The ride home on the IRC #16 streetcar was spent in absolute silence.Kay had been debased by Slattery’s boorish behavior, but she felt humili-ated by the fact that Marion’s slatternly action had prevented ‘Slats’ fromapologizing to her and probably had disrupted whatever chance there hadbeen for a romantic tryst with this ‘dream date’. Kay would never be ableto forget or forgive Marion’s wantonness.

Kay remained at home, alone, for the balance of the weekend and thenreported for work at Beals on Monday morning. That evening Jean, visiblydistraught, appeared at the side entrance of the Griffin cottage. Kay wassurprised by the visit because the girls rarely visited each other’s home.Jean reported that she had gone over to Marion’s home to check on theirfriend and that Mrs. McGilligott said that she hadn’t seen Marion sinceshe had left the house early Friday evening, and she had presumed thatMarion had spent the weekend with Jean, or with Kay. Without admittingJean into the kitchen, Kay advised her that Marion was certainly in nodanger and would probably show up at her mother’s house later that sameevening. Kay was incapable of expressing concern for Marion’s well being,because she was genuinely indifferent to whatever befell her former friend.

On Thursday of that week, the salesmen at Beals were abuzz with thenews that Slattery had been arrested in Elkart, Indiana and charged withvagrancy. Kay remained mum, but she knew, deep in her heart, that ‘Slats’was so shaken by their Friday night confrontation that he had ‘gone off ona binge’ and probably didn’t remember his upcoming fight, or anythingelse. She was also quietly certain that nothing bad would have happened ifMarion had just ‘kept her nose out of other people’s affairs’. The followingweek, when Jean reported that Mrs McGilligott had told her that Marion


had “entered a convent”, Kay’s only response was, “Well, they’d betterlock up the sacramental wine”.

Several years later, Jimmy Griffin heard a different version of the storywhile participating in a handball tournament at the Knights of Columbus,on Delaware Avenue. He sat quietly as men in the locker room were swap-ping stories of Slattery’s late night carousing and liquor soaked misadven-tures. The tales had become commonplace, and more pronounced andlurid, as ‘Slats’ boxing skills faded and he suffered multiple losses to MaxieRosenbloom, King Levinsky, and Charley Belanger. ‘Slats’ had easilydefeated each of these boxers when he was younger, and in better condi-tion. Even Griffin had to agree that when he saw ‘Slats’ regain the lightheavyweight title from Lou Scozza, the Irishman had been lucky to survivea savage assault during the final four rounds, and had been ‘saved by thebell’ at the end of the 13th round.

Ray Meegan, a tough Buffalo police detective, held the floor as heoffered his opinion that Slattery’s decline had begun with his defeat at thehands of Jim Braddock, in March 1929. Meegan told how Buffalo MayorFrank Schwab had received a phone call from the police chief in ElkhartInd., only one week before the Braddock fight. The police chief told theMayor that his men had arrested a Buffalo man, and his girlfriend, after adrunken barroom brawl. When the arresting officers discovered that thecouple had come across state lines to Elkhart from Buffalo, and wereunmarried, they were prepared to charge the pair with violating the MannAct. While sobering up, Slattery had loudly proclaimed that he was “theformer light heavyweight champion of the world”, and the police chiefthought he’d better call the Buffalo Mayor to see how to proceed. Schwabhad asked the chief to simply charge Slattery with vagrancy, and he assuredthe chief that Red Carr, ‘Slats’ manager, would come to Elkhart, pay anyimposed fines, and would express his deep gratitude in other ways.

Grinning broadly, Meegan then related that the police chief had thenasked, “How about the girl friend?”. The astonished Mayor could onlyrespond, “Don’t charge her with anything yet. Let me talk to her familyand I’ll get back to you later”. Meegan laughed as he said, “And that’s howI got an expense free trip to Elkhart, Indiana!” The detective told how he


had visited the girl’s mother at her modest Alabama Street cottage. She wasshocked and dismayed that the Mayor of the City was aware of her daugh-ter’s wanton behavior, and had readily signed a release, allowing herdaughter to be institutionalized at “The Home of the Good Shepherd”, ahome for ‘wayward girls’, for an indeterminate term.

The mood in the locker room grew somber as Meegan told of arrivingat the gates of the ten foot yellow brick wall on Best Street, with the short,slightly plump, and thoroughly frightened young girl in tow. He said thatthey were met by three unsmiling nuns, two of whom led the quaking girlaway, while the third examined the admission document. Meegan wasn’tsure what order these nuns belonged to, but he was fairly sure that it wasthe same order that ran the nearby German Roman Catholic Orphanage.When the sister had ascertained that the documents were in proper order,she asked if the Buffalo detective would like to tour the facility. Meeganpresumed that the nun had mistaken him for a corrections facility officialand was extending the invitation as a professional courtesy, but his curios-ity had been peaked, and he accepted her offer.

The first thing that he noticed was that barbed wire guarded the topportion of ten foot high wall which encased the property. His next surprisewas the size and the scope of the facility, which covered the entire cityblock. There were three, four story buildings, which were obviously resi-dences or dormitories. Meegan wasn’t permitted to enter any of the build-ings. His guide simply stated “This is where the girls sleep!”Another Ushaped building, three stories high, was obviously the convent, administra-tion offices, and chapel. The detectives trained eyes made him aware thatwherever he went, even though he was being escorted, he was beingwatched by at least one other set of eyes. He observed nuns peering frombehind drapes, or standing in a window or doorway in full view, or putter-ing in a garden area, with their eyes fixed on him, mutely monitoring hisevery action.

In the center of the property was a low slung building, girded with openfactory windows, belching steam and humidity. Meegan was allowedinside this building, for his guide obviously considered this to be the gem-stone of the institution.”This is the Laundry!” she exclaimed and she then


proceeded to give the city detective a lesson in institutional economics. Allof the laundry from the Buffalo Catholic Diocese,(ie) altar linens, bed-clothes from convents and orphanages and hospitals, towels and tablecloths, and even underwear of the clergy were brought to the Home of theGood Shepherd every day, where they were bleached, cleaned and laun-dered and returned within twenty four hours. The Diocese paid an annualfee to the nuns for this service and individual Catholic parishes, and somechurches of other denominations, paid a monthly stipend to the institu-tion. The nun smiled quietly when she said, “We’re getting some businessfrom neighborhood dry cleaners too, but we charge them considerablymore!”

Working at large vats, or at press boards, and at folding tables, weredozens of women. Some were apparently very young girls, but thereseemed to be a wide range in the ages of the women employed in laundrywork. Meegan even saw some women that he judged to be his age engagedin the monotonous toil. The workers had several things in common. Noone seemed to smile and there was no conversation between workers. Eachwoman was without makeup, wore a gray sack cloth uniform and workshoes and was stockingless. The nun announced that almost one hundredwomen were currently living at the home and working at the laundry.

When Meegan asked about wages or compensation for the women’slabor, he was abruptly reminded that this was a penal institution and thatthe girls should be grateful that they had productive work to do each day,rather than be confined in a cell. When the city cop asked how long awomen, or girl could be confined at the home, the nun explained thatsince confinement had been initiated with and by the consent of a legalguardian, release from the Home of the Good Shepherd, could only takeplace upon petition from a guardian, or from an inmate’s family member.Meegan blurted, “My God! A girl could spend her whole life in this place!”The nun simply shrugged, and said nothing more.

Griffin noticed that as Meegan was completing this tale, tears were well-ing up in the detective’s eyes. “Ray, do you know the name of the girl thatyou brought to that terrible place?” Jim asked quietly. “No, I don’t. It’sbeen a long time now and I’ve never been back there, and I don’t want to


go back again.” Meegan responded as he left the hushed locker room.Jimmy Griffin didn’t need to be told the girl’s name, for he had guessedthat she was Marion McGilligott, his sister’s friend. He pondered whetherhe should tell Kay what he had learned, but then decided that since Kayhadn’t mentioned the girl’s name in ages, and since nothing could be donenow to help the kid, he’d be better off remaining silent about the wholeepisode.

21

2The Man of Her Dreams

Kay’s interest in house parties and other South Buffalo social gatheringsbegan to wane. She found that she’d tired of the same ‘old crowd’, thesame old jokes, the same old banal conversations about ‘who did what towho’ and the almost incestuous infatuations between people who hadknown each other all of their lives. Besides, even though no one ever saidanything, Kay realized that a coolness toward her had developed ever sinceshe had rejected Jimmy Slattery’s advances, on that March evening beforeSlattery’s loss to Jim Braddock in Madison Square Garden. She sensed thatthe young men of South Buffalo blamed her ‘haughty attitude’ toward‘Slats’ for his obvious disinterest in training, and spotty performances inthe ring, since their confrontation.

As for the South Buffalo ‘girls’, Kay had absolutely no doubts but thateach and every girl was jealous of the fact that Kay had been the only onewho had ever resisted and rejected the charms of Buffalo’s leading celebrityand the most handsome man that Buffalo’s Old First Ward had ever pro-duced.

At home things weren’t much improved. Once all of the Griffins foundfull-time employment there was no longer any need for boarders. The‘children’ had reclaimed the cottage’s bedrooms, yet Kay and Agnes stillshared a double bed. But after Tommy, the second son, had marriedHelen Quigley, and had moved into his own digs, just down the street,there was barely enough wages to provide more than a bare living for ‘Ma’Griffin and her brood. With Jimmy Griffin being the only man in thehouse, and having been promoted to a clerical position at General Millsdowntown office, his posture and attitude became more autocratic witheach passing day. Agnes and Kay had never gotten along with each other.


Agnes had been born with a cleft palate and now that the ‘young ladies’were entering Buffalo’s social whirl, Kay felt that Agnes’ discomfort overthe nasal twang in her voice and facial disfigurement was increased byKay’s growing comeliness. Kay preferred not to attend social functionswhere her sister was present because she was sure that Ag’s resentmenttoward her would be noticed by everyone in attendance and would proba-bly spoil everyone’s fun.

During Kay’s teenage years, the basic summertime enjoyment was pro-vided by attendance at either of two amusement parks, both located justoutside of Fort Erie, Ont. Erie Beach or Crystal Beach were readily accessi-ble by ferries, which regularly sailed from the foot of Main Street, indowntown Buffalo. Erie Beach was serviced by four small ferries, the“Chicora”, the “Frontier”, the Ossian Bedell”, and the “United Shores”. Inaddition to the usual complement of amusement park rides on it’s Midwayand a large picnic area and casino restaurant, Erie Beach featured “theworld’s largest swimming pool”, which augmented it’s lake swimming areawhere the beach was substantially inferior to the one at Crystal Beach.

Transportation to Crystal Beach from Buffalo, was provided by twolarger ferries, “Canadiana” and “Americana”, both of which left from thefoot of Main Street and both of which provided dancing on their upperdeck, during the forty minute sail to the amusement park. Crystal Beachnot only featured one of Lake Erie’s finest sand beaches, it had a Midwaythat rivaled the world’s best, and which was constantly being added to andimproved.

The first sighting of Crystal Beach from the ‘Canadiana’, once it hadrounded Point Abino, was the giant ferris wheel, with it’s swinging seatsrising and descending from heights far above the line of trees and rooftops. Upon docking, and passing through the gates of Canadian Customs,passengers were greeted by the appearance of a miniature railroad, consist-ing of an engine (and whistle), caboose and six open passenger cars. For anickle fare, adults and children could traverse the wooded backland of theamusement park on a five minute ride that featured a lot of whistle blow-ing and quiet enjoyment. The entire ride had initially been featured at thePan-American Exposition in Buffalo and later been moved to the Cana-

The Man of Her Dreams 23

dian amusement park. Kay was always aglow at the thought that she mightbe sitting in the same train seats that had once held her parents when theywere young, and before she had been born.

Miniature cars, which gave the appearance of being driven and directedby youngsters, but which were magnetically drawn along a bumperedpathway, abutted the miniature railroad, and gave the more daring tots asense of participation, risk taking and accomplishment. The third passiveride heading the Midway was a beautiful carousel, with life-size horses,some of which were stationary, and some of which effortlessly moved upand down their poles to the accompaniment of hurdy-gurdy music, simu-lating a gallop and graceful forward movement,

All sense of serenity quickly faded as the frolicsome crowds moveddown the Midway, for there began an extravaganza of ‘thrill’ or adventurerides. The “Giant” roller coaster had been constructed in 1916 and itseemed that there had been a line of eager passengers waiting to board eversince! ‘Dodgems’ (bumper cars), ‘HeyDey’, ‘Whip’, and ‘Octopus’ wererides that offered the more adventurous with a shaking good scare, butwith no real danger to health or safety. Kay, who was usually accompaniedby Jean Devine, preferred those rides offering a more subdued excitement.‘Old Mill’(dark water ride), ‘Laff in the Dark’(propelled carriage through asimulated ‘haunted house’ scenario, ‘Caterpillar’ (speed ride with canopyhiding the riders from public view) allowed Kay to be frightened, shocked,surprised or giddily excited, without giving evidence that she was eithernaive or uncultured. Kay refused to put herself into a position where shemight be laughed at, or thought to be unsophisticated. This was the prin-cipal reason that Kay had always preferred going to Crystal Beach. Kay’saversion to Erie Beach’s large swimming pool could be traced to her fear ofdeep water and the fact that she hated to tell people that she didn’t knowhow to swim. The sandy beach at Crystal afforded the opportunity forinexpensive sun bathing and social gathering without the hazard of drown-ing or being embarrassed by having to explain that she lacked any of thesocial graces or talents.

Since Crystal Beach was owned by a confectioner, George Hall, it’sMidway was dotted with stands selling caramel corn, waffles, cotton


candy, taffy and suckers, along with the more traditional park foods, hot-dogs. hamburgers, and a Crystal Beach speciality, loganberry juice. At thefar end of the Midway, the carnival booths (baseball throw, ring toss, fish-ing pond, weight guessing) were located and there,—you always ‘almostwon’ a giant stuffed animal as a prize!

When Kay began visiting Crystal Beach, and until the year 1927, theProvince of Ontario prohibited the sale and/or consumption of alcoholicbeverages anywhere within the Province.. And at no time in it’s history,was the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages permitted on thegrounds of the Crystal Beach Amusement Park. With it’s large, clean pic-nic area, Crystal Beach was an ideal place for teenagers, couples, and fami-lies to inexpensively spend a summer’s day in a wholesome environment.

As a teenager, Kay’s opportunities to visit Crystal Beach were extremelylimited. First of all, she didn’t have a great deal of money to spend on friv-olous pursuits, and the fare on the Canadiana, plus the beach fee and onlya few amusement rides, would exhaust Kay’s spending money for a month.Also, the Province of Ontario had strict ‘blue laws’ which didn’t allowamusement parks, or much else, to operate within the Province on Sun-days and Kay worked the other six days of the week! So Kay could onlyafford to visit Crystal Beach once or twice each summer season, until thesummer of 1925.

Then, Kay and Jean visited the amusement park on the Fourth of Julyto celebrate Kay’s twentieth birthday and to visit the newly constructed“Quarter Million Dollar” Crystal Ballroom. Kay couldn’t believe her eyes!This was the largest unobstructed dance floor in North America! It couldhold up to 3000 dancers at one time! On the lake side of the structure,large segmented-glass doors opened right up from the dance floor to theoutside so that fresh lake breezes would cool the ballroom on hot summernights. Outside the doors was a promenade, with benches, where wearydancers could take a break and cool off. At each end of the building was abalcony so non-dancers could survey the scene below or just listen to theband. And two bands were scheduled to play each night, one Canadianand one American!


Here was something that Kay could handle without the threat of morti-fication. She knew that she could “dance with the best of them”! Immedi-ately, the very thought of attending ‘a house party on McKinley Parkway’seemed so drab and unappealing! Kay and Jean immediately planned theirsocial calendar for the balance of the Summer’25, and for many of thesummers to follow. On Saturdays Kay worked at Beals until 5:30 PM.Since Beals was located only two short blocks from the dock of both the‘Canadiana’ and the ‘Americana’ ferries, Kay could meet Jean each Satur-day after work, and they could catch the 6PM ferry to Crystal Beach wherethey could ‘dance the night away’, until the final boat brought them home.The very next day, Kay had her hair “bobbed” in the latest flapper style,and began updating her wardrobe.

The two girls maintained this summer schedule for as long as they weresingle. And Crystal Beach continued to grow, improve, and prosper, with1927 being a most significant year. First, construction of “TheCyclone”(World’s biggest roller coaster) and a new “Fun House” was com-pleted. Kay couldn’t have cared less, for she never rode on either ride. Butthat same year, the Province of Ontario lifted it’s prohibition against thesale and consumption of alcoholic beverages, and the Peace Bridge, linkingBuffalo to Fort Erie Ontario, was opened. Kay would never develop a tastefor liquor, or beer, but the opening of both the bridge and Ontario pubsbrought a host of new customers to Crystal Beach. Young men from allover Western New York, with automobiles and a thirst for a “legal beer’,flooded into the area, looking for a ‘good time’. In 1928, the ferry “Amer-icana”was taken out of service as the automobile came to be the preferredmeans of entering Canada.. In 1930, Erie Beach closed, leaving CrystalBeach as Buffalo’s “Million Dollar Playground”. And Crystal’s new pros-perity brought ‘big name’ entertainers to it’s ballroom. Kay danced to the‘live’ music of Artie Shaw, the Dorsey Brothers, Gene Krupa, GlennMiller and Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.

At first, Kay found the sea of new faces and strange accents and idiomsto be exotic and exciting. She had never before met, much less associatedwith, any large number of men who were not of Irish heritage. At work,there were a few young, unmarried salesmen or clerks but chances for


social contact were mostly limited to the annual company Christmasparty. But in the Crystal Ballroom Kay was meeting, and sometimes danc-ing with, Italian men from the Nativity parish on Buffalo’s West Side,Germans from St Boniface parish, and once, even a nice Polack from StStanislaus parish. Not that Kay was looking for any long-term romanticattachments with any of them. She knew that when the time came, hermarriage partner would be Irish. She had heard of the difficulties girls hadwhen they married other nationalities. She remembered the talk whenBetty Corrigan, from Hamburg Street, had married an “eyetalian”. “Sure,she was pretty enough, I thought sure that she could have gotten a ‘whiteman’.” was the common refrain from neighbors, friends and fellow StBridget parishioners. And it was common knowledge in the First Ward,that German husbands were “tight with their money”, that Italian men allhad mistresses and that the Poles were ‘funny looking’ and dumb.

But after a short while the initial excitement of meeting new peoplefaded as an uneasy sense of disorientation appeared. No longer did Kayhave the old standards of measuring people to guide her. One evening atthe Crystal Ballroom, she met George Weichman, a young, handsome andcharming salesman, who worked with Kay at Beals,. They danced, andlaughed and had a grand time for much of the evening, until Jean Devinequietly mentioned to Kay that she thought that Weichman was a ‘Jewish’name. Kay was perplexed. She didn’t think that Jean was right for shethought that she had remembered that Weichman had attended theChristmas Party at work the previous December. But how could one besure? And what would happen if Jean started spreading the word that Kay‘was hanging out with Jews’? If you met a nice young man and he told youthat he lived on Peach Street, in Buffalo’s Fruitbelt neighborhood, whoknew if that was a ‘good’ neighborhood or not? If a handsome and dashing(great) dancer told you that he lived on Russell Avenue, in North Buffalo,how could you judge him if no one knew his uncles, or other relatives, andwhere they worked, and if they were churchgoers, or not. The commonal-ity of First Ward residents had offered Kay protection from misrepresenta-tions and other deceits. She seemed to be socially adrift without thefamiliar standards for judging people that had always served her so well


since she was a young girl. And so, Kay Griffin smiled a lot, volunteeredlittle information about her self, laughed at all jokes and didn’t believe aword that anyone said, —although she always pretended to.

While the Crystal Beach Ballroom provided a haven and respite from“worldly cares” during the summer months, there was no comparablesolace available during Buffalo’s long, harsh winters.

There was dancing at the Dellwood Ballroom, but it was a long street-car ride out to Main and Utica Streets and back, particularly on a snowy,blustery evening. The Terrace, a small dancehall, situated just slightly westof the new City Hall in downtown Buffalo, was more convenient, butfrankly neither Kay nor her friend Jean were comfortable among thecrowds of strangers in either dancing establishment.

On most Sundays, Kay and Jean would attend Mass at St Bridgets andthen ride the trolley into downtown Buffalo. Often they would stop atSchraft’s Restaurant on Main Street, near the Shea’s Great Lakes Theater,for an omelet or maybe just tea and a biscuit, before attending a moviematinee. Occasionally, in hospitable weather, the girls would leave earlierin the day, ride the street car out to Main and Edward Streets, where theywould disembark, and hear Mass at St Louis Church. Following thechurch service, they would leisurely stroll southward on Main Street untilthey reached the Vernors Ginger Ale Soda Shop. While sipping their choc-olate flavored ginger ale floats they had ample time to decide which cin-ema they would attend that day. All downtown movie palaces had thesame ticket policy on Sundays,—adult admission was twenty cents, if youentered the theater before 2:15 PM. Several of the Shea’s Theaters offeredboth a main feature and a stage show, usually a big name dance band, atSunday matinees. For Kay, the balance of her Sunday schedule never var-ied. Following the movie she would return to her home on Elk Street, haveSunday dinner, which was usually chicken, at 5:30, then help with clear-ing and cleaning the dinner dishes. The balance of Sunday evening wasspent listening to the radio, Jack Benny at 7PM, Amos and Andy at7:30PM, Edgar Bergen & Charley McCarthy at 8PM, Inner SanctumMystery (with the creaking door introduction) at 8:30PM, until bedtime.


On Monday morning, Kay began another six day, forty-eight hour workweek.

At first, the Griffins had barely noticed the Great Depression. Theyowned no stocks so that the crash of the stock market in 1929 had noimmediate effect on the family’s finances. Jimmy Griffin retained his cleri-cal position at General Mills, and neither Kay nor Rocko suffered any lay-offs at Beals, McCarthy & Rogers, although all three Griffins had beenforced to take wage reductions. Only Agnes, the youngest daughter, andthe most proficient worker in the family, had trouble finding, and keepingany type of gainful employment. Kay’s friend, Jean Devine had been laidoff from her clerical position at the Pierce Arrow plant on Elmwood Ave,when the auto maker had been acquired by the Studebaker Company, andhadn’t been able to find any other job. So, money was ‘tight’ and therewere fewer trips to the movies, or to restaurants than before.

Kay viewed the year 1931 with foreboding. Jean probably wouldn’t beable to accompany her to Crystal Beach during the summer months if Jeandidn’t get another job. Her brother ‘Rocko’ and his wife had already pro-duced two children, and ‘that Helen’ (as “Ma” invariably referred to herdaughter-in-law) increasingly was using “Ma’s” home as a nursery, as she(Helen) went ‘gallivanting around’. Agnes was complaining about havingto constantly babysit her troublesome nephews,(Tommy, the older of thetwo, had the habit of banging his head on the sidewalk in order to getwhat he wanted, and the baby, Jimmy, wouldn’t do anything that he wasasked to do) and Ag kept asking when Kay was going to start sharingresponsibility for this irksome task. “Ma” was increasingly grumbling thatthere wasn’t enough money coming in to keep the Griffin householdgoing And no one, including Kay herself, had any confidence that heremployment at Beals would be continued during the entire year, much lessthat anyone’s job prospects or financial picture would be improved.

Jean was persuaded to accompany Kay to the Memorial Day 1931Opening celebration at Crystal Beach. While riding on the Canadiana’supper deck, on the way to the beach, Kay couldn’t help but notice a triothat seemed to be drawing a lot of attention to themselves. One was a tallwillowy blonde, who seemed to be engagingly amused by the antics of one


of the men accompanying her. Her two male companions were both tall,dark haired and handsome. The larger of the two men, with broad shoul-ders and a deep tan, resembled a Native-American Indian.

He had a hearty laugh and a broad grin and it seemed like he kneweveryone on the boat. He greeted each man with an enveloping handshakeand a clap on the back. Each girl was given an embrace and a lustful kiss,after which her escort would receive a lecherous wink and a playful jab onthe shoulder, to demonstrate that everything was meant in fun. The sec-ond man, with a lean, lithe body, seemed quietly amused as he watchedthese antics. It seemed to Kay that this group was spoiling for trouble andshe suggested to Jean that they find seats on the lower deck just in casethings got out of hand.

Once off the boat, the two girls immediately headed for the beach area.Even though the Lake Erie water was cold, and the air cool, they remainedon the sand all during the afternoon, soaking up the Spring sun rays anddevouring the ham sandwiches that “Ma” Griffin had provided for theboth of them. At sundown, the girls slipped into their party dresses,(Kayhad purchased a “silk flat crepe skirt and chemise of the latest flapper style”from the Sears catalog for $8.98 especially for this event), purchased someloganberry juice and caramel corn, took one spin on the miniature rail-road, and headed for the Crystal Ballroom.

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians was the featured band at thisopening gala and the Ballroom was filling, even at this early hour. Kay andJean went up to the balcony area where they could survey the scene,appraise the evenings prospects, and hear the music, without being con-spicuous. Leaning over the railing, Kay spotted the pair that she had seenearlier on the Canadiana,—the tall blonde and her rowdy companion,seated on a bench, engaged in animated conversation. She was scanningthe faces of the dancers on the floor, hoping to glimpse the tall, quietmember of the group, when she heard a voice quietly ask,”Would you careto dance?”. She turned and gasped as she was engulfed by two dark flash-ing eyes that moved over her face, searched for her soul and caressed herspirit. The man that she had awaited all of her life smiled hesitantly as hereached for her hand. “I’d love to”, she said as she took his hand in hers.


When they reached the dance floor, the young man said, “I’m TomMurphy.” Kay stammered, “I’m Kay Griffin.” and he responded, “I’mpleased to meet you, Kay Griffin” as he whirled her among the other danc-ing couples. He was a terrific dancer, and they completed three dancesbefore they exchanged another word. Then he abruptly said, “I want youto meet my brother!”.

Kay winced. She didn’t want to have to cope with that hooligan,—andshe didn’t think that she could! This was going to spoil everything! As sheand Tom Murphy neared the bench where the private conversation wascontinuing, Kay noted that the blonde girl, who was really quite attractive,kept viewing her escort with a skeptical sidelong glance as he gestured andgrimaced while pleading his case.

Tom said simply, “Jim, I’d like you to meet Kay Griffin. Kay, this is mybig brother Jim”. There was no hug or wet kiss! Jim rose, enveloped Kay’shand in his giant paws, smiled the warmest smile Kay had even seen, andsaid, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Kay. My little brother has donenothing but talk about you, ever since he saw you on the boat earliertoday! I’d like you to meet my fiancee, Beatrice Meyers”. The blondesmiled broadly and said, “Murphy, you really know how to pick ’em. She’sbeautiful! Kay, please call me ‘Bee’. All my friends do.” From that momenton, the trio had become a quartet, consisting of two couples, all of themfriends.

For the balance of the evening there was laughter, and dancing, butmostly there was conversation. Kay didn’t have to say a word. In turnedout that while Tom appeared at first to be the quiet one, he was quite theraconteur, with a wry wit and the ability to put a humorous face on eventhe most delicate and serious situations. Bee possessed a superb sense oftiming, and would deliver sardonic quips to puncture serious discussions,or to punctuate comic deliveries. Jim enjoyed the very presence of his girl,his brother and his brother’s girl friend, and he expressed his delight withraucous laughter at almost everything that was said.

The brothers regaled each other with their recollections of boyhoodpranks and escapades while growing up on a farm in Sault Ste Marie,Michigan. They told how, when they were teenagers, their mother had


assisted them in ‘running away from home’, to escape the tyrannical rant-ing of their father, —“a mean old sonofabitch”. They recounted theadventure of hitchhiking to the Mackinaw Strait, sneaking on board theferryboat, and then ‘riding the rails’ and hoboing until they reached Buf-falo.

Kay was aghast and exhilarated! This was a world and a life that she hadknown nothing about. These young Irish giants, their emotions unshack-led from the teaching of nuns, were describing growing up on a farm. Kayhad never even seen a farm! She didn’t even know where Sault Ste Marie,Michigan or the Mackinaw Straits were located on a map! These guysweren’t bragging about hitting a home run at Lanigan Playground whenthey were twelve, they had played ‘hockey’, which as they described it,seemed more like a street fight than a game. In the days when she and herfriends were being threatened with being ‘sent to Father Baker’s’ if theymisbehaved, these kids were sleeping in boxcars. Kay kept laughing andsmiling but she didn’t utter a sound, for she couldn’t catch her breath andbesides, she didn’t want to interrupt or interfere with the telling of thesewonderful tales.

As the evening wore on the tone of the conversation grew a bit moreserious. When the boys arrived in Buffalo they had no money, nor place tostay. Tom reported that the first work that they were able to get was as‘day labor’,—gandy dancers at the Erie-Lackawanna railyards, back break-ing work. They slept in a flop-house on Ridge Road for 20 cents per night.Then Jim obtained steady work as a laborer with Stimm ConstructionCompany, doing work on the Our Lady of Victory Basilica, and thebrothers were able to get decent lodgings on Homestead Street in SouthBuffalo. When Jim Murphy heard that Stimm Construction was going tobe doing some work on the new Peace Bridge he contacted HowardStimm and told him that the Murphy Brothers could supply all the daylaborers that Stimm needed, whenever and wherever they were needed.The contractor smiled indulgently and said, “That’s fine with me,—I’ll letyou know when I need someone!” Tom Murphy visited the employmentoffices of a few local railroads, made them the same promise, and beforeyou knew it, Tom and Jim Murphy were in business for themselves. All


that the two Michigan farm boys had to do was assemble a workforce,many of who didn’t speak much English, convince them to take on diffi-cult, and sometimes dangerous work, in hostile weather, at very low wagesand then negotiate labor contracts with belligerent, tough constructionbosses. As Tom described it, often the toughest part of their job was col-lecting the employment agent’s fee from employers who were hesitantabout spending any money at all for temporary help.

Kay was swept by an ecstatic rush as she heard tales of scuffles andbrawls that the Murphys seemed to have engaged in on a daily basis. Shefelt an erotic sense of trepidation as she came to realize that her firstimpression had been correct,—Jim Murphy’s jovial disposition coulddarken into a rage almost instantly. He was quick to use his fists to resolveany dispute. Tom, on the other hand, preferred to use his quick wit tocajole his way out of almost any difficult situation. However, both menemphasized in their storytelling that no one ever fought just one Murphybrother.

Jim reported that they had enjoyed a few really good years, before theDepression hit. Then Stimm Construction Co, and almost every otheremployer in Buffalo, found that when they needed a few day-laborers, orother temporary help, they only had to look outside their gates, on anymorning, to find hundreds of able-bodied men, anxious to obtain any typeof work,—at almost any price! There was no longer any need for anemployment agency, and no employer was willing to pay extra for the con-venience of having a hiring agent. Jim had been forced to ask HowardStimm to rehire him as a laborer and part-time hooligan, and Jim hadbeen thankful that the contractor had been gracious enough to give himhis old job back.

Then the couples danced some more and before they realized the time,Guy Lombardo’s band was playing their signature piece, “Auld LangSyne”, and the announcement came that the last boat to Buffalo was aboutto pull away from the Crystal Beach dock. Once on board the boat, TomMurphy began a comic recital that Kay suspected he had performed manytimes before. He announced that it had always been his dream to be apoliceman, or a fireman, in a big city, but when he signed up to take the


civil service examinations for these positions in Buffalo, he found that hedidn’t meet the minimum weight requirements for either job. “It isn’t thatI don’t weigh enough, it’s just that I’m too tall!”, he explained. Bee devel-oped a coughing fit from laughing, as Tom described his efforts to gainweight by stuffing himself with bananas and mashed potatoes before eachphysical examination,—even though she had probably heard this samestory told a dozen times before. As Jim pounded Bee’s back to ease hercoughing, he roared, “This is how I had to treat Tom after he ate all ofthose potatoes and bananas!” Kay asked, “Did you ever pass the civil ser-vice exams?” and Tom replied with a grin, “Not yet!”.

By this time the Canadiana had reached it’s overnight perch at the footof Main Street, and as the couples disembarked, Jim suggested that theystop for hamburgers before they went home. “Let’s see if we can’t put a lit-tle weight back on poor, skinny Tom”, he stated, displaying his broadgrin.

They stopped at the new White Tower restaurant, at Main and SenecaStreet, before proceeding up to Shelton Square where they would boardthe streetcars that would take them home. Bee left the group to board theNo.13 Kensington trolley that would take her to her parent’s home onGrider Street. The Murphys took the same No 16 South Park trolley thatKay took each day to return to her First Ward home from Beals. Kay wasaglow as she alighted at the Katherine Street trolley stop, for Tom hadpromised to telephone her. Kay suffered an involuntary shudder when sheglanced across the broad street to the small, darkened cottage where shelived, but the feeling of dread passed quickly once she reminded herselfthat there was sure to be many more evenings spent with the entertainingMurphy brothers.

As Kay crawled into her bed, next to Ag, she was startled by the fear, “Ihope that Jean got home okay”. Then she immediately reassured herself,“Sure she did! Jean knows how to care for herself!” It was one of the lasttimes that Kay Griffin gave Jean Devine a second thought!

True to his word, Tom telephoned two nights later, and almost everynight after that. Kay was giddy! She told Tom about her work days. Tomtold her about his search for a full-time job. They talked about radio shows


and about how much both of them enjoyed the singing of Kate Smith.And they made plans! Invariably they met in public spaces, and attendedpublic events. They took the Canadiana to Crystal Beach twice more, andalong with Jim and Bee, they took a trolley out to see the new movie “AnAmerican Tragedy” at the brand new Lovejoy Theater. Jim was moreinterested in seeing his favorite movie star, Francis Dee, and a newcomer,beautiful Sylvia Sidney, than he was in visiting Buffalo’s newest movie pal-ace.

Most Sundays were spent closer to home,—picnicking at CazenoviaPark and playing penny ante poker with Bee and Jim on the park’s tableand benches. The two couples generally traveled together, enjoyed eachother’s company immensely, and seldom mixed with anyone else.

The Murphy brothers were from ‘alien’ territory—Michigan. They hadno old school chums, and while they were garrulus and had many acquain-tances, they had made few friends in South Buffalo. Bee was an only child,lived with her parents in Buffalo’s German section, but Kay had never meteither of Bee’s folks. Kay guessed that the old Germans weren’t particu-larly happy with their only daughter dating ‘an Irish galoot’. Neither Beenor Kay had ever been invited to visit the rooms on Homestead Street, andKay didn’t know whether she would go there if she were asked. Kay hadnever invited Tom into her home nor had she ever introduced him tomembers of her family. Neither “Ma” nor her brother Jimmy had ever dis-played any interest in Kay’s social life, and frankly that was just the waythat she preferred it. “The less that people knew,—the better!”

Then, one late June afternoon, Kay was startled when she saw her threecohorts, Tom, Jim, and Bee, grinning like Cheshire cats, leaning in a rowagainst a yellow car, which was parked outside the employee’s entrance atBeals. Kay’s initial reaction was surprise at the color of the car. She hadnever seen a yellow car before! Then, she immediately wondered how andwhy her friends had come downtown to greet her on a workday. Tomstepped aside, and with a grand gesture, announced, “Jim just bought us anew car!!”. Kay squealed with delight as Jim held the door of the FordModel A “Town Sedan” open for her and roared, “Let’s get something toeat!”


As he drove out Seneca Street, Jim related with gusto how he had comeinto possession of such a fine vehicle. He told how a refined gentlemanhad been hired by Stimm Construction, to perform some menial day-laborwork. Jim had been supervising the laborers that day and had heard thenew man describe how he had at one time been a vice-president of the Lar-kin Soap Company, which was located on Seneca Street. The man toldhow in1930, he had purchased one of the first Model A “Town Sedans”made by Ford Motors and had paid $570 cash for the vehicle. A few weekslater, Larkin Soap had cleaned house by firing their administrative staff.There was no other executive work available and it wasn’t long before thebank foreclosed on his house mortgage. This was enough for the formerexecutive’s wife,—she left him, taking their daughter and washingmachine with her. He told his fellow laborers that for the past twomonths, he had been sleeping in his new car and taking any kind of work,just to get money for food. Jim smiled as told how he had taken fifty dol-lars from his pocket, money that he had won in a ‘crap game’ a few nightsearlier, and said as he offered it to the man, “Why don’t you sell me thatcar and take this money and get yourself some food and a good night’srest?” The bedraggled man had gratefully leapt at the offer and Jim Mur-phy was the proud owner of a new ‘yellow’ car!

Just then, the carefree foursome was passing the Larkin AdministrationBuilding. Jim waved broadly and shouted, “Thanks Larkin! I owe youone!”

When the car crossed the City Line, and Seneca Street became Route#16, Kay was sure that they were heading for Schwabl’s Restaurant whichshe knew was on Rte #16 and Union Road in West Seneca NY. Kay hadnever been to this restaurant but she had heard some of the salesmen atBeals describing the delicious roast beef on kimmelweck sandwiches thatSchwabl’s was noted for. As Jim whizzed past Schwabl’s, he announcedthat he had made dinner reservations at the Roycroft Inn in East AuroraNY, and Kay was completely perplexed. Not only had she never been toEast Aurora, she had never even heard of the Roycroft Inn and had no ideaif they even had a restaurant there! Then her puzzlement evaporated andexcitement took over as Jim drove even faster. She suddenly realized that


the only purpose of this trip was that Jim wanted to see how fast his newcar would go and this empty country road was the ideal place to find thatout. Jim and Tom were hooting and hollering and Kay’s heart was pump-ing wildly when the speedometer registered 60mph. Kay hadn’t knownthat anything on earth could move that fast!

When they pulled into the long driveway that led to a complex of mam-moth, red stone buildings, Kay realized that not only was there really aRoycroft Inn, but it was a lovely place, in the nicest setting that she hadever seen. Then, they were seated in the Larkin Room, and Kay was servedthe best leg of lamb dinner that she had ever tasted. These four youngadults had suddenly been inducted into a world that they had neverknown existed. And Kay enjoyed the experience!

The mood at the dinner table sobered when Bee said that she and herparents had discussed Bee’s marriage plans during the previous evening.She held back tears as she reported that her father had lost his job when hisemployer merged into the Niagara Hudson Power Company two yearsbefore and he hadn’t been able to find suitable work since. Bee went on toexplain that neither of her parents had ever approved of her relationshipwith Jim, and now they were urging her to set aside all marriage plansuntil ‘better times’ arrived or she met a man with ‘better prospects’. Kayheld her breath, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, the broad smilereturned to Jim’s face as he roared, “Who cares what those ‘Krauts’ think?Tom, let’s go back to the Soo at Christmas time, and Bee and I will getmarried there! It’ll give us a chance to see the family again! What do yousay?”The somber mood had been dispelled in an instant.

The balance of the evening was spent with the two Murphys gaily rem-iniscing about the family that they had left behind in Michigan. Bee’s par-ents weren’t mentioned again and the presence of Kay and Bee was barelyacknowledged. They talked about their brother Jack, who was now a SaultSte Marie police officer, their sisters, Margaret, Mary, Kate and Anne,someone called Annie Brady and another person referred to as ‘LittleAnna’. Even a deceased brother, Leo, was mentioned. Kay’s eyes andmouth were agape. She had never heard these names before! She had noidea that there was this large tribe of Murphys ‘back in the Soo’! Then Jim


mused, “I wonder what Pa will say when we show up?” Tom frownedwhile he answered, “I don’t think he’ll even notice!”

On the drive back to Buffalo, Jim turned his head and said, “Kay, you’llcome with us, won’t you? There’ll be lots of room in this car!” It was anafterthought! “I don’t know! I’m not sure that I can get off from work.”Kay replied. She had been pondering what people would say and think,and how she could convince “Ma” to let her go, ever since the prospect ofa motor trip to Michigan was first mentioned.

Of more immediate concern to Kay was the fact that she hadn’t told hermother that she wouldn’t be home for dinner that night. Kay knew that“Ma” would be upset and Kay hoped that neither “Ma”, nor her brotherJim, had done anything rash like reporting Kay’s disappearance to thepolice. She could find some excuse for her absence to tell her family, butthe police would be another matter. As the yellow car approached thesmall cottage, Kay was relieved to see that once again, the place was darkand she’d be able to get to bed without any hassle or recriminations. Atbreakfast the next morning, there was no question or comment aboutKay’s unexplained and unauthorized absence. Kay’s immediate reactionwas to say to herself, “There’ll be no trouble about me going to Michigan!”

By an odd coincidence, Kay and Bee had been born within a few daysof each other, in 1905, —both had been born in Buffalo, but when Kayfirst met Bee, and Jim, and Tom, she had lied when she had been askedher age. She had shaved a few years off because she was afraid that Tomwouldn’t find her attractive if he knew that Kay was a few months hissenior. In fact, Tom Murphy was so proud to call this Irish beauty ‘hisgirl’, that it wouldn’t have mattered if she were a decade older than he. YetKay never appreciated how much she was valued, and continued to give afictitious birth year until her death. Nevertheless, each year until wartimeservice separated the two couples, Jim and Tom insisted on hosting onebirthday dinner party for both young ladies. On July 12, 1931, the twocouples drove over the Peace Bridge to ‘The Chinaman’s Steak House’ inFort Erie, Ont. for the celebration. Canada had ended it’s prohibitionagainst consumption of alcoholic beverages in 1927, so that it was legal fora Buffalonian to have a drink once one was ‘over the Bridge’. Before order-


ing dinner, Jim ordered a round of Molsen’s Blue and proposed a toast,“To my little brother Tom, —and his new position with the BuffaloBoard of Education!”

Tom smiled broadly. He had been dying to break this good news allday! He told how earlier in the week he had gone to City Hall to check onupcoming Civil Service examinations. He had run into Charley Kennedy,who he knew as a monitor at several of the tests that Tom had taken in thepast. Kennedy had asked how it was going, and when Tom told him thathe was having trouble passing the physical qualifications for either policeor fire fighter positions, Charley had suggested that they have a cup of cof-fee together in the City Hall cafeteria. Kennedy then explained that he wasa teacher in Buffalo’s Board of Education, and had recently received theappointment as Principal of the new Grover Cleveland High School,which was opening in September 1931, in Buffalo’s West Side, on PorterAvenue near Plymouth Street. Kennedy explained that he had no controlover what teachers were assigned to classroom duties at the new school,but he had complete authority to hire the building’s ‘custodian’. The cus-todian position called for a man with building maintenance and construc-tion experience, and in addition the custodian would be responsible forsecurity within the building. Kennedy said that he was expecting that themajority of the students at Grover would be Italian, and in order to avoid‘trouble’, he wanted somebody in charge of building security that he couldtrust. He asked if Tom was interested and Tom didn’t hesitate for even amoment before he accepted. Tom had received confirmation of hisappointment in the mail that morning and would begin work on August1st. Jim had insisted on the dinner-time announcement, and as heexpected, the girls were ecstatic!

There were still some details to be attended. Tom realized that since hedidn’t have an automobile, he would have to obtain lodgings nearby theschool. He would have to move his belongings from the apartment onHomestead Street and would probably have to purchase some furnitureand maybe appliances, within the next few weeks. Tom asked if Kaywould help and she replied, “Sure! In any way that I can”. She had come torealize that Tom had become much more than just a ‘casual date’, but she


remained guarded, for she had also learned that things seldom turned outto be as good as you expected them to be.

The following weeks were a flurry of activity. Tom found a first floor,corner apartment in a complex on the corner of West Avenue and JerseyStreet, two blocks from the school. Tom and Kay had gone together to JNAdams department store, on Thursday night after Kay left work, to pur-chase a double bed, box spring and mattress. On Saturday, Jim had driventhe pair to the Buffalo Washing Machine Repair Co. on Sweet Avenue, sothat they could purchase a rebuilt washing machine, with a ringer roller.“Tom, you’ve become domesticated!” Jim roared as they drove away fromthe store.

Once Grover Cleveland High opened, and classes began, Kay noticedsubtle changes in Tom’s demeanor and conversation. Of course, he hadless time for socializing but he also seemed quieter and more withdrawnwhen they were alone together, and even on those occasions shared withJim and Bee. His spontaneous sense of humor and the wry wit had beenreplaced by a bemused tolerance of people and events. His conversationwas sprinkled with the names of his new associates at Grover. Of coursethere was Mr Kennedy, the principal, and Catherine Sullivan, the princi-pal’s secretary and head of the school’s office. Tom seemed to adore MissSullivan. The only teachers that Tom mentioned were Genevieve Garrity,Helen McGowan, John Roach, and John Devine. He seemed to beextremely fond of Ray Ping, the school’s athletic coach, and the only oneof the staff that Tom seemed to spend much time with. Kay noted thatwhile most of the surnames of Tom’s new acquaintances were Irish, noneof them came from, or lived in South Buffalo or the First Ward.

The main topic of conversation when Kay and Tom got together withBee and Jim was the upcoming trip to the Soo and the post-marriage plansof Jim and Bee. The distance between Buffalo and Sault Ste Marie, Michi-gan was 525 miles, if one cut across Ontario to Flint MI and then tookRte 75 north from there. Jim figured that if they left early Christmas Eve,with him and Tom alternating driving, the two couples would arrive in theSoo early Christmas morning. Their brother, Jack, had scheduled the wed-ding ceremony on Dec.28,1931 and Jim expected the return trip to Buf-


falo to be completed before New Years Day. Tom reported that sinceGrover would be closed between Christmas and New Years, he would haveno trouble getting the time off to make the trip. Kay told how she hadbeen able to get the time off, but because business was so slow, shewouldn’t receive any pay for the days that she didn’t work. Kay didn’t tellanyone that when she informed her mother that she was going on a week-long trip, and therefore wouldn’t be home for the Holidays, the news wasreceived without questions or comment. Bee wouldn’t discuss anythingother than the fact that she wasn’t about to take Tom’s place in the roomson Homestead Street and Jim had better do something about getting her adecent home!

On the Sunday before the elopement departure date, Kay waited untilher brother Jimmy had left the house to go to the Knights of Columbusfor his scheduled handball match, then she wordlessly took her previouslypacked valise, walked around the corner onto Red Jacket Parkway andwaited for Jim Murphy to arrive in his yellow town sedan. She placed thesuitcase in the trunk of the car, gave Jim a hug and returned home to listento her Sunday radio programs. Later in the week, early in the morning ofChristmas Eve, Kay dressed in her best party dress, donned her new furtrimmed winter coat, and prepared to leave the house, as she did every daywhen she left to go to work. She was startled to find “Ma” standing by thekitchen door. “Ma” smiled wanly, embraced her oldest daughter, and asshe caressed Kay’s cheek with her workwoman’s hands, said fatalistically,“Be a good girl, Catherine”.

Riding on the streetcar to Shelton Square, where she had promised tomeet the Murphys and Bee, Kay was struck by a sudden sense of forebod-ing. She suddenly realized that this was the first time that she could recallthat her mother had hugged her, or demonstrated any sign of affectationor warmth toward her. Then a chilled shudder passed through her bodyand she said to herself, “Well, if she didn’t want me to go, she should havesaid something sooner!”

As Kay got off the streetcar, her heart gladdened when she spotted theyellow car parked beside the fortress-like, red stone walls of the ErieCounty Savings Bank. She had been eagerly anticipating accompanying


the Murphys, and Bee, on this new adventure. Kay invariably had enjoyedherself while she was in the company of these three new friends. She par-ticularly admired their fearless ‘love of life’, and their conviction that theycould handle any situation that confronted them.

Kay tingled with excitement, when sitting in the rear seat of the carwith Tom, and nearing the Peace Bridge, she realized that she had neverbefore been farther away from home than Crystal Beach Ont. Althoughshe had absolutely no idea of where she was going, or what she would dowhen she got there, she was aching with readiness to travel, to meet newpeople, and to have some excitement in her life.

If she had any idea of the travails of a motor trip to Sault Ste Marie,Michigan, she would never have packed a suitcase. First, there was a twohundred mile trek across the Province of Ontario.

The two lane roads were usually covered with snow, and visibility wasconstantly hampered by wind-driven snow being blown across the barrenlandscape. The weather improved slightly once they reached Port Huronand reentered the United States, for now they were traveling to the west ofboth lakes Huron and Erie. But it was still cold, and as they moved northfrom Flint, Michigan, the temperature grew colder. When they reachedMackinaw City, the temperature had dropped to fifteen degrees abovezero, and they had missed the ferry across Mackinaw Strait by less than fif-teen minutes. Kay and Bee had bundled up with blankets in the back seatof the sedan, and tried to sleep away the five hour wait until the next ferry-boat left Mackinaw City. Their efforts to get some rest met with onlymodest success, and all efforts of the boys to lift the spirits, or to ease thediscomfort and distress of the two young ladies, failed completely.

Once the Straits of Mackinaw were navigated, the two couples pro-ceeded fifty-six miles, up another two lane, snow covered road, to one ofthe most the northern-most points in the State of Michigan,—Sault SteMarie. When they finally arrived at the town, the girls were aghast! Begin-ning about three miles from the town’s center, modest farm houses andsingle family homes began to appear. There was a schoolhouse, and achurch and then they were in downtown. It looked like something out of aJohnny Mack Brown western movie! Downtown was less than two blocks


long, with a hardware store, a dry goods store, a five and dime, a Forddealer and gas station, a diner and a movie theater that was only open onweekends. The rest of the territory seemed to contain only windsweptopen fields and a few, scattered and desolate, farmhouses. Bee muttered toKay, “Now I know why Murphy’s so happy in Buffalo!”.

Kay was also surprised when the group approached the Murphy familyhome for it wasn’t a farmhouse, but a modest two story structure, locatedat the edge of town. The ring of the handled doorbell was answered by ashort, gray haired man, with a wiry build, and a handle-bar mustache.

When he saw the two young men, and their ladies, the old mansnorted, turned on his heel and left the doorway without saying a word.Jim muttered under his breath, “Pa—it’s good to see you again, too”.Immediately, the man’s place was taken by a large woman, dressed in ahousedress and apron. She had a slight hunch in her shoulders, but exudedan aura of strength. It was Tom and Jim’s mother, whose kind face con-tained a perpetual quiet smile, and two bright blue eyes that were magni-fied by the thick wire framed spectacles that she was never without. Kaywas taken aback when Mother Murphy’s first words were, “Well girls,what do you think of our town? It’ll only take you about ten minutes topaint the whole place brown, aye!” With that, she gave a big, welcominghug to her boys and to Bee. She held Kay’s hands in hers for just amoment, as she gazed into the eyes of this colleen from Buffalo, beforesweeping her into a warm and loving embrace. It was apparent to everyonethat Mother Murphy was prepared to grant a very special place in herheart to Kay Griffin. On the other hand, Kay was a little wary because shecouldn’t remember ever being hugged before, and she was suspicious ofemotional demonstrations, particularly in front of other people.

Bee and Kay were soon introduced to ‘Aunt Min’, Mother Murphy’sblind sister, who also seemed to be crippled with arthritis and in need ofconstant care. Kay tried to hide her discomfort, for she was always uneasywhen she was in the presence of anyone with an affliction, but she wasdetermined that she wasn’t going to leave a bad impression on anyone inSault Ste Marie, Michigan. The girls then met another resident of MotherMurphy’s home,’Little Anna’, who was a warm and charming lady, quite


petite and much younger than Jim or Tom., She was apparently beingraised as a ‘ward’ of Mother Murphy.

‘Little Anna’ announced that Christmas dinner would be served at 3PM., when Jack Murphy, Tom’s oldest brother, would return from hispoliceman’s duties. Mother Murphy said that the two girls would shareJack’s bedroom on the second floor of her home, but that Jack, Jim, andTom were going to have to stay with their sister Kate, in her farmhouse,for the duration of their stay.

A chilly overcast permeated the Christmas dinner, as a mute “Pa” Mur-phy sat at the head of the table, stifling all lighthearted family discourse.Once Jack, Jim, and Tom had left to spend the night at Kate’s farmhouse,the demeanor of the patriarch abruptly changed. “Pa” suddenly becameinterested in what each of the Buffalo girls thought, where they worked,and what their family life was like. Bee and Kay were stunned into embar-rassed silence, or one word answers. Then “Pa” began telling them aboutthe wondrous qualities of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. “Would you like to gothere with me tomorrow? We can get some real whiskey and I can showyou girls a really good time!” “I don’t drink whiskey!” Kay whimpered asshe shrunk behind a sofa pillow.

“You should be ashamed, you dirty old man!” Mother Murphy’s sternpresence suddenly filled the room. She continued her scolding, “First, youtreat your sons rudely, and now you’re insulting these fine young ladies! Ifyou can’t learn to behave yourself, I’ll have you put away where you won’tever hurt anybody again!” The old man was silent as he sat bug-eyed onthe sofa.

“There, there, girls. Never mind him! Come let me show you to yourroom.” Mother Murphy said with quiet gentleness, as she steered the twodumbstruck girls up the stairs. Kay thought that she had never witnessedsuch bizarre behavior before, and she never expected to have another expe-rience like that, at least once she was clear of the “Soo”.

On Tuesday the entire Murphy clan, except “Pa’, gathered at KateMansfield’s (Tom’s older sister) farm house for some pre-nuptial celebra-tion. It was Kay’s first visit to a farm, and any illusions that she might haveheld about farm life were instantly destroyed. The windswept fields were


covered by an icy glaze The farmhouse was old and lacked central heat, thebarn smelled terribly,—and there was no indoor plumbing! Bee and Kaywere introduced to the Murphy girls, Katie and Mary, to Kate’s husbandRay Mansfield, and to Annie and Jack Brady. Little Anna was in atten-dance and Jack Murphy had brought his girl friend, Alma.

At the conclusion of the introductions, beer that had been smuggledfrom Canada was passed around and the Murphy kin began regaling eachother with tales of pranks, and teasing, and other childhood adventures.Memories of old friendships, and enmities were rehashed and inflated. Jimand Tom told stories about their adventures in Western New York andJack Murphy told some in-house police stories about crimes and scandalsin the “Soo”. The only thing not discussed, or acknowledged in any way,was the presence of the two girls from Buffalo. Even though Bee was thebetrothed, and Kay was Tom’s girl, they were both strangers and outsidersto the Murphy clan. Bee and Kay sat off to the side of the group, bundledin afghan shawls and not daring to participate in the discussions or even tomake their presence felt.

Finally, at the conclusion of a pot-luck supper, Tom said, “Bee, whydon’t you go sit by Jim, and get to know the rest of the family?” He thenadded quietly, “Kay, I want you to come with me! Jim has loaned us hiscar and I’d like to show you some of the ‘Soo’ before we have to leave.”

Kay had never received a more generous, or more welcome invitation inher entire life!

The next day’s wedding ceremony was brief, simple and beautiful. Jimwore a dark business suit and Bee was dressed in pale blue, with a simplewhite lace veil covering her head. Jim’s parents were in attendance, alongwith Jack Murphy who acted as ‘best man’ and ‘Little Anna’, Bee’s ‘maidof honor’, as well as Tom and Kay. The marriage vows were exchangedbefore the Creche, preceding a low Mass. As the newly-weds left thechurch Jim said to Tom, “Let’s get going home! We can catch breakfastalong the way!”

Tuesday night’s reveling, as well as snowy, slippery roads, made thereturn trip to Buffalo a rather somber affair. There was little gaiety or teas-ing, and only perfunctory conversation. When the yellow sedan pulled up


in front of 620 Elk Street to discharge Kay, she was astonished to realizethat she was glad to be home!

As she tossed about, awaiting slumber, Kay began to realize that severalof her illusions had been shattered. She hadn’t enjoyed being treated as astranger, with farm women laughing at her Buffalo accent. Much of theglamour had also been rubbed off the Murphy brothers. Now she realizedthat they weren’t ‘knights in shining armor’ but just two farm boys thathad escaped from a throughly unpleasant place. For the first time sheappreciated the fact that they should count themselves lucky that they hadfared so well in Buffalo, without any education and without knowing any-one in town. One of her last thoughts, before dropping off into a deepsleep, was, —“Jim Murphy never would have met a girl as nice and prettyas Bee Meyers, if he hadn’t left the ‘Soo’.

In the days, and weeks after she returned to work at Beals, Kay sensed aslight change in the attitude and demeanor of her co-workers. A couple ofthe girls in the office asked if she had gone out of town, or inquired whoshe had visited. Kay was of course absolutely non-committal and gave nodefinitive answers. But when after several days, George Weichman, thesalesman, went out of his way to ask with a smirk, “Did you have a goodtime on your holiday?”, Kay knew that she had been the subject of officegossip while she had been away from work. But she knew that no onecould know that she had gone out of town with her boyfriend,—unlesssomeone Kay knew had talked. And no one could have talked,—excepther brother Tommy, who worked in the shipping department! And ifTommy knew, he told his wife! And if ‘that Helen’ knew, then the wholeFirst Ward was talking about Kay Griffin’s ‘business’. Kay was mortified!

Things at home hadn’t changed much at all. Kay’s brother Jimmyremained totally absorbed in athletics and sporting news. Agnes was nowcomplaining that no one would hire her because she wasn’t pretty andbecause she talked funny. And, she was continually howling that she wastired of always having to babysit Tommy and Helen’s two kids. “Ma” wasincreasingly grumbling that she was having trouble ‘making ends meet’.The most notable change in Kay’s life was that Tom and she rarely wentout on dates, and Kay hadn’t seen Jim nor Bee since they had all returned


from the ‘Soo’. Tom also called less frequently, and the nature and tone oftheir conversations had changed. They still discussed the recent radio per-formances of Kate Smith and Rudy Vallee, but more and more Tom’s ref-erences were to events that had taken place at Grover Cleveland HighSchool and to his conversations and activities with people that Kay hadnever met. He seemed more distant each time that he called, so that Kaybegan to dread hearing the telephone ring, and then she became irritableand jumpy if Tom didn’t call her each day. Her discomfort was also begin-ning to effect her job performance. She had to be excused from performingtasks on a few occasions because of a headache or upset stomach. And asshe ailed, she became more nervous and high strung. Her edginess causedher to snipe at co-workers, family members and especially, at Tom. Theirreaction to Kay’s carping often resulted in Kay becoming nauseous.Things were escalating out of control!

After about five weeks, Kay was forced to stay home from work becauseof nausea. Once Jimmy had left for work Agnes quickly excused herself togo downtown to look for work. When, at last they were alone Kay satdown at the kitchen table to have a rare, earnest talk with her mother.

“Ma, I’ve been to see a doctor!”, Kay blurted.“And …?”, ‘Ma’ replied. She was truly stunned, for none of the family

was in the habit of visiting doctors and Kay had been the most resistant toany kind of medical advice or treatment.

“He says that I’m going to have a baby!”“And who is this doctor?” ‘Ma’ asked.“I went to the Emergency Room at St Mary’s Hospital”, Kay sobbed.‘Ma’ stiffened as she said, “Well, thanks be to God! You at least had

enough sense not to go traipsing around at Father Baker’s, where everyonewould want to know your business!” She pursed her lips before asking,“Does Tom know?”

“No, I didn’t know what, or how to tell him.” Kay was now stammer-ing.

“Calm yourself girl! There’ll be plenty of time to make announcements,after we decide what we’ll do next!” She asked, almost without interest,


“When is the ‘blessed event’?”. Kay didn’t see where all of this was leading,but she answered, “The doctor said probably about Labor Day.”

‘Ma’ was now murmuring, almost to herself. “We’ll have to do some-thing quickly! They won’t put up with any shenanigans at Beals. Oncethey find out that your going to have a baby and that you aren’t married,you’ll be out of there! If only we had some place to send you until after thebirth. I know that bunch up in Michigan won’t put up with you foranother seven months! And no matter what happens, your salary is a goneras soon as that bunch at Beals finds out that you’re pregnant. If only youhad gotten married at Christmas time instead of that other galoot!”

“Why don’t I tell everyone that Tom and I eloped, and that we weremarried in Michigan during the Christmas holidays?, Kay asked hesitantly.

“And why don’t you now?”, ‘Ma’ was smiling as broadly as if a lepre-chaun had delivered her a pot of gold. But the smile and her enthusiasmquickly faded as reality replaced the fantasy, “Your brother Jimmy willnever allow that Murphy fellow to live in this house!” It seemed that Kay’swages were to be irreparably lost to the Griffins, no matter what action wastaken.”Oh well, maybe something will turn up later. It normally does!”‘Ma’ intoned as she quickly terminated the discussion and whisked off tothe pantry.

Kay was puzzled and hurt. Her mother seemed to be indifferent to herplight and only seemed to be concerned about losing some of the Griffinfamily income. Kay laid on her bed the balance of the afternoon, frettingabout her meager and unpleasant options. Then, she came to her deci-sion,—she would marry Tom and move into his apartment on Buffalo’sWest Side. She would tell the people at Beals that she and Tom had beenmarried at Christmas time in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. She wouldn’t tellTom of her ‘delicate condition’ until later, so that he wouldn’t wonderabout her reasons for wanting to get married now, or worry that she didn’tlove him. Once decided, Kay would never waver in her resolution, norever doubt or question the correctness of her decision and subsequentactions.

Of course, the story that she related to Tom had a slightly different fla-vor. Kay told how she had a terrific row with her brother. She related that


while at the Knights of Columbus, Jimmy had heard that his sister hadspent a week outside of town in the company of the two Murphy brothers!

Jimmy was furious about being embarrassed and humiliated in front ofhis friends and had stated that he wasn’t going to have a slattern living inhis house, with his mother, and that if the story was true, his sister wouldimmediately be sent packing to the Home of the Good Shepherd! Kay saidthat when her brother had made this accusation she was frightened forTom’s safety and fearful that she would be sent away from Tom forever,and so she had blurted out that the story wasn’t true! Kay reported that shetold her family that she and Tom, and Bea and Jim, had both eloped andthat both couples had been married while in ‘the Soo’. Kay told Tom thatJimmy had responded that if this story was true, she should be living withher husband, and not be giving scandal by pretending that she was still sin-gle.

Murphy was completely flummoxed by this tale, but he was alsodelighted by the prospect of Kay moving in with him, for he was alreadytired of living alone, he enjoyed Kay’s company and he expected that theywould be married,—someday. He readily agreed that Kay could move intohis West Side apartment at any time that it was convenient for her. Kayimmediately replied that she had no intention of ‘living in sin’ and that shewanted to be married in a Catholic Church before she and Tom began liv-ing as ‘man and wife’. She suggested that they could be secretly married ina ceremony the same way that Jim and Bea were, preceding a low Mass ina local, but unfamiliar Church. She added that of course she couldn’tinvite her family or friends to the ceremony since they believed that aCatholic ceremony had already taken place in Michigan. Tom stammeredthat one of the teachers at Grover, John Roach, had a brother who was apriest and was stationed at Nativity Parish, on Buffalo’s West Side nearTom’s apartment. Kay insisted that Tom arrange a wedding ceremonyimmediately. Furthermore, she added that none of her family or co-work-ers would be told anything about any Buffalo marriage, and she suggestedthat Tom not ‘let on’ to any of his co-workers that they hadn’t been mar-ried during the trip to the ‘Soo’. She firmly believed that “the less peopleknew about your business, the better off everyone was!”


Tom and Kay were married by Father David (Bud) Roach, in a beauti-ful, but quiet ceremony, before 8AM Mass at Nativity RC Church, onFebruary 22,1932. Only Jim and Bea Murphy attended the wedding, andthe married couple reported for work on the day of their marriage, as ifnothing extraordinary had occurred.

Kay moved into Tom’s West Avenue apartment that evening and theylived together for the next fifty years.

50

3Buffalo’s West Side

When Kay told her supervisors and the accounting department at Bealsthat she had been married and had a new address, she was astounded at thegroundswell of encouragement, congratulations, and joy that came fromher co-workers. Of course she knew that each time that she heard thephrase, “There’ll be no keeping up with you now, Kay!”, there was a tingeof envy in the speaker’s voice and mind, since it was well known that when‘lace-curtain Irish’ moved from the First Ward to Buffalo’s West Side, theysnobbishly thought that they had ‘bettered’ themselves and becameinstantly ‘high brow’. Kay never appreciated the fact that people liked herbecause she was pleasant company and a nice person. She always suspectedthat the good wishes of others were couched in cynicism and often hidsome secret resentment of her.

Kay was particularly surprised by the warm embrace, and tearful goodwishes that she received from her brother, Tommy. “Good for you, darlin’Kay” was all that he said, but on that day it was obvious that his pride inhis little sister knew no bounds. “Rocko” never possessed the tempera-ment, intelligence, ambition or desire to leave “the Ward” but he obvi-ously was delighted at the joy and good fortune of Kay, who he had alwayssecretly revered.

In a practical sense, Kay found that living in a new neighborhood wasan extremely pleasant change from the life that she had known while livingon Elk Street. She was able to continue working at Beals for severalmonths, and during that time her salary, combined with Tom’s, allowedthe newly-weds to establish a small emergency fund and to purchase a fewmodern conveniences, like an iron and a gas stove for cooking. Theirapartment building, located on the southwest corner of West Avenue and

Buffalo’s West Side 51

Jersey Street, had a basement where Kay could use her new washingmachine, without disturbing her neighbors or interrupting Tom’s listen-ing to the radio.

After a few months, when her obvious pregnancy forced Kay to discon-tinue her employment, and despite July and August ’32 being two of thehottest months in Buffalo’s history, she learned to enjoy her solitude, andthe conveniences offered in the new neighborhood. Their apartment waslocated only two blocks from Tom’s workplace, Grover Cleveland HighSchool. The Grant Street bus went by their front door, providing easy andeconomical access to Buffalo’s Downtown Business District and theaters,as well as to the Grant/Ferry shopping district. Kay could take the GrantStreet bus to Shelton Square and then transfer to the South Park trolley,which would take her to her mother’s front door. But now-a-days, Kay sel-dom visited her old homestead, preferring to stay home and listen to theradio, by herself. The Porter-Best bus, which traversed the City in an east/west direction, was located one block from her home, but Kay simply hadno occasion to use this route for any purpose. Cramer’s Delicatessen andthe College Pharmacy were located one block away at West and PlymouthAvenues, and there was a small grocery store nearby on Jersey Street. Tomwould normally get fresh meat and vegetables at Provost’s Market, whichwas located directly across the street from Grover. And then there wasConnecticut Street, extending easterly from West Avenue to RichmondAvenue, and offering a daily cornucopia of Italian foods, aromas and cos-tumes. but Kay rarely ventured into this shopping district, finding itexotic, and to her, a frightening culture.

On August 30th, Kay gave birth to a healthy and hardy baby boy. Theproud parents named him Thomas, namesake of his father and both of hisgrandfathers. The ensuing months were joyful as Tom and Kay experi-enced parenting and their first family Christmas holidays together. BeeMurphy had given birth to a baby girl, Marlene, during November of1932 and at Eastertime, the proud parents replicated their earlier trek toSault Ste Marie Mich., this time to display the newest Murphy grandchil-dren. While the two couples were visiting in the Soo, their brother Jack’s


wife, Alva, gave birth to her firstborn, Donald. A new generation of Mur-phys had been conceived and born into the world.

Despite the fact that America, and indeed the whole world, hadplunged into what would be known as the “Great Depression”, there wasno despair among the three Murphy brothers and their wives. Buffalo’sindustries had been ravaged by the drop in demand for steel products andautos, and while unemployment roles exceeded 25% of the Buffalo’sworkforce, and continued to worsen, Tom’s position at Grover ClevelandHigh School seemed secure, and Jim Murphy seldom missed a day’s paywhile working for construction firms. Jack Murphy had passed a civil ser-vice test and had become a Sault Ste Marie policeman.

In 1934, newly elected Buffalo Mayor George Zimmerman, began aseries of federally financed public works, which promised additional jobopportunities for Buffalo’s construction workers. The Fillmore-LovejoySewer Project and the construction of Kensington High School and of anew sports arena, Civic Stadium, at Jefferson and Best Streets, were onlythe beginnings of a massive infusion of federal funds into Buffalo publicworks projects.. Jim Murphy, who was earning a handsome salary as fore-man for Stimm Construction Company, and had recently purchased anew home in rural Eggertsville NY, continually urged his brother Tom toleave his menial position at Grover Cleveland High, and return to themore financially rewarding construction work. Tom insisted that he foundcomfort in the steady and regular civil service wages, and that he was earn-ing enough money to support his young family, and besides this, heenjoyed working with the people at Grover. He had formed a fast friend-ship with Ray Ping, the athletic director and coach, and with CatherineSullivan, who was secretary to the school’s principal. Tom also enjoyed theconversational flow and verbal exchanges between the faculty and staff atthe school. But most of all, although Tom would have denied it if it hadbeen openly stated, Tom knew that Mr Charles Kennedy, School Princi-pal, had taken a special interest in the Murphy family’s well-being, andTom enjoyed the feeling of protection and security offered by having afriend in an authoritative position.


Kay also had grown quite comfortable in her new surroundings and lifestyle. There were several young and growing families nearby. The Lani-gans, with three robust sons, lived in the apartment building which waskitty-cornered from the Murphy residence at West Ave and Jersey Streets,and the Marshiello’s, with three older girls and two young sons, lived halfa block up Jersey Street, in an upper flat. All of the young mothers, withtheir broods, took advantage of every nice day to stroll up and down Por-ter Avenue, between Prospect Park and Symphony Circle. But, Kay stilldidn’t meet people easily. She was shy, and in particular, seemed uncom-fortable exchanging pleasantries, or idle conversation, with other women.So for the most part, social exchanges consisted of a smile, a nod, or apleasant ‘hello’. Then, one bright, summer day, Kay was ambling past thegrand homes on Porter Avenue, pushing her son in the pram that Tomhad recently purchased, and deep in thought, when she brushed against amiddle aged woman and her daughter, who were alighting from a large,black Packard car. Kay was flustered and apologetic, for the accident hadclearly been her fault. The woman immediately assured the distraughtmother that no injury, or damage had occurred, that both parties had beendistracted by their offspring, and therefore no one was to blame for theminor mishap. She then made an exaggerated fuss over the beaming faceof Kay’s son, who was quietly sitting in the carriage, and excused herself asshe proceeded up the steps to the elegant residence. Kay had gone only afew more paces when Mrs Christina, who was walking her infant daughterBarbara along the same path, approached Kay and asked, “Do you knowwho that lady was?” Kay answered that she didn’t know and hadn’t asked.Mrs Christina then stated, with a bit of awe in her voice, “That lady wasMrs Zimmerman. The Mayor’s wife!”. From that day forward, Kay feltthat she was accorded a bit of respect from the young strolling matrons onPorter Avenue, since she was the only one who was on speaking terms withthe Buffalo Mayor’s wife. She began to take particular delight in walkingwith her son up to Grover Cleveland High School, where he could visitwith his father for a few moments. Kay would also stop in at the Princi-pal’s Office where she would exchange pleasantries with Catherine Sulli-van, Mr Kennedy’s secretary. Kay was an excellent stenographer and had


several years experience working in a large, busy office, and thereforefound it easy to establish a comradery with the affable Miss Sullivan. MrKennedy, a warm fatherly figure, would always come out of his office toinquire into Kay’s well-being and to tousle Tommy’s curls and offer thelad a bit of candy.

Kay found no such warmth exuding from the school’s faculty members.While they were almost all of Irish descent, she found the teachers to bedistant and aloof. Not at all like the Irish in the First Ward that she’dgrown up with. The men, like John Devine, Hugh Coughlin and JohnRoach, acted as if Kay’s lack of a college degree gave them a warrant totreat her as a brainless bimbo. The female teachers, Genevieve Garriatyand Helen McGowan, were loud, boisterous ‘old maids’, who’s idea of agood time was to go out to a neighborhood bar after working hours, wherethey could trade raucous and bawdy jokes with their married, male co-workers. Tom never asked Kay to attend school functions, nor did he everinvite faculty members to visit the Murphy residence, and Kay was gratefulfor these considerations.

Kay took particular, and secret, delight in her comely appearance. Herbody was trim and well proportioned. Her radiant, well scrubbed face andquiet smile projected an image usually presented only by a Hollywood stu-dio. In fact, several acquaintances had remarked on Kay’s startling resem-blance to Teresa Wright, the movie star. It pleased Kay when she drewadmiring glances from students as she walked with her son on the GroverCleveland school grounds. Then, one bright sunny day in May, as she wasleaving the school building, with her son in tow, she heard a ‘wolf whistle’.She turned to see a cluster of six, or seven, male students. Then she heardher husband thunder, “Which one of you Dagos whistled?”. When therewas no reply, he continued, “Well I want all of your names. We’ll see if afew days suspension doesn’t teach you wise guys to respect a lady!”. Kaywas mortified and hurried home without another word. Later, after din-ner, Tom told her that he didn’t want her ‘hanging around’ Grover Cleve-land High anymore.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, Kay’s life began to change.


At the end of the 1935 school year, Tom tearfully told Kay that all Buf-falo municipal employees, including Board of Education staff, were goingto have to take a 15% cut in pay. Tom said that Mr Kennedy had prom-ised that Tom would receive extra duty assignments whenever it was possi-ble, and this extra pay would lessen the coming financial hardship.Nevertheless, Tom and Kay, and their son, would have to find less expen-sive living quarters.

Their first new home was a cramped one bedroom apartment on Ply-mouth Avenue. Kay liked her new landlords, two elderly brothers who hadpartitioned their small home in order to make ends meet. But Tom wasunhappy with the closed quarters and after six weeks, the Murphy familymoved out in the middle of the night, without having paid their kindlylandlords any rent.

The next residence was a slightly more spacious apartment on 16th

street. This was an entirely different neighborhood from the one that Kayhad become accustomed to. First, they were no longer members of HolyAngels Parish, but now attended Mass at the Nativity Church. Kay sensedthat whenever she met Father Dave Roach, the assistant pastor, he had aslight smirk on his face, as if he was remembering the circumstances ofKay’s hurried wedding ceremony. Also, all of the neighbors were Italian!Tom was continually carping about the smelly, noisy habits of the peoplenext door, and on several occasions small disputes with neighbors becameheated arguments and almost ended up becoming brawls. When Tom wasaway from home, Kay never went outside. She was fearful that her neigh-bor’s hostility would result in an attack upon her or upon her son, andthus Kay became a prisoner in her own home.

At the same time, Kay’s sister, Agnes announced that she was going tobe married. Her fiancee was Bill Batt, an affable machinist, who Kay hadmet only once. Agnes had prattled on about how ‘her Bill’ had such a goodjob that he had recently been able to purchase a 1934 Plymouth automo-bile. Agnes would be the first member of the Griffin family to have a car ather disposal. Kay felt that this was hardly reason enough to marry a manwho was overweight, not handsome at all, and not particularly smart orfunny. When Kay received her invitation to the wedding ceremony, she


declined stating that Tom had been assigned extra work as a marshal at thehigh school football games at All-High stadium on Saturdays, and that shewould be unable to get anyone to attend her son on the scheduled wed-ding day.

Then, one November evening, Tom returned from his marshaling joball bruised and bloody. He said that he had been accosted and beaten by agroup of seven or eight youths at the high school football game. He saidthat he hadn’t recognized any of the boys, but that he knew that they were‘dagos’, and he had no idea what had prompted the attack. Kay said thatshe knew that this brawl was the result of numerous confrontations withtheir Italian neighbors, and she wanted to move from the neighborhood assoon as possible. Secretly, Kay suspected that the beating might have beenprovoked by Tom’s posturing over the admiring glances that Kay hadreceived from students at Grover. For whatever the reason, this was anexcuse to get out of this troublesome, confining neighborhood.

Tom found a small, lower flat on 14th Street, which was closer toGrover Cleveland High than the 16th Street address, and was located backin Holy Angels parish. Although the rent for the flat was as much as theyhad been paying for the West Ave apartment, Tom said that Ray Ping hadarranged for him to teach badminton to adults at night school, and theextra wages would offset the higher outlay for rent. Tom also reported thatBill Provost, the local grocer had offered to extend credit for food, for aslong as it took for the Murphys to financially get back on their feet.

Kay secretly resolved that she was going to get her old job at Beals back,just as soon as they got settled in their new home, and she could find adecent and reliable baby-sitter for her three year old son. In January 1936the Murphy family moved into another residence, in a better neighbor-hood, and with brighter prospects for the future.

Once she had settled into the comfortable apartment, Kay found thatthings were now indeed different, but she wasn’t quite sure that her lothad been much improved. She and Tom had a nice bedroom to them-selves, but the baby’s bed room was only slightly bigger than a closet. Thenew neighbors were quiet and friendly, but Kay hadn’t found anyone liv-ing nearby that was even remotely her age. There was no nearby public


transportation and getting to visit her mother in the First Ward required alot of walking, waiting for streetcars and buses, often in inclementweather, and overall a lot more trouble than it was worth. Kay immedi-ately dismissed any thoughts that she had harbored about returning toworking at Beals on a daily basis. The daily trek would have been exhaust-ing. It seemed that they never could reduce the amount of money that wasowed to Bill Provost. And then there was the fact that Tom was seldomhome! He was teaching badminton two nights a week, and playing pokerwith his friends on weekends. Kay was as isolated as she had been whenshe was living on 16th Street.

So it was somewhat startling for Kay to discover that she was once againpregnant, and would be giving birth to a second child, somewhere aroundThanksgiving Day! Since it was almost time for the Griffin family togather to watch ‘The Parade’ and celebrate St Patricks Day, Kay decided towait until then to discuss her condition with her mother.

Early in the morning of March 17,1936 Kay arose to find that severalinches of snow had fallen overnight. Kay was anxious that they departsoon, because it was a long journey and they must arrive at ‘Ma’s” beforethe parade began, because the parade route and the IRC Southpark street-car route were identical, and service on the IRC #16 tram would be sus-pended for the duration of the march. Even if it continued snowing Kayknew that there would be a parade, because no St Patrick’s Day had everbeen cancelled in Buffalo. She quickly made bacon and eggs for her hus-band’s breakfast, got her son dressed in his snowsuit and galoshes, andproceeded, with her bundled son, to trek the three blocks, over unshoveledsidewalks, to West Avenue, where they took the Grant Street bus intodowntown Buffalo. There, they waited for thirty minutes, in the shelter atShelton Square, for the South Park streetcar, which would eventuallydeposit them at her mother’s doorstep.

When Kay arrived at her homestead, the first thing that she saw was hernephews, Tommy and Jimmy Griffin, engaged in a snowball fight withsome boys near Katherine Street. This wasn’t at all surprising since herbrother’s two boys practically lived with their grandmother. What startledKay was finding her brother Tom, his wife Helen and their new daughter


Donna, sitting at the kitchen table while ‘Ma’ Griffin fussed over the cast-iron stove. Kay had never seen Helen in this house before! Kay thenrecalled that when Helen had given birth to Donna, her third child, ‘Ma’had announced that she had no objection to her grandsons using her homeas a clubhouse, but since Agnes was no longer available for babysittingduties, there was to be no more ‘dumping the kids with Grandma’. Kaywas inwardly amused by the thought that while ‘Ma’ had expected that herpronouncement would stop Helen from gallivanting, she hadn’t expectedthat Helen would start haunting her kitchen. Then Kay saw her brotherTommy coming toward her with his arms outstretched and a broad smileon his face. “It’s so good to see you, darlin’ Kay! How have you been?”hesaid quietly, and Kay felt welcomed.

As was his custom, Kay’s brother Jimmy, was marching with theKnights of Columbus and would drop out of the ranks when the paradereached 608 South Park Avenue. He then would join the rest of the familyin a meal of ham and cabbage, with mashed potatoes and biscuits, fol-lowed by a slice of apple pie.

As it turned out, Ag and Bill Batt never arrived that day, for they wereunable to free their auto from the banked snow or to navigate theunplowed Buffalo streets. This left Kay relatively free to have a heart-to-heart, mother-daughter conversation with ‘Ma’. She got her chance whenshe found herself alone with ‘Ma’ in the pantry, before the parade hadeven arrived. Kay blurted out, “Ma, I’m going to have anotherbaby,—around Thanksgiving!” With pinched lips, ‘Ma’ gave her oldestdaughter a withering look as she responded, “Ah, that’s all you need!Another mouth to feed!”. With that ‘Ma’ wheeled and returned to thekitchen, ending all further discourse.

Almost immediately the sound of band music was heard and the entirehousehold donned their warmest coats and rushed to the curbside, wherethey could best watch and wave at their neighbors and friends. The snowcontinued to pelt down and it was difficult to recognize any of the boyos,dressed in their derbys and green sashes, as they briskly slogged their wayup South Park Avenue, hurrying to find warmth and cheer at their favoritepub. After about fifteen minutes, the KofC contingent arrived. Kay’s


brother Jimmy, his felt hat and woolen overcoat crusted with snow, withhis nose red and runny, broke from the ranks. He shouted to the familymembers, “Everybody get inside, before we catch our deaths in this cold!”.Kay winched as she realized that was indeed the way her Dad had died,twenty-three years before.

Once inside ‘Ma’ prepared hot chocolate for the children and hot teafor the adults. She grimaced as she watched her son Tom, and his wife,each belt down two shots of Bushmills Irish Whiskey, in order to “wardoff the chill”. When dinner was finished it was time for Kay to leave forhome. But when she looked out the front window she saw that the snowhad continued and the wind had banked the snow in the middle of thestreet where a thousand feet had trod only two hours before. That night,Kay shared her mother’s bed and her son slept with his Uncle Jim, since itwas impossible for them to return home. 19 inches of snow had fallen dur-ing the day of the parade and not an automobile nor trolley car used SouthPark Avenue until the afternoon of March 18th.

Upon her return to her apartment Kay was determined to put all travailbehind her. She would take care of herself, her son and the new baby,when he or she arrived. She would leave the question of how they were topay hospital costs and other family finances, as well as their need for larger,and more suitable living quarters, to her husband, Tom. She wouldn’tmake any more exhausting trips to the store, or to her mother’s house,until after her new baby’s birth and until she had regained her strength. Inthis manner Kay was able to enjoy a carefree and comfortable summer.

One thing that had puzzled and disturbed Kay was that she had heardthat new public housing was going to be built at the foot of Porter Avenue.It had been Kay’s hope that she and Tom could rent one of these newapartments, at a price that they could afford, and with enough room fortheir growing family. She had heard several neighborhood women speak-ing of this new and desirable housing opportunity and it had seemed thatthe Lakeview Housing Project was what the neighborhood, and familieslike the Murphys, needed to get back on their feet. But when Kay had lis-tened to her brothers discussing the Perry Housing Project, on South ParkAvenue, near Louisiana Street, all that she heard was that ‘Polacks’ would


be moving into the new housing and destroying the Old First Ward neigh-borhood. There was no talk of benefiting the neighborhood, or of offeringassistance to the areas many needy familes,—only that the Irish ethnicambience would be destroyed as soon as ‘foreigners’ moved in. Kay wastroubled by the stark differences in attitude about public housing and nowshe wasn’t sure that she wanted anything to do with the new West Sidedevelopment.

Then, in the autumn, things began to brighten a little. Tom camehome to report that Bill Provost, the grocer, had told him about a nice flatthat was for rent only two doors away from the Provost residence,—onWest Avenue, near where Tom and Kay had lived when they were firstmarried! Tom had already made a deposit on the place and they’d be ableto move into their new, and larger lodgings on January 1,1937. Tom alsosaid that he had made arrangements for their son to stay with Tom’s sister,Margaret Ruh, and her family, while Kay was in the hospital giving birthto their newest arrival.

This was a most pleasant surprise. Kay had known that Tom’s sister hadcome to Buffalo, from ‘the Soo’, several years before, and had married aGerman. Kay had never met Marg, but she was vaguely aware that therewere now several Ruh children and that they were living somewhere inSouth Buffalo. Kay was particularly delighted that now she wasn’t going tohave to ask the Griffins for any assistance, since both ‘Ma’ and ‘Ag’ hadmade it abundantly clear to her that neither of them were available for anybabysitting duties.

On November 20,1936 Kay gave birth to a beautiful little girl, PatriciaAnn. Catherine Sullivan and Jim Griffin were asked to be Patricia’s god-parents, and the christening was held in Holy Angels Church shortly afterthe beginning of the 1937 New Year.

There were serious complications during the natal operation. Duringdelivery, Kay’s fallopian tube entwined the fetus. Only quick, and expertwork by Dr Anthony Manzella had saved the life of both Kay and herinfant daughter. Afterward, the surgeon had warned Tom that any futurechild bearing would be extremely hazardous for Kay. When Kay learnedthat she had nearly died, she resolved that she wouldn’t put herself in


harm’s way, in that manner, ever again. When they moved into the lowerflat at 372 West Avenue, Kay shared the second bedroom with her chil-dren and Tom had a bedroom all to himself.

After all of the moves, Kay appreciated the West Avenue neighborhoodfar more than she had when she was first married, yet she had difficulty inexpressing her contentment. The Delaneys, with their two teen-aged boys,lived quietly upstairs at 372 West, but Kay had little, if any, social inter-course with these neighbors. The Kehoes, with three daughters, and theO’Connors, with a son and a daughter, lived directly across the street, andeven though Kay’s son Tommy often crossed the street to play with thesechildren, Kay did little more than nod, or say a quiet hello, to the two Irishmothers. At the corner of West and Porter Avenues, three large residenceswere occupied by the families of Dr Christina, Dr Spano and Dr Parlato.Kay had no contact with these young families whatsoever. Mr and MrsSalmon lived next door to Kay and Miss Slater, a widow, lived three doorsaway. These senior citizens took a particular liking to Kay and her twochildren, and through the years, offered many small kindnesses and con-siderations to the young Murphy family. Kay would seldom express herappreciation and rarely, if ever, reciprocated in any way.

However Kay was delighted to make the acquaintance of the grocer’swife,—Catherine Provost, who lived, with her husband and son Billy, onlytwo doors away. Both women were beautiful, but Mrs Provost, a few yearsyounger than Kay, complemented and enhanced Kay’s finer features.Where Kay’s figure was always trim, Catherine had a body that was allcurves and bounced pleasantly whenever she moved. Kay was demure,Catherine had a perpetual smile on her face and warmly invited the friend-ship of all whom she met. Mrs Provost saw the humorous side of everyhappenstance and Mrs Murphy enjoyed the company of people of goodhumor. Here was a pair that was startling to watch and fun to be with, andthey seemed to be without rancor or mistrust.

During the next years, Buffalo’s economy remained stagnant. Consoli-dated Aircraft left Buffalo and moved it’s offices and facilities to San DiegoCA. The Studebaker Company went into receivership, the president of thecompany jumped to his death from his office window, and Ag and Bill


Batt became unemployed when the Studebaker auto production plant onElmwood Avenue closed. Buffalo Mayor George Zimmerman, indictedfor accepting graft payments from a sewer construction contractor, died ofa heart attack before his trial began. Kay’s brothers, Tommy and Jimmy,continued to work full time as clerks. Construction activity continued toflourish, as the stately Avery mansion, at Richmond and Porter Avenues,was demolished to make way for the new Kleinhans Music Hall, and con-struction of Memorial Auditorium began at the foot of Main Street. JimMurphy seemed to be making money ‘hand over fist’ and continued tourge that his brother join him in the lucrative construction trade. But,Tom had continued to receive extra assignments, seemed content with hisemployment situation and showed no indication that he wished to changeoccupations.

When, in 1940, Curtis Wright Corporation, began manufacturing theP-36 Hawk and P-40 Warhawk fighter planes in the Town of TonawandaNY plant, and began to expand the workforce there, Jim Murphy quicklyaccepted a position as production foreman and again extorted his brother,Tom, to seek more gainful employment. Tom again refused, stating thatwhen Memorial Auditorium opened there would be a municipal hockeyleague playing there and he had been promised that he would be hiredlater in the year to referee weekend hockey games. Besides, Tom hadrecently been introduced to Fred Muck, a Getzville NY Ford dealer. MrMuck had agreed to employ Tom as a part-time salesman and thoughthere was no salary involved, Tom would now have the use of a demon-stration car whenever he needed transportation. Kay never complainedabout the fact that Tom was seldom at home, but the fact that no matterhow many hours Tom worked, the Murphy family just couldn’t seem tomake ends meet, bothered her. The debts kept growing and there seemedto be no relief in sight. She wanted to help in some way.

Then, in 1941, Kay got an opportunity to return to work at Beals,McCarthy and Rogers, as a stenographer. At first, the work was part-time,but Kay leapt at the chance. Before long, she was working full time, forty-eight hours a week and loving every minute of it. Both of Kay’s childrenwere attending Holy Angels Parochial School full time so it was only nec-


essary for Kay to hire a teen-aged girl student to come over to the houseand watch the kids from 3PM until she returned from work at 6PM, onschool days. The sitter had to be on duty all day on Saturday to watchPatricia, but Kay’s son Tom, spent his entire Saturdays at movie matinees,easing the babysitter’s tasks. And while the family finances were slightlyimproved by Kay’s employment, all social intercourse between Tom andKay suddenly ceased. Not only was Tom away from home most of thetime, working at Grover, teaching badminton or refereeing hockey games,or socializing in his attempt to sell Fords, but Kay was exhausted at theend of each day from her long workday and travel time. Most eveningsKay was in bed and asleep before 9PM and rarely even saw her husband.

So it was refreshing when on a bright sunny, Sunday morning in May,Catherine Provost hailed Kay on her way home from Mass, to invite Kayto join her in having coffee and some pastry. But it was a solemn Cathe-rine who told Kay that recently she had been walking in Arlington Place,and had seen Kay’s husband, Tom, in a romantic dalliance with anotherwoman. Catherine also reported that on several other occasions she hadseen Tom’s Ford demo parked on the same street. Kay received the newsin outward calm, without hysterics or other signs of shock or dismay. Shewas however surprised, for while Kay had known that Tom was extremelyattractive to other women, and that Tom enjoyed the attention of otherwomen, she had no inkling that Tom was a philanderer. Kay also knewthat Gen Garriety, a Grover teacher, had a flat on Arlington Place. Butwhat deeply distressed Kay more than anything else was the fact that herbest friend, Catherine Provost, now knew that Tom was a rake.

When Tom came home later in the day, Kay confronted him with whatshe had heard, but she didn’t mention that he had been spotted on Arling-ton Place. Tom immediately denied that he was engaged in any hanky-panky, and he stated with earnest conviction that he never was, or everwould be, romantically interested in another woman, and he explainedthat someone might have misconstrued his attempt to sell a car to a femalecustomer as a romantic dalliance. Kay didn’t believe a word that he said,but she didn’t tell him that! She only warned him that he must be morediscreet so that there wouldn’t be any more misunderstanding.


The very next Sunday, Kay boarded the Grant St bus and South Parkstreetcar, along with her son and daughter, to celebrate Mother’s Day at‘Ma’ Griffin’s house. At the first opportunity that Kay had to be alonewith her mother, she blurted,

“Ma, I’ve got trouble at home! My husband Tom is having an affairwith one of the teachers at the school where he works!”

Without looking up from her sewing “Ma” asked, “How do youknow?”

Kay began sniffling when she said, “My friend Catherine Provost sawthem kissing when Tom was leaving her apartment on Arlington Place,but when I told Tom what Catherine had seen, he denied everything.”

“Does anyone else know?” “Ma” inquired, again without lifting her eyesfrom her work.

“I don’t think so!” Kay sobbed.“Well then, you’ll do nothing girl! And count yourself lucky!” With her

flinty eyes beaming “Ma” continued the tale that she had kept lockedinside her for many years. “How do you think that I put up with yourfather for so many years? After your baby sister Mary died, may she rest inpeace with the angels, I said to your father that I had done my duty! I toldhim that I’d had enough of his pawing and he could satisfy his dirty appe-tites somewhere else, just so long as the neighbors and relatives didn’tknow about his carrying on!”

Kay gaped as her mother continued, “And that’s the way it was fromthen on! He told me nothing about his sinning and I didn’t ask. We gotalong beautifully until the day that he died! May the Lord have mercy onhis soul.”

As Kay rode the streetcar home that night, she suddenly realized that‘Ma’ hadn’t addressed Kay’s plight in any way, but had simply related along suppressed personal hostility and had refreshed her own bitter pastmemories. But Kay also reasoned that perhaps it was better that she notdiscuss the issue of Tom’s infidelity with anyone else. She decided to keepher own counsel and let nature take it’s healing course.

This strategy seemed to work,. Kay never mentioned Mrs Provost’scomments to Tom again. Tom was now open, even garrulous, about his


social contacts but he avoided talking about workplace events, or fellowemployees. Catherine Provost seemed to have completely dismissed theincident from her memory and the girl’s friendship continued to flowalong a carefree, pleasant path. And Kay didn’t confide her suspicions orconvictions to anyone else,—ever again.

Kay’s spirits brightened as the weather warmed, the clouds lifted, andthe summer months approached. Her main concern was finding a reliablesitter for her two children, now that school vacation time meant that theywould be around the house all day while she worked at Beals. When thedoorbell rang, late in June, on a Sunday morning as Kay was getting thechildren dressed to go to her mother’s house, she hoped that it was one ofthe neighbors, seeking summer employment. She was surprised to find herold nemesis, dressed in Easter finery, with a waxen smile pasted on herface, standing in the doorway.

“Hello. I’m Gen Garriety. I work with your husband at Grover Cleve-land. Is he home?”the visitor oozed.

“I know who you are! Tom’s not here!” Kay answered venomously.Undaunted, the teacher continued coquettishly, “Well, I told Tom that

I would stop by someday, when I was in the neighborhood, and take hischildren out for a ride and buy them ice cream cones.”

Kay’s civility and restraint were exhausted as she screamed, “If I ever seeyour fat face in this neighborhood again, I’ll tear the hair out of your headand stuff it down your ugly throat!”

The sound of the door slamming at 372 West Avenue could be heard inthe rectory of Holy Angels Church.

Kay was beside herself with humiliation. She instructed her children todon some older clothes and to go out to play. She sat numbly on the livingroom couch, silently awaiting Tom’s return from wherever he spent hisSunday afternoons. As soon as he came in the front door, she poured forthher anguish as she described Garriety’s brazen affront to his wife and fam-ily.

Tom seemed nonplused as he stammered, “I don’t know why Gen isacting that way. We discussed her meeting the kids someday,—but that


was a long time ago. Maybe she wanted to get to know them before shemet my parents.”

Kay gasped as if she had been punched in the stomach.”When is GenGarriety going to meet your parents?” she shrieked.

“Oh—I guess that I never mentioned that Gen and Helen McGowanare going to vacation in Michigan this summer and are going to visit myfolks in the ‘Soo’.” Tom answered absently.

Kay spun out of control. She ranted and raved as if she were mad! Shethreatened Tom She threatened to harm herself and her children, if Tomallowed the meeting to take place. She threatened to kill Garriety when-ever she saw her again! Tom finally calmed her and explained that the visitto the ‘Soo’ wasn’t his idea, but that he had no control over where any twoteachers from Grover spent their summer vacation.

Kay then faced Tom squarely and said with steely resolve, “If I’m notthere when your mother meets Garriety, you’ll be sorry that you were everborn!”

And thus, Kay Murphy (nee Griffin), got to visit Sault Ste Marie, Michfor a third, and last time.

The hot July sun couldn’t temper the chill in the car as the Murphysproceeded toward their rendevous with the two Grover Cleveland schoolteachers. Every light-hearted comment, or attempt at humor, or casualconversation by Tom was met by an icy stare, a harrumph, or a terse oneor two word response from Kay.

When the two groups met, and wordlessly approached the front door ofthe Murphy homestead,

Kay felt as if her brain was about to explode! She could hardly hear, shecouldn’t speak and she was afraid that she would burst forth in tears andagonized screams, at any moment.

Tom turned the handle of the front door doorbell. When his motheropened the door, her face brightened as she recognized her son’s family,and she said, “Kay, come on in!—It’s so good to see you!” Kay, speechlessas she held back her tears, extended her arms to her mother-in-law.

In her befogged brain she could faintly hear Tom say, “Mother, I’d likeyou to meet some friends of mine.”


Mother Murphy moved to the red-eyed Kay, clasped the outstretchedhands in hers, and without turning to look at the new visitors, sternlyresponded, “Tom, please ask your friends to leave my house immediatelyand I never want you to bring such trash in here again!”

Tom reeled as if he had been punched, then stammered, “Perhaps yougirls had better leave.” As he ushered Gen and Helen out the door, hemuttered, “It’ll be all right! I’ll see you later.”

His mother then whirled and said furiously, “It will not be all right! Ishould wallop you right here in front of your children for bringing thosetrollops into my home! And if I ever hear that you’re hanging out with‘that sort’ again I’d prefer that you didn’t come around here either!”

When Tom reentered the room he was confronted by a resolute womanthat he had never known existed. His mother said quietly, “Tom,—I’vehad to put up with that kind of guff from your father for all of my life. Butyou owe your grand lady, and your lovely children, a lot better life thanthat! You’d better get your head on straight and stop fooling around oryou’re going to lose the only thing worth having in life—the respect ofyour family!”

Kay began to sob audibly and Tom moved to her. He embraced hissmall family, and said, “You’re right Mother! I’ve behaved like a fool.”

The motor trip returning to Buffalo saw a complete role reversal. Now,Kay was humming and making cheery comments and observations.Mother Murphy’s unreserved support had sanctioned her marriage toTom and had restored her capacity for serenity and joy. At last she felt thather station in life had been established and that no man or woman couldever challenge her respectabilty again. Throughout the return journey,Tom was sullen, but compliant.

During the ensuing months, hard times in Buffalo were softened byseveral events. Memorial Auditorium was opened and Tom received addi-tional work assignments to referee municipal hockey games there on week-ends. Kleinhans Music Hall, with it’s beautiful reflection pool, opened atthe corner of Porter and Richmond Avenues. Curtis-Wright continued it’sexpansion and Bell Aircraft occupied a large plant on Niagara Falls Blvdand began an aggressive hiring program in anticipation of producing the


Bell Air Cobra pursuit plane, that would eventually be sent in large num-bers to the Soviet Union.

Of course, not everyone in Buffalo finds relief from the woes of theGreat Depression. The Irish-American Savings and Loan Association,where both ‘Ma’ and Jimmy Griffin had savings accounts, announced thatit had failed and closed it’s doors. Both Jim and ‘Ma’ lost their small sav-ings. Ag and Bill Batt cannot find jobs and are threatened with evictionfrom their small apartment. Ag tearfully asks her sister Kay if she and Billcan stay with Kay’s family until Bill finds work, or they can find other suit-able quarters. Kay answers that Tom wouldn’t allow Ag and Bill to movein with him under any conditions, and the natural rift between Ag andKay is widened further.

Kay was puzzled by the world news. She kept reading in the newspa-pers, and hearing on radio broadcasts, that the United States was provid-ing assistance to Great Britain in their fight against the Germans. Sheremembered that her mother had always hated anything ‘British’, becauseof the atrocities they had committed against the Irish people, and that theSisters of the Sacred Heart had taught the pupils at St Bridget’s Schoolthat the English were the evil root that had caused most of the worldsproblems. Then on Sunday, December 7,1941, Kay returned home fromattending a downtown movie theater with her two children, to learn onthe radio that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.

Kay didn’t have the foggiest notion of where, or what, Pearl Harborwas, or who the Japanese were, but she presumed that this meant thatAmerican boys would once again be sent to fight “over there” as they hadduring her childhood. She immediately began to consider how this warmight personally affect her.

It didn’t seem that either her husband or her brother Tom would bedrafted because they each had several children. She hoped that her brotherJim would be spared because he was the sole support of his mother.Although Jim Murphy had only one child, he was engaged in war produc-tion work and was probably too old for the draft anyway. Bill Batt had asteel plate in his head, but he was younger than the other members of thefamily, and childless. His going into the army not only would solve the


Batts’ housing problem, but Ag would then be free to give a hand with thehousework in the Griffin homestead. Kay decided that if Bill Batt was theonly one called into the armed forces, wartime wouldn’t be too bad.

Then on Thursday, December 11th, as Kay was getting the kids readyfor school, Clint Buelmann, the AM radio announcer, interrupted theplaying of his favorite record, “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, to tearfullyannounce that Nazi Germany had declared war on the United States. Hebroke in again just a few minutes later to announce that Italy had alsodeclared war on USA. Kay knew that this was serious and would makechanges in several people’s lives. The following weekend Jim Murphycame to visit and he pleaded with Tom to join him in enlisting in theArmy so that they could both “see some of the action”. Tom dismissed theidea as foolishness and later told Kay that he thought that Jim had had acouple of drinks and was just “blowing off steam”. Kay surmised that Jimwas serious and that he was just “looking for the chance to get away fromBea and Marlene”.

Indeed, the lives of many Buffalonians were altered by World War II.Kay took her children to the corner of Connecticut Street and ProspectAvenue, where they watched the boys in the 174th regiment of the NYmilitia march from the Armory to do battle with the Axis forces. Youngmen were drafted into the US Army, as soon as they finished their school-ing, and ‘blue star’ service flags hung in the windows of homes in everypart of the City. Men and women flocked into the many local plantsengaged in war production manufacturing. All citizens were constantlypracticing air-raid alerts, with black-outs, war bond rallies, and blooddonation appeals, a common occurrence. Children purchased ‘warstamps’, collected tin foil from discarded cigarette packs, tin cans, worntires, and old pots and pans, for the ‘war effort’. Butter, meat, shoes andgasoline was rationed. And the plaint heard on radio and in the songs ofthe day was that “a good man was hard to find” and “don’t sit under theapple tree with anyone else but me!”.

Neither of Kay’s brothers were called for military service, nor was BillBatt. Her husband, Tom, remained at Grover and Kay wondered why hedidn’t seek higher paying employment, or at least something contributing


to the war effort. She also tired of hearing from Tom how embarrassed hewas when young women thought that he was 4F, or that there was some-thing wrong with him because he wasn’t in uniform.

Then one day Tom proudly announced that he had passed an exam andhad been selected to serve in the US Border Patrol, a division of the Cus-toms and Immigration Service. He was going to have to go to trainingschool in El Paso TX for a period of 13 weeks and then he would beassigned duty, somewhere in the continental USA. Kay wasn’t disturbedthat she would be left alone to care for two children or that she would haveto continue to work as a stenographer six days a week. Lots of women werebeing asked to make even bigger sacrifices than that. At least Tomwouldn’t be sent to any dangerous war zone and Kay took some quiet grat-ification from the fact that, at last, he was leaving “that bunch at Grover”.

The balance of 1942 was a blur of feverish activity and frugality forKay. Each day she had to rise early, prepare breakfast for her two children,then immediately leave to catch the bus to go to work at Beals. She didn’treturn home until almost 6PM and then there was barely time to prepare asimple dinner, do some basic housework, listen to a radio broadcast, andthen retire for a good night’s sleep in order to have the strength for thenext day’s identical routine. Tom’s salary during his training period wasnot appreciably higher than it had been at Grover and when he receivedhis first duty assignment in Pensacola FL he had extra expenses associatedwith living out of town, so Kay was forced to handle most of the familyhousehold expenses from her Beals salary. Kay’s only relief from the dailytedium was a weekly visit to her mother’s house each Sunday afternoon.

Then Tom called to announce excitedly that he had received anotherjob post. On January 1st he was being transferred to West Palm Beach FL,and he gushed that since this was likely to be a permanent assignment, hewould be able to obtain living quarters in that city for the entire family.Kay received the news with equanimity. She had never heard of any ser-viceman’s wife being told that she had to move from her hometown inorder to be near her husband.

Kay realized immediately that while this news meant that the family’sexpenses would be reduced by maintaining one household instead of two,


that she would also have to give up her job at Beals and that if she didn’tget a job in Florida, she would no longer have an income of her own.Would she be able to find work in Florida,—and what would she be paid?She wondered how uprooting the children from Holy Angels Schoolwould affect their education,—she didn’t even know if there were Catho-lic schools in Florida! She didn’t think that she would miss her family ifshe moved from Buffalo,—she only saw the Griffins on Sundays anywayand Jim and Bea rarely came around with Tom out of town,—but shesensed that she might miss the Buffalo’s West Side. She had grown com-fortable there, and with the fact that most of her neighbors ‘minded theirown business’. Would she find new neighbors as generous, and as caring,as the Salmons, Miss Slater, or Catherine Provost, if she moved to Florida?

Kay had no enthusiasm or desire to take on any major change in herlife,—she knew that things could always be worse! She went along withTom on this move, without protest, because she simply didn’t have anyidea of how she could avoid moving to Florida.

On the evening of the departure, Jim and Bea took Tom and his familyout to dinner at Chef’s Restaurant, before taking them to the Central Ter-minal to catch their train. While devouring a huge portion of spaghettiand meat balls, Jim sheepishly announced that the previous week, afterconsuming a lot of Irish whiskey, he had tried to enlist in both the USMarines and in the Army. Both services had declined Jim’s offer on thebasis that he was too old to fight. Jim said that this had made him so angrythat he had enlisted in the Sea Bees, and they had been glad to get a manwith Jim’s savvy and experience. Bea’s facial expression of discomfort andcontempt, wordlessly confirmed Kay’s earlier diagnosis of marital malaisein their Eggertsville home.

Kay happily boarded the train for Florida knowing that she wasn’tgoing to have to deal with any further in-law discord.

72

4Contentment—The Middle Years

Kay was excited as she entered the cavernous Buffalo Central TerminalThis was to be her first train ride, as well as her first experience of livingoutside of Buffalo NY. It was Saturday evening yet the Terminal was abuzzas wartime travelers hastened to catch their trains. Kay gasped when shefirst saw the stuffed bison, which was pedestaled in the center of the mam-moth concourse. It was the first time that she had seen the animal that rep-resented her birth place and she had no idea that it was such a large beast.

However, train travel lacked the expected grandeur and glamour. Afterleaving the concourse the four Murphys immediately entered a sleepingcar, which was parked at a siding. Kay directed her children into upperberths, since there was no seating available, then she and Tom climbedinto separate lower berths. The family then traveled throughout the nightand when they awoke, it was Sunday morning and they were in the Wash-ington DC. Since the connecting train to Florida wasn’t scheduled to leavethe station until 7PM, Kay and her two children decided to do a littlesight-seeing.

Kay knew that Washington was the nation’s capital city and that theWhite House and Congress were located there, but she had little interestin visiting these institutions. Nor did she know how to find the LincolnMemorial, or Washington Monument, or the Georgetown neighborhood,and she had no desire to see these tourist mecca, even if she knew wherethey were. She, and her children took a bus into the city’s downtown area.,but when she arrived there she found that the Sunday Blue Laws were ineffect.

With the department stores, and other shops in the small downtownarea closed, Kay decided to see a movie. The first two theaters had SRO

Contentment—The Middle Years 73

signs in the lobby, and Kay and her two children eventually attended theonly movie house with available seating. The three of them watched“Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman”, starring Lon Chaney Jr. Kay was morti-fied, her daughter Patricia fussed throughout the movie, and Tommy, herson, thoroughly enjoyed the ‘horror flick’.

Next, the trio enjoyed a grilled cheese sandwich, and chocolate milkshake, at a drugstore soda fountain, before rejoining Tom at the Washing-ton train depot. The family then boarded another sleeping car, climbedinto their berths, and slept until they arrived in Florida on Monday morn-ing. Kay didn’t find much excitement, or enjoyment, in traveling by train.

It took the moving van, with their household goods and furniture, twofull weeks to catch up to the Murphys. They took advantage of the lapseby vacationing in a tourist cabin in Riviera FL until they could furnishtheir rental apartment in West Palm Beach. Their initial impression ofFlorida as a wartime outpost was reinforced as US Navy blimps constantlypatrolled off-shore, searching for German U-boats, and the entire commu-nity practiced brown-out routines after sundown.

Once the furniture arrived the family settled into a comfortable singlefamily home, complete with three bedrooms, an enclosed screened porch,and a car port. The home, at 311 31st Street, was on a block that was onlypartially developed, and overgrown vacant lots clearly outnumbered occu-pied properties. There were few nearby neighbors. In the evening, onecould hear the Atlantic Ocean surf pounding the shore, less than a half-mile away. Tom had purchased a gardenia plant, which he placed on thefront door stoop, so that the house and porch were filled with it’s delicatearoma. It was, by far, the nicest home that Kay had ever lived in.

Almost immediately, life in Buffalo seemed a distant memory. Theharsh, winter winds and snow had miraculously turned into balmy breezesand sunshine. Winter coats and galoshes were replaced by sun dresses andsandals. Where once Kay had watched as the chestnut trees on Porter Ave-nue dropped their inedible nuts to the ground and the autumn leavesturned from green to orange and red, now each street was lined withunchanging palm trees, each laded with coconuts, which dropped to theground only when the softball-sized nut was filled with rich milk and deli-


cious meat. Several waterway overpasses, or crossroad corners, featuredvendors selling shrimp, at 10 cents a bucket, for bait. Nearby Currie Parkoffered swings, seesaws, and a sandy beach for the amusement of Kay’sdaughter, Patricia, and shuffleboard courts where her son, Tommy, couldwile away hours playing shuffleboard with his mother, or senior citizens,or just practicing his stroke. Kay continued to be averse to swimming andto all threatening waters. She constantly cautioned her children against thedangers present in the nearby ocean.

Other differences from Buffalo sometimes discomforted and disheart-ened Kay. There was no neighborhood grocer, or meat market, or drugstore. There was only one Catholic Church, and one Catholic school, inthe entire city. St Ann’s was located almost four miles from Kay’s home,and although it was a very pleasant stroll along N. Flagler Drive to attendSunday Mass, it was simply too far to travel for daily Mass, or confession,or attendance at novenas. And now it was necessary for Patricia andTommy to take a bus each day, in order to arrive in time for morningclasses at St Ann’s School. Compared to Buffalo’s bustle, West Palm Beachwas a sleepy, southern hamlet. There was nothing familiar about the smalldowntown area,—it didn’t have any tall buildings,—there was no EllicottSquare Building, no Hengerers department store, no Memorial Audito-rium, no Liberty Bank Building,—and the entire town had only onemovie house! As far as Kay could see, the only vibrant business in the com-munity was Morrison Field, a US Army Air Corps base, where planes, sup-plies and personnel were being ferried to Allied forces fighting inTunisia,—and Kay didn’t know where to look for work!

Life at home had fallen into a humdrum routine. Weekdays, the chil-dren went to school, and Tom left for work, or slept, if he had been work-ing a night shift or overtime ‘special assignment’. This left Kay alone, todo some moderate housework, clean breakfast dishes, wash clothes, andiron uniform shirts. Kay had never taken any pleasure from householdchores and now, more than ever, she longed for holidays, or Tom’s timeoff from work, when they could spend some time together and enjoy theFlorida weather and entertainment facilities. But, she soon came to realizethat Tom’s affinity for playing poker had grown to obsessive proportions


since he had entered government service. Each of his day’s off from workwas spent playing, what seemed to Kay to be, high-stakes poker, with fel-low Border Patrol officers. The game was usually played at their home,where the stench of cigarette smoke and stale beer drove the gardenia scentfrom the rooms. More and more on ‘poker day’, she would greet Tom’sco-workers as they arrived and exchange quips and pleasantries with someof the men who originally lived in the New England area. But as soon asthe beers were opened, and the cards dealt, all of the players concentratedon the game, and all opportunities for small talk vanished. Usually, Kaythen left her smoke filled residence to stroll down to Currie Park, whereshe would sit on a park bench, until she was joined by her two children,following their school day. It seemed to Kay that she didn’t see Tom anymore often now than when he was stationed in Texas and she was living inBuffalo

While Kay now had the time and the resources to experiment with newfood recipes, she generally confined her cooking to those dishes that shehad learned from her mother. But using an oven in the Florida heat, addedto Kay’s discomfort, so that she seldom baked pies, or ham. Lamb stew,pot roast, broiled chicken, or tuna casserole, accompanied by mashedpotato and canned vegetable, remained the staple ‘big meal’. Tom likedtomato-based meals, but Kay didn’t like tomatoes, and therefore sherefused to add them to any dish. The abundance of fresh seafood didn’tfoster culinary contentment either. While Kay could enjoy eating fish, shedidn’t enjoy cooking ‘that smelly stuff’, and she absolutely refused to try tolearn how to clean or fillet any ‘fresh catch’. But Tom was seldom homefor dinner anyway. For the most part, Kay only had to prepare dinnertimemeals for herself and her children. It was easy to satisfy the children’s appe-tites,—Patricia absolutely loved canned Franco-American Spaghetti, andTommy would eat anything except—Franco-American Spaghetti!

And finally,—Kay missed Catherine Provost! She had no confidante!There was no one to share good times or lonesome times with,—or to tellone’s troubles to! But Kay didn’t complain, for she knew that things couldalways be worse!


More and more, Kay found herself turning to her son, Tommy, forcompanionship, and sometimes—for advice or guidance. Of course,Tommy was an ideal playmate and ‘sitter’ for his four years younger sister,but more and more Kay found that she was more comfortable with her sonat her side when she was shopping, or going to the movies, or just relaxing.And her son was smart! He knew all about the war that was being foughtin North Africa and in the Pacific. He was always reading something, andcould tell Kay about the latest movies, or sport events, or local news. Trav-eling to and from downtown each day while attending school, he becamefamiliar with the city’s various neighborhoods, and seemed to know whereit was safe, and where it was best not to travel.

One day, Tommy mentioned that he would like to see a British warmovie, “In Which We Serve” that was playing in the Palm Beach moviehouse. Kay replied that she had never been to Palm Beach and had no ideaof how one would get there. Tommy responded that a bus leftOkeechobee Blvd. on the hour, crossed the causeway into Palm Beach anddeposited it’s passengers only one block from the local movie house. Kaywas astonished that her son knew so much about the local transportationsystem, and that he knew anything about Palm Beach FL.! She agreed thatthey would attend the movie on the following Sunday.

When the bus passed over the causeway and entered Palm Beach, Kaycouldn’t believe her eyes. It was a more beautiful community than she hadever dreamed existed. There were rows of mansions, with stone walls cir-cumscribing manicured lawns and sculptured shrubbery. Each street andboulevard was lined with gigantic Hawaiian palm trees which shelteredresidents from both rain showers and bright sunshine. In the very smallcommercial area, there was a small movie theater and a few smallshoppes,—an ice cream parlour, a chic dress shop, jewelry store and a for-mal restaurant,—each one pristine and exuding expensive tastes. Kay feltas if she had been transported to a different planet. She had no conceptionof what it was like to live in a community like this. She only knew that shewas extremely uncomfortable even visiting a community like this! Thesmall group watched the movie, then immediately boarded the bus thatwould return them from the alien land.


During the ride home, Kay mused about the contrast between the ele-gance that she had just seen and the place where she had been born andraised,—Buffalo’s Old First Ward. She yearned to again walk the treelessstreets, under an overcast sky and to visit cottages with only a small sideyard and no grassy lawn to mow or rake. She missed going to the local del-icatessen, where the proprietress knew your name and where you couldpurchase bologna, salami, liverwurst or a dozen other types of sausage, aquart of milk and a loaf of bread,—without standing in line. Kay wantedthe opportunity to choose between five downtown movie houses, and tosee a stage review, if she liked. It had been fun to ride a streetcar and beable to shop at J N Adams, AM&A, and Hengerer department stores. Kaywas homesick!—and she missed going to work each day!

When the trio returned home that evening, they found Tom sitting onthe front porch, with a bottle of beer in his hand. Kay immediately noticedthe forlorn expression on Tom’s face and she asked what had happened.Tom’s choked response was that he had received word that he was to betransferred again! The Murphy family was being sent back to Buffalo NY!Kay did her best to console Tom, by assuring him that this was probablyanother temporary assignment and that a new permanent post would beoffered to him within a few months. She completely suppressed the giddi-ness that pervaded her whole being,—the delight that she was going homeagain! And she made an unspoken vow that she was never again going tolive anywhere but in her hometown!

Tom was assigned a government car and given ten days travel time tomove his family back to New York State. He decided that this was anopportunity for the entire family to visit the unfamiliar eastern coastalStates. A languid motor trip, with stops in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland,and Gettysburg PA, confirmed in Kay’s mind that anything that shewished to do, —Buffalo was the best place in which to do it!

The Murphys found that Buffalo had changed a little bit during theirFlorida sojourn. Everyone seemed to be working in a defense plant, buses,stores, movies and the street were a little more crowded, there were morescarcities, wages had gone up, but everything else had increased in price, aswell. Every business seemed to be advertising for new employees.


Tom had rented a large lower flat on Blaine Avenue, near Delevan Ave-nue, on Buffalo’s north side of town. It was a nice neighborhood, just twoblocks from stately Humboldt Parkway. Canisius College was locatedanother two blocks away, but in a different direction. Grocery stores, meatmarkets, bakeries, pharmacies, and a giant Sears Roebuck store werewithin easy walking distance of the Blaine Avenue address. Kay enrolledthe children in St Vincent’s Parochial School. Even though there weregood paying jobs in the immediate neighborhood, Kay chose to reapplyfor her old job at Beals, McCarthy, & Rogers. This job required that Kaytake both a bus and a streetcar to and from work each day, yet rather thanventure out among new tasks, new bosses, and new fellow employees, shechose the more familiar work environment. Kay also appreciated the factthat her son, Tommy, had matured greatly in the past six months, and wasnow perfectly capable of tending to his younger sister, in Kay’s absence.

Tom was stationed at the front of Ferry Street, looking for contrabandand aliens among the automobiles and passengers using the ferry boat tocross the Niagara River between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo NY. Therewere two popular fish eateries, “Roy’s” and “Sargent’s” located at the footof Ferry Street, as well as the ferryboat station. These two restaurants spe-cialized in Lake Erie fish dishes,—yellow perch, bass and northernpike—and on Friday nights had lines of 30 to 40 people waiting in lineoutside their doors, even in rain, sleet, or snow, in order to get a table. Itdelighted Kay when she and Tom could by-pass the line of waiting cus-tomers and be immediately seated because the owners of both establish-ments liked her husband, Tom, and recognized the importance of theBorder Patrol officer.

However, the return to Buffalo didn’t appreciably change Tom’s Flor-ida habits. There was a long term poker game held at the home on BlaineAvenue, whenever he had a day off from work. The names hadchanged,—Burke, Mulderick, Tubridy, and Millidge were now Tom’s fel-low workers, and these men became Tom’s social milieu,—they bowledtogether, played softball, poker and drank together and greatly enjoyedeach other’s company. Kay had no evidence of the presence of a Gen Gar-riety, or Helen McGowan, or anyone of that ilk, and she was comfortable


with the thought that Tom’s days of public pursuit of romance werebehind him.

Occasionally, Tom and Kay would socialize with Tom’s co-worker JackMulderick, and his wife Fran, and over the years the relationship ripenedinto a fast friendship. Kay particularly enjoyed the company of Fran, whohad been born in Ireland and peppered her jovial wit with a large dose ofpracticality. Tom had also struck up an acquaintanceship with VinceQuinlan, a detective on the Buffalo Police force. The Quinlans lived onHumboldt Parkway, only two blocks from the Murphy’s home on BlaineAvenue. Mrs Quinlan, Bern, loved to play penny-ante poker, and in Kay’seyes was the spitting image of Bea Murphy. Both women were attractiveblondes and expressed sardonic witticisms at every opportunity. Kay alsolearned to love to play penny-ante poker, but what she could never learn todo,—was to lose graciously! She hated to lose,—at poker,—at bingo,—ata punch-board in the corner grocery store. The amount of the loss wasn’timportant, even losing a dime at poker would send Kay into a rage, orcause an evening—long pout. Kay however, was extremely gracious whenshe won, always attributing her victory to her opponents ‘bad luck’, andonly wordlessly congratulating herself for her own adroitness.

While they lived in Florida, Jim Murphy had been assigned work over-seas with the ‘Seabees’ and since Tom and Kay were without a personalautomobile, they saw very little of Bea or Marlene Murphy during 1943-44. Kay’s sister, Agnes, was still miffed over Tom’s refusal to grant themshelter when they without housing during ‘the Great Depression’, and thetwo young ladies rarely spoke civilly to each other. Nor did Kay visit hermother, and the Griffins, as much as she had in the past. Now, in order tovisit ‘Ma’s’, Kay, and her children, had to take a Delevan Avenue bus,transfer to a Main Street streetcar, then at Shelton Square switch to theSouth Park streetcar. The trip took at least one-half hour more of riding,and waiting for public transportation, than any previous visit to the FirstWard had. At times, it seemed to Kay that she had spent the better part ofher life in the shelter at Shelton Square, waiting for a bus, or a streetcar.

There was a shorter, more direct route to the First Ward from BlaineAvenue. Kay could have taken the Jefferson Avenue bus from Sears Roe-


buck, cross town to Hamburg Street and South Park Avenue, but thiswould have entailed traveling through the very heart of Buffalo’s Negroneighborhood. But Kay had never met, or associated with any ‘colored’persons, and the very thought that she and her children could be alone onsome bus, surrounded by people of a different skin color, traveling in analien culture, terrified her. She never even considered taking the shorterroute. Rather than subject her children to danger, she chose to eitherspend the extra hour in travel, or to simply stay at home on Sundays.

But each day, Kay grew more comfortable in her life. Everyone in thefamily enjoyed good health and “the kids were doing well in school”. Shelived in a fine neighborhood, and worked with people that she knew andtrusted. Tom earned good wages and the family was never ‘in need’ oflife’s essentials. Kay enjoyed the company of her new friends, as much asshe enjoyed the solitude that the neighborhood provided her when shedesired privacy. She had learned that “the grass was not always greener”when she and Tom had moved to the lovely community of West PalmBeach. She had not been comfortable living in Florida, and she was glad tobe ‘home’ again.

Kay also knew that ‘good times’ don’t last forever. So she wasn’t sur-prised when Tom told her that the landlords wanted to repossess the flaton Blaine Avenue, and that the Murphy family was going to have to moveagain. Tom expressed some anger and disappointment at the abruptnesswith which the landlord had taken this action and he explained to Kaythat he had taken steps to see that the family wasn’t going to be abruptlyuprooted again. He had made a down payment on a home of their own!Tom had purchased a three family home on Coe Place, a cozy street, run-ning off Main Street, in a sedate, older neighborhood, in Midtown Buf-falo. He explained to Kay that he had worked out the financing, so thatthe rental income on the second floor of the home would pay off the prin-cipal of the mortgage, while the Murphy’s housing costs would be nomore than they had spending for rent. And no one could tell them thatthey had to move again! Without complaint, but without much enthusi-asm either, Kay began preparations to move into the new quarters in Janu-ary 1944.


First she had to see her new home! On Sunday she, and her two chil-dren, visited their new neighborhood. Even though Kay had taken the #8streetcar each day to work, she had never noticed Coe Place. She was toldthat it was a street off Main Street, between W. Utica and Best Streets Inthe past,. Kay had only noticed that this stretch of Main Street was mostlyautomobile showrooms, which were now empty, since no cars were beingproduced in the USA during the War. The trio got off the trolley at Mainand Barker Streets. As she got to the curb, Kay could see all the way downBarker Street, to Delaware Avenue where Barker Street terminated. Shecould see the gracious apartment house at the corner of Barker and Lin-wood Avenue, the tall Elm trees on Linwood Ave., and she could see sev-eral stately Delaware Avenue mansions. It was a nicer neighborhood thanshe had expected.

When she turned in order to locate Coe Place, she became confused.She first saw “Ryan’s Pharmacy”, a small neighborhood drug store. Thereseemed to be an alley alongside the drugstore and then there was a largeexpanse of land, with trees, some debris and a partial building foundation,no grass, but much overgrown brush. It appeared that some time ago, alarge residence had been demolished and the vacant lot had been unat-tended since the razing. Kay crossed Main Street, intending to ask thedruggist if he knew where Coe Place was. She looked up to see that whathad appeared to be an alley was in fact, the street named Coe Place. Kayhad never seen anything like it! This was truly, “the other side of thetracks”. The width of the street pavement, measured from curb to curb,was fifteen feet. It didn’t seem possible to Kay that any automobile coulduse the street if another car was parked at the curb, and there were carsparked along the length of the block On the north side of the street was arow of two and a half story residences, with no side, front or back yards.The homes, with their small front porches abutting the narrow sidewalk.,seemed to be the scarp of a five story windowless brick wall which loomedbehind them. The south side of Coe Place consisted of a row of similarlyconstructed residential structures, with porches abutting the sidewalks, butwith small rear and side yards. All of the homes seemed shabby and old.The entire length of Coe Place was one short block, from Ellicott Street to


Main Street, and when viewed from either Main Street, or from EllicottStreet, Coe Place seemed to be no more than a cleft in the urbanscape,—inert and without charm. Kay couldn’t understand how Tom hadchosen this particular location for their home.

Kay’s distress intensified when she entered 35 Coe Place, her newhome. The lower flat, the future living quarters for the Murphy family,was smaller than ‘Ma’ Griffin’s cottage in the Old First Ward! There was asmall living room, a small dining room, an average sized kitchen, a minis-cule bathroom, and two bedrooms. Kay immediately determined thatTom, who snored heavily and often worked an evening shift, would sleepin the smaller, front bedroom which adjoined the dining area and whichwas closer to the bathroom. She wouldn’t mind sharing the larger, rearbedroom with her two children.

The building’s second floor offered another surprise! The tenants of thetwo small apartments were expected to share an extremely small bathroom,which was located in an outer hallway at the top of the stairway! Tearswelled up inside Kay when she thought of living in this house, but sheresolved that she would hide her dissatisfaction from Tom. The family hadto have a place to live, this deal couldn’t be undone, and she had learned to“do your best with what you’ve got”. 35 Coe Place was Kay’s new home!

When Kay visited her mother on the following Sunday, she announcedthat she and Tom had purchased a home and were expecting to moveshortly after Christmas. While Kay was describing her new neighborhood,her sister Agnes piped up, —“My brother-in-law, Howard and his family,live over that way,—on Coe Place! But Bill and I never visit them becausewe don’t think that the neighborhood is safe!”

Kay was livid, but she retorted coolly, —“Well, we live on DodgeStreet!—and that’s a very safe neighborhood!” She was immediately sorrythat she had blurted out a disprovable falsehood, but the statement wasintractable. Kay simply never mentioned her address again and dropped allfurther discussion of her new home, while she was in the Griffin house-hold.

Two additional shocks awaited Kay after she moved into the home. Thefirst was that she now lived immediately next door to Ag’s in-laws, the


Howard Batt family! The second was that the assistant pastor at Our Ladyof Lourdes Church was—Father David Roche, who had performed themarriage rites at Nativity Church! Kay neither acknowledged the presenceof, nor spoke to, either party, as long as she lived on Coe Place.

As Kay became more familiar with her neighborhood, she found that itwas a safe, working class area, with bakeries, meat markets, and delicates-sens, nearby. The only notable inconvenience was the absence of any largesupermarket, where staples could be purchased. The closest Loblaw’s waslocated at Main and Carlton Streets, more than six city blocks away.

Our Lady of Lourdes RC Church (known as ‘the French parish’) waswithin easy walking distance from Coe Place. In January 1944, Kay’s twochildren, Patricia and Tommy, were enrolled in their fourth parochialschool in two years, Our Lady of Lourdes. Class sizes were extremelysmall, and often the teachers, St Joseph’s nuns, were required to combinetwo classes,(ie) fourth and fifth grades, into a single classroom. The fre-quent changes didn’t seem to damage either child’s performance at school,or to negatively impact their social graces, so Kay felt comfortable continu-ing to work at Beals..

The Porter-Best bus ran from the front door of Lourdes Church to thefront door of Holy Angels Church, and on any given Sunday, Kay couldhave effortlessly visited her dear friend, Catherine Provost,—but Kaynever bothered. Also, Kay’s trips to visit her mother became infrequent.Kay frequently saw her brothers downtown, her brother, ‘Rocko’, at workalmost every day, and she often ran into her other brother, Jimmy, duringlunch hour, at the cafeterias located in the Prudential or Brisbane Build-ing(s). On Sundays in the summer, her brother Jimmy either attendedMUNY baseball games or Buffalo Bison baseball in Offermann Stadium,or in the winter months he went to Buffalo Bison AHL Hockey games atMemorial Auditorium. So, whenever Kay bothered to make the trek toSouth Park Avenue, she found only her spiteful sister, Agnes, and her hus-band, Bill Batt, in attendance. Kay couldn’t be bothered spending her onlyday off from work quarreling with her sister!

Instead, Kay often asked her son, Tommy, to escort her and Patricia toa nearby downtown movie theater. The trolley fare was ten cents for adults


and three cents for children under 12. Kay would have to argue on eachtrolley trip that her son, although nearly six feet tall, was under the chil-dren’s age limit. The cost of admission for Sunday matinees at downtowntheaters was 25 cents for adults, and 15 cents for children. Kay often hadto repeat her arguments at the box office, but she, and her children, wereusually able to see a first-run movie, and a stage show, without spendingmore than one dollar for the entire day. On days that Tom was refereeingMUNY hockey games in the Aud, Kay might treat the trio to dinner atLaube’s Old Spain Restaurant, after the movie. Kay didn’t enjoy ‘warmovies’ so that the movie fare usually consisted of musicals or comedies.She thought that “Going My Way”, with Bing Crosby, was one of the bestmovies ever! Bob Hope in “Princess and the Pirate” and Betty Grable in“Coney Island” and the escapades of Abbott and Costello, provided relieffrom the serious war news coming from Europe and the South Pacific. Inthe evening, Kay could laugh along with Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Amosand Andy, and Charley McCarthy on radio, before retiring in preparationfor another six-day work week.

From what Kay saw in the movie newsreels, and read in the BuffaloEvening News, the war in Europe seemed to be coming to it’s end. Fol-lowing the D-Day invasion during the summer, one battlefield successafter another was reported until finally there was talk that the “boys will behome right after Christmas”. Kay wondered what would happen when allthe soldiers returned home and began looking for work. But then inDecember 1944, the German army counter attacked and it appeared thatthe Allied forces might be ousted from Europe one more time. Then, inJanuary, the German advances ran out of steam, the Allied forces resumedtheir march toward Berlin, and optimistic predictions that ‘peace is athand’ were heard once more. Kay was at work on April 12th, when sheheard the news that President Roosevelt had died. She was stunned! It hadseemed that FDR was the only president America ever had, or would everneed. Kay couldn’t imagine what things would be like with a new man asUS President.

On May 8, 1945, the Diocese of Buffalo hosted a ‘Conclave of Bish-ops’. Kay was attending early Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, when


Father Roche interrupted the rite to announce from the pulpit that Ger-many had surrendered! Kay was attending the movie”The Bells of St Mary”,with her children, on August 6th when the announcement was made thatan A-Bomb had destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Less than onemonth later, Japan surrendered and World War II was over. Tom Murphyreceived word that he had been reassigned to Newark NJ and was orderedto report for work in that city on January 2,1946. Curtis-Wright’s Buffaloplant reduced it’s workforce from 40,000 to just 5500 employees at theend of 1945.

Tom and Kay agreed that it would be folly for the entire family to moveto Newark. First of all, selling Coe Place in order to rent an apartment inNewark seemed impractical. Secondly, Kay didn’t want to give up her jobat Beals,—she was afraid that she’d never get it back. Finally, it hadbecome apparent that the policy of the US Border Patrol was to transferagents to a new post every six months. They discussed whether Tomshould look for another job, but then decided that with the flood of ex-GI’s now looking for work, it was best to hold onto what they were certainof and wait until a better job opportunity came along. Kay comfortedTom when she said, “We’ll get through this. We’ve gotten through worsebefore.”

Before long, the auto showrooms on Main Street were filled with shinynew models. Appliance stores, like Delgato’s and Meyers, seemed to springup in every neighborhood. The absence of rationing revealed an abun-dance of meat, butter, shoes, tires and gasoline. The IRC began replacingit’s fleet of electric trolley cars with new busses. But the postwar peace in1946 also produced some turmoil. Unemployment in Buffalo reached epi-demic proportions, with 80,000 workers out of work. Affordable housingwas in extremely short supply. Then, in March of that year, Tom wasforced to resign from the US Border Patrol, rather than face a disciplinaryhearing. He returned to Buffalo and was fortunate to find temporaryemployment as night watchman, at the nearby Packard automobile show-room and warehouse. In June, Tom answered a newspaper ad, was hired asa salesman for Sonnenborn&Sons, a national paint manufacturer, andpurchased his first automobile—a Studebaker. His first action, after his


hiring, was to take Kay and the family on a motor trip to Canada, wherethey visited the Shrine of St Joseph in Montreal, and the Basilica of SainteAnne de Beaupre in Quebec City. Kay was extremely uneasy among theFrench speaking Canadians, but that didn’t prevent her from ferventlypraying that Tom would find success in his new venture. Tom’s secondaction was to ask Kay to give up her position as a stenographer at Beals, inorder to perform the clerical duties and handle the administrative details ofhis new position. Kay thought it best that she retain her job, which wouldprovide the family with income until they were sure that Tom would suc-ceed in a new, untried, occupation, but she never expressed these reserva-tions, and cheerfully acceded to Tom’s request. Lastly, Tom told his sonthat the family’s financial situation was precarious, everyone would beasked to make sacrifices, and it was doubtful that they could afford to payany private high school tuition in September. Kay noticed that this pro-nouncement was received in stony silence.

During October, ‘Ma’ Griffin became gravely ill. Kay’s sister, Ag, calledto ask for assistance in doing the housework at the First Ward homesteadand providing the nursing that their mother now required. Kay had toanswer that she was unable to devote any time to the care of ‘Ma’ since shewas responsible for answering the business phone at home, and could onlyleave the premises for very short periods of time. Ag erupted, and after aheated and bitter exchange of words, hung up the phone. It was to be thelast conversation between the two Griffin sisters. Decades of silence fol-lowed. ‘Ma’ Griffin died the following March, without ever seeing herdaughter, Kay, again.

Kay was a stoic presence at her mother’s funeral. It was not as if she hadlost a close friend. ‘Ma’ had a brittle personality, and her lack of warmthhad kept everyone at a safe distance. Kay had not seen her as an ailing,dependent woman and she only remembered the brusqueness with whichher mother had ‘minded her own business’. At the graveside, her mindwandered as she recalled that the previous years had seen several deaths onthe Murphy side of Kay’s family,—Tom’s brother Jack had died suddenly,leaving his widow, Alma to care for four young children,—Tom’s fatherhad passed on with little mourning or fanfare,—and Mother Murphy’s


blind sister, Aunt Min, had finally succumbed to the maladies that hadafflicted her in her senior years. Kay hadn’t seen any of these people forseveral years before their death, and wartime travel restrictions had pre-vented Kay from attending any of the funerals, but now Kay wonderedhow Mother Murphy had coped with the loss of her loved ones,—andwho would care for her mother-in-law if, and when, she needed assistance?

Jim Murphy had returned home and the war and once again assumed asupervisory position with Stimm Construction Co. Occasionally, Tomand Kay would visit Jim’s Eggert Road home and the two couples wouldvisit over a game of penny-ante poker. Tom’s friend, Jack Mulderick, hadresigned from his Border Patrol position at the end of World War II andreturned to his family’s shoe business in Massachusetts. The Mulderickskept in touch with Tom and Kay after they left the area, but none ofTom’s other former co-workers continued social contact with Tom andKay after Tom left government service. Tom was now traveling on busi-ness throughout New York State and his new social milieu consisted ofbusiness contacts. Paul Gleason and Gertie Webb, staffers of Sonnen-born’s New York City headquarters, took a liking to Tom and visited Tomand Kay on several occasions. Tom’s new ‘best friend’ was Dan Moynihan,a Jamestown NY hardware dealer and Kay enjoyed visiting, and being vis-ited by, this boisterous, fun-loving Irishman. Tom had also joined “TheKnights of Equity”, an Irish social club, (He said that it was for businessreasons), and Kay loved to go down to the clubhouse with Tom, wherethere was music for dancing, beer drinking, and as much story telling asone could stand. She never was able to overcome her shyness at meetingpeople that she didn’t know well, but she had learned that she could dis-guise her shyness, and her lack of education, with smiles and good-naturedquips.

Kay was a regular churchgoer, she always attended Mass on Sundaysand on Holy Days of Obligation and she often participated in Novenas.But she took no part in the parish activities at Our Lady of LourdesChurch, nor did she engage in any neighborhood social activities. Shenever joined the Lourdes Altar and Rosary Society or the Sodality. Sherarely attended functions at the children’s school and wasn’t comfortable


even talking with the nuns at Lourdes. Kay felt as though they were ‘talk-ing down’ to her. But, when she and Tom attended Parents Night at herson’s High School, St Joe’s Collegiate, she found the Christian Brothers tobe a regular bunch of ‘guys’, with no one displaying a ‘superior’ attitude,and she enjoyed the repartee and the congeniality of the group. She didn’tmingle with her children’s friends, nor with the parents of her children’sfriends. And although a widow, Mrs Webber, who lived nearby, took afancy to Kay’s daughter Patricia, and used to visit Kay to deliver cookiesand small gifts, Kay formed no fast friendship with anyone living on CoePlace or in Our Lady of Lourdes parish.

Tom’s sales work meant that he had to be ‘on the road’ each day. Hespent several nights each month ‘out of town’ and rarely finished his workday in time to have dinner with his family. Therefore, Kay was confined toher home, with it’s office telephone and clerical responsibilities, most ofthe time. She missed working at Beals. In particular she missed being inthe downtown area, with it’s activity and bustle. Since she know longersaw her brothers during the work week, her only contact with the Griffinfamily became the occasional telephone call that she received from herbrother, Jimmy. They discussed recent movies and ‘sports’. He reportedthat he was still playing handball regularly at the Knights of Columbus,and that he had recently won several city-wide handball championships.He also indulgently reported that ‘Rocko”s two boys were ‘real hellions’,and that the younger of Kay’s nephews, Jimmy, had dropped out of highschool at the end of his sophomore year and was now working as a ‘grainscooper’ on the docks.

One day, almost as an afterthought, Kay’s brother, Jimmy, mentionedat the end of one telephone conversation, “Oh yes, Helen (Rocko’s wife),is pregnant again! They’re expecting another baby in about nine weeks”Kay was stunned! Her mind became a jumble of thoughts, doubts andquestions,—Helen was more than forty years old! Kay hadn’t ever heard ofany woman that age giving birth. It had been at least twelve years, sinceHelen had borne her last baby, Donna! And it was a lucky thing that theolder boys were earning some money now and able to contribute to the


support of the family! What would ‘Ma’ Griffin think if she werealive?—But all Kay said was, “Oh, that’s nice!”.

Kay was in a contented mood. Tom’s good looks, easy charm and ‘lineof blarney’ enabled him to prosper as a traveling salesman. The family nowpossessed a new car, a Buick, and continued to enjoy excellent health. Herchildren continued to do well in school, had a host of friends, and didn’tget into trouble of any kind. She had settled into a comfortable routinethat included a little office work, a little housework, and a limited numberof enjoyable social engagements, in the company of her handsome hus-band.

Then Tom received word that his mother had suffered a debilitatingstroke and now required constant health care. It was agreed that Tom andKay would provide a home for Mother Murphy for a limited period oftime, until more suitable arrangements for her care could be made. Kayknew that this would disrupt her family’s comfortable daily routines, butshe also realized that Tom’s siblings, Marg and Jim, had larger homes andless demanding business schedules than Tom, and therefore would bearthe brunt of their matriarch’s health care requirements.

When Mother Murphy arrived at Buffalo Airport, Kay was relieved tosee that her old friend was not a helpless invalid. The stroke had partiallyparalyzed the right side of her body, but she was mobile and her sense ofhumor and good nature were intact. Kay had asked her son, Tommy, tomove his sleeping quarters to a storage room in the third floor attic, andshe now shared Tom’s bed in the smaller front bedroom. This allowedMother Murphy to share the larger, and more secluded, rear bedroomwith her grand-daughter, Patricia.

Of course, Tom had to continue his sales travels, and the children wentto school each day, so it was left to Kay to become the constant compan-ion and caretaker of her mother-in-law. Much to Kay’s surprise, the moreshe got to know Mother Murphy, the better she liked her. The olderwoman’s deprecatory attitude, ironic humor and wit, and unfailing senseof compassion, made her the most endearing person that Kay had everknown. And Mother Murphy’s every action and expression demonstratedthat she continued to adore Kay.


But then, after about two months of congeniality, Tom told Kay thathis business affairs were not being properly attended and that he wanted tomake other arrangements for his mother’s care. He then called his brother,Jim, to arrange for the future care of their mother. The conversationquickly became a heated exchange of charges and countercharges. The dis-pute was resolved by returning Mother Murphy to Sault Ste Marie, Mich-igan. Kay returned to sharing the rear bedroom with Patricia, and almostimmediately developed a continuing queasy, uneasy feeling, with nausea inthe morning. Kay hated to visit any doctor’s office, but the malady per-sisted until Kay was forced to make an appointment to obtain treatmentand relief.

Kay learned that she was again pregnant!At first, Kay was bewildered and angry. “How could this happen? Why

did this happen to me?” were her most immediate thoughts. Then, slowlythe signs of fear and seeds of doubt crept into her meditations. She recalledthe warnings that she had received from doctors fourteen years earlier,after she had almost died giving birth to Patricia, that another pregnancycould be fatal for her. She wondered whether her body could take thestrain of childbirth and child rearing at her advanced age. And, how couldshe find the time to care for an infant, with a fledgling business to manage?

When Tom received the news of the impending birth, he also expressedhis surprise and amazement that any conception could have occurred afterso many years of continence. But, Kay was most surprised that Tom’smusings were more practicable than fearful. For the first time, he admittedto Kay that his constant auto travel had become wearisome. He had beenmulling over an offer that he had received to work for a local painting con-tractor and Kay’s news had helped him to decide to accept the new job. Aside benefit of the new job would be that Kay would no longer have theresponsibility of running the office at home. Also, a new baby would meanthat 35 Coe Place would be too small for their family and that he wouldhave to find a more suitable home, as soon as he settled into his new posi-tion. Finally, Tom opined that with a new baby, a new job and a new,larger home (and house payments), that they would feel a financial pinch


and would have to tell their son, Tommy, that they would be unable tohelp pay for college tuition.

Kay couldn’t catch her breath! It almost seemed that her pregnancy hadoccurred solely in order to provide Tom with the impetus to make severaldecisions that he had been hesitant about. She was greatly relieved thatTom seemed neither fearful nor angry about her ‘delicate condition’.

Tom immediately accepted the position of vice-president of EmpireState Painting Contractor Inc and was now at home more often. Kay thenrelaxed and began to enjoy her new ‘expectant mother’ status. Oneevening Tom took Kay to the Shea’s Buffalo Theater, where they saw thenew comedy team of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis in a stage review. Kaynever laughed so hard in her entire life! On other nights a new 16" televi-sion set brought Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Sid Caesar, “Studio One”,“Kraft Theater” and “Dragnet” into Kay’s living room, replacing her radiofavorites. Kay noticed that, following Sunday Mass, the parishioners atLourdes Church seemed a little warmer in their greetings to her. Even theshoppers at Loblaw’s appeared to caress the expectant mother with theireyes and nod a silent approval as Kay waited in the checkout line. Andwhen the gang at the Knights of Equity saw Kay in maternity clothes atthe St Patrick’s Day party, their joviality and warm wishes were unre-strained. Once again, Kay felt young,—and beautiful,—and cherished.

On Memorial Day,1950, Kay, at age 45, gave birth to a beautiful,healthy, baby girl, Nancy Katherine. Neither Kay nor her baby wereendangered or harmed during or after the delivery.

Kay continued to enjoy the attention, and admiration that her status as‘a new mother’ brought her. A few months after the birth, Kay proudlycarried the beautiful infant to the graduation ceremonies of her two otherchildren. First, to Tommy’s graduation from St Joe’s and then to Patricia’sgraduation from Our Lady of Lourdes School.

Jim Griffin, Kay’s brother, had accepted her invitation to attend thenew baby’s Christening celebration and Kay was delighted to see him andbe able to hear his views on sports, world affairs and ‘First Ward’ gossip.While having a quiet conversation with Kay and her son, Jim asked ifTommy would be interested in working at General Mills, during the sum-


mer vacation. Jim explained that it was a clerical position,—office messen-ger, carrying orders and dispatches between the downtown offices and themills on Ganson Street. Tommy quickly accepted the offer explaining thathe was anxious to find work so that he could pay his college tuition for thecoming year. Kay immediately expressed her appreciation, because she hadbeen secretly apprehensive of what was ‘to become’ of her son. She had noidea of what Tommy’s future plans might be. For some time she hadprayed that he might become a priest, but he had never shown any inclina-tion toward the religious life. Now, it was her fervent hope that he wouldfind satisfaction in clerical work at General Mills and that he would findsome good steady job, maybe at General Mills, and wouldn’t waste histime, and money, at some college. After all, her brother Jim had startedout at General Mills at a much younger age than Tommy, had alwaysearned a decent salary,—he hadn’t missed a weekly paycheck, even duringthe Great depression,—and Jim had never even graduated from StBridget’s! Her brother ‘Rocko’ had begun work at Beals, right after gram-mar school, and he had made a good enough living to keep food on thetable for his brood, ever since. And neither she, nor her husband Tom, hadattended high school, and they were certainly doing all right! The only col-lege educated people that Kay ever knew were that ‘drunken bunch ofbums and sluts’ at Grover Cleveland. She certainly didn’t want her son toturn out like that! No, it was time for Tommy to settle down and finddecent work and General Mills was as good a place to start as any!

But then, only a few weeks after Tommy’s graduation, there was newson the television that American troops were being sent to fight ‘the Com-munists’. They were drafting boys again to serve in the Army, and maybeget killed in some place called Korea. Kay thought that maybe Tommy’splan to attend college would keep him safe from being drafted. In anyevent there wasn’t much that she could do to influence events in any direc-tion anyway!

Tommy didn’t find a lifetime career at General Mills. Instead, after thesummertime employment, he enrolled at St Bonaventure University andmoved to Olean NY. Patricia began attendance at Mount St Joseph’sAcademy, and developed a host of new friends. Tom sold the Coe Place


residence and purchased a new family home, on Parkwood Avenue inKenmore NY, a cozy village, just north of Buffalo’s city limits. Kay’s newhome was a two story, three bedroom structure, situated on a quiet, treelined street, with a two car garage and spacious back yard. Village residentswere generally middle income, middle aged, white collared, and whiteskinned workers, who almost universally voted Republican at electiontime. Tom and Kay attended the staid, older Catholic parish, St Paul’s,which was located in the center of the village, rather than the new, andmodern church structure of St John’s, which served the young families ofsuburban Town of Tonawanda NY.

Kay’s full time job now was to nurture and supervise the vivaciousactivities of her infant daughter, Nancy. Kay loved her new job!—her newneighborhood!—her new life! Kay’s new neighbors were younger than shewas. The mothers of Nancy’s playmates were younger than Kay. In everyway, during every day, Kay felt younger than she had in years.

Even when Tom announced that he had quit his job at Empire StatePainting and was now going to be working as an independent paintingcontractor, Kay wasn’t fazed or worried. Tom had always been a good pro-vider and they would continue to “get by”. She knew that she could han-dle the clerical duties and run the office of the new business from herhome,—she had done it in the past, and it wouldn’t be any more difficultnow. And, Patricia was now old enough to assist with the care of Nancy,relieving Kay of that full time responsibility.

Tom’s new status as an entrepreneur meant that there were changes inKay’s social circle. First, Tom joined the Buffalo Athletic Club (BAC).This became the site and occasion for dances, parties and social get-togeth-ers, although, on rare occasions, Tom and Kay would still stop at theKnights of Equity (‘for a drink’). Tom’s circle of friends now included hisnew business associates: the attorney, Phil Barth; William Borneman, acontractor; and the business promoter ‘extraordinaire’, George Weich-mann. Kay never made any mention to Mr Weichmann of their encounterat the Crystal Beach Ballroom, those many years before,—or the fact thatthey had worked together at Beals, McCarthy and Rogers, when they were


young,—and, as far as Kay knew, George Weichmann never acknowl-edged these facts to anyone either!

Tom still met regularly with ‘his poker bunch’, and Tom and Kayformed a fast friendship with Harry Winters, and his wife, Frieda. Harryhad been a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes, was the owner of the localPepsi Cola Bottling plant, and now lived only a few blocks from Tom andKay in Kenmore NY. Harry was great fun, but Kay particularly enjoyedthe rough-hewn presence of Frieda Winters. Like Bea Murphy and BernQuinlan, Frieda would throw out sardonic quips, in the presence of any-one, without any pretense, or fear of committing a social blunder. She wasattractive, but not as slim or as pretty as Kay. Frieda Winters had every-thing that Kay had always looked for in a friend.

Patricia Ann had made many new friends at St Joseph’s Academy andthere was a constant parade of teen-aged girls passing through the resi-dence on Parkwood Avenue. Kay noticed that none of Pat’s classmatesmentioned having pre-school brothers or sisters at home, and Kay relishedthe thought that she was the ‘most recent mother’ among Patricia’s circleof friends.

Even the news that Tom’s mother was going to pay another visit toBuffalo didn’t dim Kay’s pleasure. There was plenty of room at the Park-wood address, including upstairs bedrooms that assured everyone of ade-quate privacy. Patricia was always available to provide companionship to‘Grandma’ or to Nancy on those occasions when Kay had something elseto do.

When Mother Murphy arrived in Buffalo, she stayed at the home of herson, Tom, and his family, rather than with either of her other offspring..Kay was particularly pleased with the opportunity to visit with hermother-in-law, who had almost completely recovered from the stroke andhad only the slightest difficulty in using her right arm. She had retainedher gentle warmth and wit, and was a genuinely pleasant house guest. Buther stay in Buffalo was short-lived. Another violent quarrel between herchildren, Tom, Jim, and Margaret, over who had the principal responsibil-ity for their mother’s health care, resulted in the return of Mother Murphy


to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. Kay was never to see her oldest, and bestfriend again!

Before long, Kay’s son, Tommy, returned from St Bonaventure toannounce that he intended to be married at the end of the 1952 summer.Kay was surprised, and disappointed, at her son’s announcement. Shecouldn’t understand why Tommy was rushing into marriage at such ayoung age. She liked his fiancee, Barbara Moore, who was attractive, pleas-ant, and smart, and came from a solid Irish-Catholic family, but Kaycouldn’t imagine how the young couple was going to survive. Barbara’sfather was a graduate of Notre Dame, but he didn’t own his own busi-ness,—he worked for some engineering firm, and there was no prospectthat her son would find work there. And Tom’s fledgling painting contrac-tor business at times was having trouble ‘meeting payroll’ and certainlywas in no position to employ unneeded workers or to incur unnecessaryexpenses! Kay had secretly expected that Tommy might someday marrythe sister of his good friend, Peter Irwin, and might someday find work inthat family’s prosperous business. But there was nothing that she could doabout that now, so she decided that she would keep her reservations toherself and let matters play out as they would. At least the weddingexpenses would fall principally on the Moore family, and shouldn’t imposeany undue financial hardship on the Murphys.

Following the wedding, Tommy enrolled at the University of Buffalo,and worked part time at the painting concern, while his wife, Barbara,continued to work full time as a business representative at NY TelepnoneCo. The young couple rented a small apartment in Kenmore and Kay washappy that they had been able to quickly establish their self sufficient inde-pendence. Then, only a few months after the wedding ceremony, Barbaraarrived at a small social gathering wearing a maternity dress! Kay was mor-tified! She knew that this early pregnancy was going to disrupt everything!Barbara was going to have to stop working in only a few short months.The couple would have to find a new home, for their tiny apartment couldnever accommodate a squalling infant. Tommy would now have to find afull time job to support his family, for Kay knew that the profits from the


painting business weren’t going to be enough to provide sustenance foranother household.

And,—Kay was too young to become a grandmother! She had an infantof her own to raise, and a business to run, and because of these responsibil-ities, Kay knew that she wouldn’t be able to assist her daughter-in-law inany way. But then Kay recalled that ‘Ma’ Griffin had raised and supportedfour young children without a husband’s help,—that Mother Murphy hadraised eight children, and took care of her disabled sister, without any out-side assistance,—and that Kay herself had already nurtured two children toadulthood, while working full-time at Beals, without asking for anyone’shelp. At least, Barbara had two teen aged sisters, and her husband,Tommy, to ease the burden of caring for a tiny infant and to pitch in tohelp with household chores,—even though Kay remembered that she hadreceived very little assistance from anyone after Nancy was born!

One evening in March, 1954 Kay was reading a front page story in theBuffalo Evening News about a horrendous fire that had occurred at Cleve-land Hill Elementary School in Cheektowaga, which had killed 15 sixthgraders and injured scores of others. She glanced at the picture of theafflicted sixth grade class and was startled when she recognized hernephew, Tom Griffin (‘Rocko’s oldest son), listed as home room teacher.Kay read of her nephew’s heroic actions during the blaze, and thought toherself how proud ‘Ma’ would be if she knew that the boy she had ‘practi-cally raised’ had turned out to be a local hero. Kay also felt a flush of fam-ily pride, for this was the first time that she had seen the name, or thepicture, of a family member in the newspaper.

Then, in no time at all, Patricia graduated from high school, enrolled atMercyhurst College and moved to Erie, Pennsylvania. Kay’s daughter-in-law, Barbara had given birth to a second child, and now was busy caringfor two infants less than two years old, and Tommy, like his father beforehim, had taken a selling job that called for him to be away from Buffalo,during the workweek. Kay was left to raise Nancy, and run the business,without any help from her two older children.

But, the painting business had continued to prosper. While Tom was inconstant conflict and argument with the painter’s union local over work


rules and worker benefits, he had also been successful in placing full-timemaintenance painters in several of Buffalo’s largest manufacturing plants,such as American Brass, DuPont, and International Milling. These main-tenance contracts provided a substantial, even revenue flow to Tom andKay, which eased the financial strain imposed by the ever fluctuating, sea-sonal construction business.

Tom had also been elected president of Western New York UnionPainting Contractors Association, and now became a functionary atnumerous social gatherings of local contractors.

Kay enjoyed socializing with this new group,—they were generallyyounger than she and Tom, —and everyone in the group shared the samebusiness experiences and anxieties. Then Tom was elected vice president ofthe national chapter of Union Painting Contractors and Kay got her firstchance to visit new and strange parts of the nation, as she traveled withTom to conferences and conventions. Kay’s daughter, Nancy, was stillyoung enough that she could be excused from school attendance, in orderto accommodate her parents on these business/social jaunts,—and Kayenjoyed being viewed as the mother of such a bright, young, and whole-some girl.

Kay received a telephone call from Sister’s Hospital, informing her thatJames Murphy was a patient in the hospital and desired to see his brother,Tom. She immediately contacted Tom and he hurried to the hospital. Kaywondered what kind of accident could have occurred to hospitalize JimMurphy, the robust Irishman. She hadn’t seen him for many years,—notsince he and Tom had that row over their mother’s care,—and she missedhim! Of course, Jim was a tease, but he was a good-natured tease. He wasargumentative, but his arguments were never mean-spirited,—he simplyenjoyed being contentious. Even though Kay suspected that Jim was a lit-tle jealous of Tom’s business success, she never expected that any disputebetween the two Murphy brothers would be long-lasting. Now, she hopedthat Tom’s visit to the hospital would bring about a reconciliation. WhenTom returned from the hospital, his face was ashen, and he couldn’t holdback his tears, as he told Kay that a few days before, Jim had experiencedminor stomach pain, had been operated on to remove a minor bowel


obstruction, and the doctors had found that he had massive, inoperablecancer growth in his intestines. Jim had been sewn up and informed thathe had but a few weeks to live! Kay was dumbfounded. She wonderedwhat Bea would do now! Jim, like Tom, had been difficult to live with,but Kay couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if Tom was suddenlytaken away. It was the first time that Kay had ever considered Tom’s, orher own, mortality!

Jim Murphy never left his hospital room. He died, and was buried lessthan three weeks after his operation. Kay never saw Bea Murphy again!Subconsciously, Kay was relieved that the only people who were aware ofher ‘belated’ wedding, were no longer present in her life!

After Jim Murphy’s death, Kay noticed the slightest change in Tom’soutlook on life. Tom seemed older, less interested in the pursuit of newbusiness and more disgruntled with employee relationships and withunion rules and work restrictions. He continuously gained weight, andthough in Kay’s eyes he remained the handsomest of men, her husbandnow resembled Jackie Gleason, the comedian, more than Fred McMurray,the actor. Tom drank a little more, and when he drank at home, he talkedmore and more about his plans for retirement. This puzzled Kay, for shehad never felt old,—and still didn’t! She had a marriage that was as goodas most others, and she was contented with the life that she and Tom hadcreated for themselves. Kay had resumed almost daily conversations withher brother, Jimmy, and he didn’t seem to think, or act a day older thanwhen she was a young girl, living at home. Jimmy retained his keen inter-est in sports and he reported that he was still playing handball at theKnights of Columbus, and he was still winning occasionally! Her daugh-ter, Patricia, brought her classmates home from Mercyhurst, and Kay rev-eled in their company. Kay had neither the time nor the inclination to feelmorose, and she had never liked being around ailing, or aged people.

So, Kay was a bit disquieted by Tom’s announcement that he was goingto look at a cottage on Lake Ontario, to see if it would be a satisfactoryweekend retreat and vacation site. Kay had no hankering to spend herweekends at some beach, sweeping sand from the floor, tasting sand in herfood, or feeling sand between the sheets when she crawled into bed at


night. Lake Ontario also meant deep water and neither Tom nor Kayenjoyed swimming in or being on, or near deep water. Also, Tom said thatthe cottage was a little more than a one hour drive from their home inKenmore. Kay realized that once she was at the cottage she would bestranded with no way to get home, if Tom were to become sick or unableto drive. Also Kay wondered how Nancy would react to this change for shewould no longer be able to spend her spare time with schoolmates andfriends. Kay never mentioned these concerns to Tom, or to anyone else,and she was somewhat relieved when Tom explained that he had learnedof the cottage from Phil Barth, his attorney, who already owned a summerresidence at Shadagee, a small community located just north of MedinaNY. Kay liked Barth, who seemed to always be in a party mood, and whoshe knew would be good company for Tom on the summer weekends.

Tom bought the cottage and Kay found that a few of her fears wereunfounded. There was no beach, and therefore no sand to contend with.Kay met, and grew to like and enjoy the company of Sally Barth, Phil’swife. Nancy became a fast friend of the Barth’s daughter, Sherrie, and soonfound that life at Shadagee was a welcome refuge from pressures at school.Kay’s other daughter, Patricia, had become romantically involved with ayoung man from Pennsylvania, Al Bluemle, and when the new couple vis-ited Lake Ontario, they fell in love with the boating and social opportuni-ties presented by the small, summer colony. Kay obtained a NY driver’slicense, and while she never drove a car, she was now certain that she couldnegotiate the dusty back roads to obtain help, or relief, in an emergency.She no longer feared isolation.

There were a few unexpected hazards and inconveniences involved withliving at this cottage. Instead of a sandy beach, the cottage faced a land fall-off of almost ten feet down to the shale formations and water below. Thiscondition frightened Kay, and she always suspected that this dangerouscondition was the principal reason that her son Tommy, and his youngfamily didn’t visit the cottage more often. Also, it was an additional placeto keep clean, the facilities and appliances were less modern than Kay wasused to, and in truth, possession of the cottage more than doubled Kay’sprevious housework responsibilities. The area was much more isolated


than any place that Kay had been before. And,—both Phil Barth and Tomdrank a great deal more than Kay thought was sensible, or even possi-ble,—it seemed that the principal benefit of owning this cottage was thatPhil and Tom could drink as much as they wanted without having toworry about driving home inebriated!

Each year, Kay watched as Tom grew into the role of patriarch of thefamily. He relished the task of hosting parties for Patricia, and her friends,and loved all the festivities associated with her graduation from college..He was the ideal “Father of the Bride”, when Pat and Al were married. Hewas comfortable in the role of doting grandfather to the ever increasingbrood of Tommy and Barbara. His business interests seemed centered onhis role as an official of the national association of Union Painting Con-tractors and his social life consisted mostly of playing poker with his cro-nies.

On the other hand, Kay continued to see herself as the mother of ayoung child. Her daughter Nancy was still in grammar school and whenKay attended school functions she was invariably in the company ofwomen who were much younger than her. When she talked to Nancy’steachers they were no longer intimidating, for they were generally youngerthan Kay, and dutifully respectful. Kay enjoyed the company of youngerpeople, and appreciated being treated as a contemporary of them. Kaycould not envision herself as a grandmother, and when she was in the pres-ence of her son’s family, she couldn’t help but admire the grace and warmaffection with which her daughter-in-law, Barbara was raising her chil-dren. Kay found herself emulating Barbara’s good nature and commonsense, as she grew ever more aware that the needs of Nancy, who was onlya few years older than Barb’s children, were different from those of Kay’stwo older children, or from what Kay had experienced in her own past.Every day, Kay was educating herself, so that she could answer the ques-tions, and provide some help to this younger generation. She found thattelevision provided the easiest educational opportunities. Kay found theweekly presentations of Monsignor Fulton Sheen riveting, instructive, andfrightening, thus deepening the awe of Catholicism which she first learnedat St Bridget’s. She admired the aplomb and vocabulary of William F


Buckley, even though she sometimes didn’t understand the gist of hisarguments. She watched, and paid attention to, both local and nationalnews shows. And, she continued to have regular telephone conversationswith her brother, Jimmy, who always updated her on local news and sportsinformation.

Kay’s other family ties continued to be strained. She never saw or spoketo either her sister Agnes, or brother ‘Rocko’. Each had been invited toboth her son’s wedding to Barbara, and to Patricia’s wedding to AlBluemle, but neither had attended or given any response to the invitations.Kay was puzzled by her brother’s attitude, even as she knew that Ag’s con-tinuing anger over Kay’s inability to assist in ‘Ma’s final days, was simply apretext for the envy that Ag had always felt for her older, and prettier sis-ter. Neither Tom or Kay had much contact with any of Tom’s sisters,Marg in Buffalo, or those still in Sault Ste Marie.

On the other hand, after Patricia and Al returned to Buffalo from Al’sUS Army service, they were regular visitors to Kay’s home, and to the cot-tage. Al’s large family often came to the Buffalo area from Pittsburgh PA,for family get-togethers and Kay enjoyed the comradery displayed at thesevisits. Similarly, Tommy and Barbara were continuously hosting birthdayparties for their children or celebrating first communions, and Kay thor-oughly enjoyed the company of Bob Moore, Tommy’s father-in-law,when they met on these occasions.

Shortly after the birth of their fifth child, Michael, Tommy and Barbpurchased a very large, single family home in North Buffalo. Tommy wasno longer traveling to sell appliances, but was now an insurance salesman.Kay wondered how the young couple were able to afford to own their ownhome,—insurance sales had always seemed like such an unseemly and lowpaying occupation! She wondered how her son had ended up talkingabout ‘dying’ and ‘hanging crepes on widow’s doors’, and she imaginedthat Barb had prevailed on her husband to get a job that would allow himto be around the house more and provide more help with the child rear-ing. When her brother, Jim, amusingly told her the story of how theirnephew, ‘Rocko’s son Jimmy, became so angry about being denied a‘swimming pool attendant’ job with the City of Buffalo, that he had run


for political office and lost, Kay thought to herself that this ‘younger gen-eration’ would go to any extreme to avoid doing any real work!

Of course, there were exceptions. Kay was especially pleased with themarriage of her daughter, Patricia, to Al Bluemle. Following a stint in theUS Army the pair had returned to Western New York, where they pur-chased a modern ranch style home, and began to raise a family. Al was asober and serious young man who had worked his way through college,become a chemist, and now had an excellent job at Hooker Chemical. Al,who came from a large family in the Pittsburgh area, was a devout Catho-lic and was particularly devoted to his mother. He and Pat already had twochildren, Al and Mary Pat, and the entire Bluemle family enjoyed life atthe cottage at Shadagee during the summer months, and were especiallydutiful to Kay. Also, Kay enjoyed the way her daughter Nancy, lookedafter the two Bluemle children, providing both Kay and Patricia somerespite from child caring responsibilities. More and more, Kay found thatshe was relying on Nancy for assistance, companionship, pleasant conver-sation,—and love.

Kay had never minded being alone, but she had always dreaded beingalone when she wanted company. Now she found that she had more timeto herself than she ever had before. Each morning, Nancy would leave thehouse to go to school, and Tom would be off to supervise his painters, orto a business meeting, or to join his business contacts in some activity. Kaywould stay at home to answer the phone, pay the bills, and manage thebooks. Tom felt particularly harassed by the annual audit of the company’saccount books by IRS agents, but Kay met regularly with Al Grabensted-der, an accountant, to make sure that every expenditure was properlyrecorded. While there were always income tax penalties, the IRS auditsnever found anything that was illegal or improper in the company’s books.But being alone didn’t mean that Kay was bored. She had discovered thatshe had a natural curiosity. She regularly watched TV news shows, readboth of the local newspapers and conversed on a regular basis with herbrother, Jim. On one occasion he had regaled Kay with the story of howtheir nephew, Jimmy, was trying to become elected Ellicott District Coun-cilman. “He’s a born politician”, his uncle Jim reported. “He knows noth-


ing, but he thinks that he knows everything”, Jim chuckled as Kay roaredwith laughter. But then Jim said seriously, “But, the kid has spunk. Hegoes out every day, knocking on the doors of colored families, asking fortheir votes”. When her brother said that the whole Griffin fam-ily,—mother and father, brothers and sister, and aunts and uncles,—werehelping out in the campaign activities, Kay was quick to explain that shehad office duties to perform at home, a young daughter to care for, andlived outside the city limits,—and therefore couldn’t really provide anysupport to the political activities. She assured her brother that she’d beavailable to provide help at some future time.

Although Tom continued to project a hale and hearty image in public,and at social functions, Kay was becoming increasingly concerned abouthis health. There was constant pressure coming from the local paintersunion, with threats of fines and penalties for failure to adhere to unionwork rules and practices While the firm had been able to avoid any disrup-tive work stoppages, or substantial financial losses, the toll on Tom’s goodnature, and upon his business judgement were more apparent to Kay, eachday He was drinking more, and with greater frequency. He had alwaysboasted that he “never took a drink before four o’clock in the afternoon”but now Kay noticed that he began drinking at four o’clock, every after-noon! Even the slightest physical exertion now required hours, or evendays of recuperation. Climbing the stairs at home, in order to go to thebathroom, or to the bedroom, seemed to exhaust him. Kay was relievedwhen Tom announced that he had purchased a single floor, ranch stylehome in Cheektowaga. Tom announced to all who would listen that hehad purchased the new home to ease Kay’s workload and strain of climb-ing stairs, but Kay knew the real reasons, and kept her own counsel.

104

5Arduous Retirement Years

The move to Concord Drive in Cheektowaga brought change, but littleimprovement into Kay’s life. Gone was the comfortable, staid villageatmosphere, replaced by expansive suburban living. There was greaterspace between the homes and yards, diminishing the sense of neighborli-ness.

Stores, markets, and service facilities were all within easy walking dis-tance of the new residence, but in order to shop, or browse at the commer-cial properties, Kay would be forced to cross two busy thoroughfares., andtherefore she only went out to shop when driven by Tom, or by herdaughter, Patricia.

For the first time in Kay’s life the ‘over the back fence’ camaraderie wasabsent. The tribalism, feistiness and caustic Irish humor of the ‘Old FirstWard’, was nowhere to be found in this new, sterile place. The aromas,accents, and strident negotiations of the Italian markets on Buffalo’s WestSide had no counterpart in the small strip plazas that dotted CheektowagaNY. The quiet serenity and warmth of St Peter and Paul RC Church inKenmore, and the French cultural influences that had been so apparent inHoly Angels and Our Lady of Lourdes parishes were now replaced by acavernous temple, encased by cold marble walls, housing a small,table—like altar and a few uncomfortable pews, in Queen of PeaceChurch, Kay’s new parish.

It was no longer practical for Nancy to attend Mount St Mary’s Schoolin Kenmore, so that Kay no longer experienced the congeniality that camefrom familiar faculty members and friendly parent groups. Tom purchaseda Buick Roadmaster convertible, and while Kay was amused by the factthat the new car seemed longer and wider than the Coe Place block where

Arduous Retirement Years 105

they had previously lived, the only chance that Kay had to enjoy the com-fort of the white leather upholstery, was on trips to and from the cottage atShadagee.

Tom’s health and disposition continued to deteriorate. The afternoondrinking now extended into the evening hours and spats and quarrelsbetween Kay and Tom became the norm. With each passing year, Tom’srelationship with his youngest daughter, Nancy, worsened. The two wereconstantly at odds, over matters great and small. It sometimes seemed toKay that Tom resented Nancy being born just when he was prepared torelax, and that he felt that being the father of a young child hindered hisplaying the role of a ‘grand old man’. He was indulgent to her when shewas a child, and this continued when Nancy became a teenager, but at thefirst sign of her independence or contrariness, Tom would explode andbellow that his younger daughter was unappreciative of ‘all that he haddone for her’. Yet, throughout the years he continued to deny her anallowance, requiring that when she needed spending money she had to askfor it from her father. When Nancy wanted to seek part time after-schoolwork, Tom took it as a personal affront. He denigrated Nancy’s academicefforts, and seldom partook in school functions or celebrations. Tomcounseled his youngest child that if she sought a college education, itwould be a waste of her time, and of his money.

In Kay’s eyes, Nancy was a pure delight! She was affable, helpful andalways eager to please both of her parents, and her teachers. Her wit, andappreciation of the comedic, made her an excellent companion. Maybe asa result of her father’s derogatory attitude toward education, Nancy neverreached for, or attained scholarly achievements. In high school, she devel-oped a wide circle of friends, and it wasn’t long before Nancy met, and fellin love with a fine young man. Kay liked the manner in which Nancy haddeveloped into an upstanding and likeable young lady and she liked RonPleska, Nancy’s new beau. When Nancy and her father got into a disputeover Nancy seeking part-time work, Kay thought that Nancy was probablyattempting to accumulate a little nest-egg with which to get married aftershe finished high school. The only way that Kay could help Nancy toachieve her dream, without widening the animosity growing between


father and daughter, was to volunteer to accompany teen-aged Nancywhile she drove to and from her job during evening hours, for teenagerswere forbidden to drive an automobile after sundown, unless they wereaccompanied by an adult, licensed driver. At last, Kay’s NY drivers licensehad been put to some good use—and without risking anyone’s life andlimbs! Of course, Kay had to kill four or five hours each time that Nancyworked nights, but she found that by browsing through neighboringshops, she was able to visit with other shoppers and salespeople, and it wasoften ‘time well spent’.

In Kay’s mind, the years had changed her least of all! She had learnedlong ago to enjoy the things that she had, and to avoid wishing for thingsthat were beyond her reach, or that could harm her. Nancy’s birth andupbringing had allowed Kay to maintain a youthful attitude and herappearance belied her age. Her weight was the same, or even less, thanwhen she was married, and frequent, and expensive, trips to the beautyparlor had allowed Kay to retain the brunet shade of hair that she hadalways favored. Kay didn’t like looking into a mirror, or having her picturetaken. She avoided viewing photographs of herself because she had foundthat they often depicted her in less than flattering positions or that flashbulbs, or lighting, had caused her to squint or grimace just as the picturewas snapped.

Kay’s older children had also grown and prospered. Her son, Tommy,and his wife, Barbara had raised eight children,—four handsome sons, andfour beautiful daughters. Tommy had finally gotten a job in City Hall andno longer had to rely on uncertain sales commissions for his livelihood.After the children had grown, Tommy’s wife, Barbara, had gotten a jobsomewhere in Buffalo City Court and it seemed that the pair had put hardfinancial times behind them. The four Murphy boys were athletic andextremely personable. Kay particularly enjoyed sitting and conversing withTommy’s four daughters and hearing tales of their school and dating expe-riences, which were so much like those of her own daughter, Nancy. Patri-cia’s husband, Al, originally had a good job at Hooker Chemical, but thenhad branched out by starting a few small businesses of his own, on theside, and eventually had left Hooker completely to start his own manufac-


turing business. Kay recalled that her mother had always viewed the Ger-man male as a canny businessman, and Al’s success was living proof of‘Ma’ Griffin’s judgement of people and nationalities. Pat and Al wereblessed with four attractive, personable and intelligent children. All of theBluemle children attained college degrees, the two boys had gone to workfor their father’s firm, Mary Pat had married extremely well, and Kay’sfavorite, Judy, had begun a promising career in real estate. The Bluemlefamily took such delight in living and playing at Shadagee, that Al hadpurchased the cottage immediately adjoining Tom and Kay’s place andhad purchased a boat for sailing on Lake Ontario.

Kay’s brother, Jim, continued to report on Griffin family events, but itwas apparent that few things changed in Buffalo’s Old First Ward. Jimcontinued in his position at General Mills, ‘Rocko’ still worked at Beals,Ag’s husband, Bill, had died and Ag now lived and kept house at the SouthPark Avenue cottage. Rocko’s wife, Helen passed on, and Kay’s nephew,Tommy, who was now divorced, returned home to care for his father.Jimmy Griffin, the politician, continued his battles against the politicalestablishment, running for every office imaginable, winning some and los-ing others. Kay’s brother, Jim, was active in all of his nephew’s politicalescapades, and kept Kay up to date on who was hated, and why they werehated, but Kay never could bring herself to the point where she reallycared about ‘politics’.

Kay’s stoicism protected her from disappointment, but it also preventedher from appreciating the full extent of her good fortune over the years.She, and her family, had enjoyed good health, avoiding the debilitatingfinancial crises brought on by serious illness or accident. Neither Kay’shusband, nor her son, nor her brothers, nor any of her grandchildren wereever drafted, or had served in the nation’s Armed Forces. Even during theGreat Depression, Tom had brought home a weekly paycheck, and so hadKay’s brothers,—and Kay had been able to obtain decent work, whenever‘money got tight’. Kay was sure that her husband, Tom, had stopped hisphilandering, Tommy and Patricia had found ideal mates, and Nancy wasconstantly ‘walking on air’, just contemplating spending her life with Ron.There had been ‘tough’ financial times, particularly when she and Tom


were first married, and even now, there were times that it was ‘hard tomeet the payroll’, but in general, Kay felt that she and Tom had done bet-ter than most others,—and without help from anyone else!

So that Kay was completely unprepared for the news that her daughterreceived one day. Ron Pleska, serving in the US Army in Germany, duringpeacetime, had been killed in a tragic accident. Nancy was devastated andon the verge of an emotional collapse. And Kay didn’t know what to do!She didn’t know how to respond to her loved one’s grief or even how toprovide comforting counsel! For Kay had never before had to cope withdeath, or even tragedy! She never knew her infant sister or her father. Bothdied when Kay was a little girl. No one in the Griffin or Murphy house-holds served on any battlefield, much less suffered wounds or death. Shehad few close friends, and none that were ever sick, or dying. Kay said onseveral occasions that she didn’t like, and never attended wakes or funerals.She had not visited her mother frequently or even regularly, before ‘Ma’Griffin died. Kay hadn’t seen Mother Murphy, Jack Murphy, Jim Murphyor Marg Ruh for several years before their deaths. In the presence ofNancy’s grief, Kay was confused and chose to remain stolidly mute.

Nancy was grief stricken for several months, but she continued to workand with the resiliency of youth, she eventually resumed her march intoadulthood. She changed jobs several times, but then seemed to find satis-faction working as a waitress at a local restaurant. Kay was sorry that Tomdisapproved of the waitress position, for she recognized that his disap-proval had only fueled Nancy’s resolution to be on her own. Kay also rec-ognized that Tom had become disgruntled with most of life’s facets. Hecriticized Kay for her failure to keep proper company records. He seemedto be in constant conflict with the local painter’s union and had adoptedthe attitude that the union had singled him out for punishment because hehad been the contractor who was most successful at obtaining work, with-out the assistance or the sanction of any labor union. Finally, the localLabor Relations Board ruled against T Murphy & Son Painting in a labordispute and levied a substantial financial penalty against Tom and Kay forviolations of labor union contracts. In what seemed to be the ‘final straw’,his long-time contacts at American Brass, DuPont and International Mill-


ing were retiring and he was having difficulty getting his maintenance con-tracts renewed. Tom told Kay that “he’d had enough” and was going tosell all of his painting equipment, pay the penalties imposed, and retire.He had finally reached age 65 and was tired of working and coping withthe hassles of business.

It wasn’t a ‘comfortable’ retirement. Even though both Tom and Kayreceived Social Security benefits and Nancy’s modest income made her selfsufficient, “money was sometimes tight”. Al Bluemle had purchased thecottage at Shadagee, and allowed Tom and Kay to retain all ownershiprights, which provided Tom and Kay with some financial reserves, andKay was sure that they were in no danger of ever becoming ‘the dependentpoor’. Kay had continued to correspond with her brother, Jim, but shenever let on that there was ever any financial difficulty or problems in hermarriage, nor was the subject of finances ever discussed with any of herchildren. Kay knew that there were plenty of people who would gladlytrade places with her, and she wasn’t one to complain, for she had seen ‘farworse times’.

Then, one morning Kay awakened to find that Tom wasn’t in the bednext to her! She found her husband slouched on the toilet seat, unable tomove or to speak. Kay immediately called 911 and then her children. Theemergency unit was the first to arrive and they told Kay that Tom hadapparently suffered a severe stroke and would require hospital care. Kaywas completely confused for Tom was only 68 years old, had recently vis-ited his doctor and had reported only that his minor ailments were ‘noth-ing to be concerned about’. Tom was such a hale and robust man that Kayknew that his present condition couldn’t be serious or long lasting. As theemergency technicians wheeled her gaping and mute husband into anambulance, Kay comforted him with the words, “Everything’s going to bealright Tom! I’ll be along in a little while!”

But everything was not going ‘to be alright’ for Kay,—ever again!Tom had suffered paralysis of the right side of his body and damage to

his auditory nerve which destroyed his sense of balance and impeded hisspeech. He remained under hospital care for almost one month, and thenspent another month in a physical rehabilitation center. Even with health


insurance coverage, the extensive treatment had drained the family’s finan-cial reserves. Kay was anxious to have Tom returned home, where she, andPat, and Nancy, along with the assistance of visiting nurses, could helpTom to get back to being ‘his old self’.

But then, only a few months after Tom’s return to his Concord Drivehome, Nancy announced that she was taking her own apartment. Kayunderstood that her youngest child had grown to be an adult, had becomeromantically involved with another man, and needed and deserved the pri-vacy that having her own place would bring. But Nancy had been the onlyperson that Kay had to talk to! Nancy had been her confidante and helpmate! Tom sat mute and unblinking, and while Patricia had visited mostdays, she always had to return to her home in order to meet the needs ofher husband and of their family. Kay’s son Tommy, had his full-time job,and large family to see to,—and he had been no help or comfort in this sit-uation at all! Kay knew that there “was no use in complaining” and sheresolved to handle whatever came along, when it came along!

For awhile, Kay managed to maintain her household. Tom’s physicalcondition hadn’t improved, but it had stabilized. Nancy’s full-time joband romantic pursuits meant that she could only visit the Concord addresssporadically and for short durations, but Kay was always happy to share inher bright, cheerful and exuberant presence. And Tom seemed to ‘light up’whenever Nancy entered the room! But it was Patricia that Kay had cometo rely on for daily assistance. Pat had always doted on her father, and nowshe visited him almost every day. Pat helped Kay with the housework, shedid the shopping and generally took care of the details of keeping the Con-cord home running.

It was only after Patricia returned to her home and family each day, thatthe full burden of caring for the aged and disabled Tom weighed uponKay. She would cook the morning and evening meals for the two of them.Kay never ate much, but Tom’s appetite, which had always been hearty,was now voracious. There were dishes and pots to wash and put away,there were always bedding to be changed, washed, and stored. Tomneeded assistance in changing his clothes, washing himself or simply mov-ing a few feet from one place to another. Housekeeping, which Kay had


never liked, and caring for the personal hygiene of the ill, which Kay hadalways detested and tried to avoid, now seemed to be Kay’s only reason forliving. Kay kept up a steady stream of conversation while performing herchores, but Tom’s occasional slurred murmur was no indication that heunderstood anything that Kay said. Still, no one ever heard Kay complainabout her ‘lot in life’.

When Nancy announced that she intended to marry Bob Dempsey,Kay received the news with the utmost calm, for she didn’t feel that shewas going to be affected one way or the other by this action. Nancy hadexplained that due to her father’s incapacity, she and Bob had decided notto place any financial strain on Kay, and that the couple would be marriedin a simple ceremony, with little, if any, following celebration. The newsthat truly stunned Kay was Nancy’s statement that they were to be marriedwithin the next few weeks because Bob had accepted a job in Fort Lauder-dale FL, and that the married couple would be leaving the Buffalo areaimmediately following the wedding. Kay was going to lose one of the twopeople who visited her and helped with Tom’s care! Even more to thepoint, Nancy had become Kay’s best friend—and Kay really didn’t knowhow she was going to get by without her! But then, remembering the hard-ship of growing up without a father, and of never having enough moneyduring the Depression years, and of the years spent just keeping her familylife from falling apart,—Kay knew that she would get by!

But being resolute often isn’t enough! Another stroke, although lesssevere than Tom’s first, degraded his health, Kay’s strength and the fam-ily’s finances, beyond Kay’s capacity to carry on.

Patricia assisted Kay in the selection of a nursing home that could pro-vide the constant daily care that Tom needed and that Kay could nolonger provide. They chose a facility that was reasonably close to Pat’shome, rather than a home that was close to Concord Drive, so that Patcould more easily supervise her father’s care and could visit with him onshorter, but more frequent visits.

This left Kay with less responsibility, but completely alone! She fre-quently spoke with her brother, Jim, and Nancy called occasionally. Herson, Tommy, visited her sporadically and she could always call on Patricia


for shopping trips, or short visits to the nursing home. But surprisingly,Kay soon found that she gained comfort in embracing social and politicalissues that she had gleaned as a result of her television viewing and newspa-per reading. She was a great admirer of President Reagan, for she attrib-uted her small annual increase in her monthly Social Security check to himand his austere approach to government. Kay could never understand whyshe should be required to pay school taxes, when none of her children hadever attended a public school. And once her nephew, Jimmy Griffin,became a candidate for Mayor of Buffalo, Kay’s brother Jim brought herup to date on the horrors that would accompany any administration thatwas composed principally of Negroes. Kay didn’t enjoy visiting any nurs-ing home, or hospital, but at least when she visited the still unresponsiveTom, she had the opportunity of talking with hospital staff, patients, andother visitors and she appreciated this social intercourse and chance toexpress her opinions.

Then, quite unexpectedly, Kay’s nephew, Jimmy Griffin, was electedMayor of the City of Buffalo, NY. Kay thought immediately of how proudher mother, ‘Ma” Griffin, would be that the boy that she “had practicallyraised” had reached such great heights. Kay was also pleased for herbrother, Jim, who she knew had worked long and hard in behalf of hisnephew’s political career. And Kay’s son, Tommy, could now relax withhis first cousin as Mayor. He might even be in line for a better job, for Kayrecalled that her brother had told her that he’d heard that Kay’s son was“one of the smartest guys in City Hall”.

Kay began to mention her nephew’s success when she visited with peo-ple at the nursing home, or a the beauty shop, but people didn’t seem tobe too impressed, or even interested in talking about the former NY StateSenator. And Tom was completely unresponsive when she told him thenews, but he had never had the slightest interest in what any of the Grif-fins did anyway.

Patricia invited Kay to accompany the Bluemle family when theyattended Jimmy Griffin’s inauguration ceremony in City Hall. For thefirst time, Kay realized what a momentous occasion it was! The crowd wasenormous, and in a celebratory mood. She had no idea that her nephew


had this many friends! After the inaugural ceremony, there was a crush ofpeople anxious to shake the new Mayor’s hand and Kay had only a briefmoment to offer her congratulations. She wasn’t even sure that the Mayorknew who she was when she approached him, for there was no other Grif-fin family member in sight, who might have introduced her. Luckily,Patricia was there to kindle the Mayor’s recognition of his aunt. Kay wassurprised that the Mayor was such a small man! He was no bigger than hisfather! Kay expected that he would have a larger frame, for herfather,—the Mayor’s grandfather, had been almost six feet tall!

Almost immediately, Jimmy Griffin seemed to be in every local TVnewscast, appointing people to important jobs, quipping that “bankershad hearts the size of caraway seeds”, promising to build a new baseballfield, or cutting ribbons to the new Convention Center, or Erie BasinMarina. The man was news! And soon, whenever Kay mentioned that hernephew was the Mayor of Buffalo, she got a reaction. Some people seemedpleased and offered Kay their congratulations on her good luck. Othersasked her questions about what kind of a man her nephew, the Mayor,really was, for there were often conflicting stories in the newspaper, or onthe radio talk shows, about Griffin’s intelligence, or honesty, or ability toget things done. Kay always answered that “anyone in politics makes ene-mies, who’ll always find something bad to say about their political foe”.And then there were those who expressed their distaste, or complete indif-ference to both Mayor Griffin and City of Buffalo affairs. Kay recognizedimmediately that there was always some people, who hated to see anyoneelse get ahead, and “badmouthed” everyone around them.

When Patricia excitedly called to say that she had been in touch withthe Mayor’s office, and had arranged for her and Kay to sit on the review-ing stand at the St Patrick’s Day Parade, Kay was overwhelmed.’Ma’ Grif-fin could never have imagined anything ‘so grand’ happening to herchildren and grandchildren. And what were ‘those stuffed shirts’ at thenursing home going to say when they were told this piece of news? Kaycould hardly wait to see their faces when she spread the news of her goodfortune! But when she told her new acquaintances of her upcoming prom-inence, many of them feigned indifference. And the experience of sharing


a podium with ‘the Mayor’ was less than exhilarating. Kay sat on an openwooden stand, in the cold March gloom, in the company of her brother,Jim, and her sister, Ag. Jim was his normal, garrulous self while Ag satmute, her hands folded in her lap, glowering whenever she glanced at Kay.It was obvious to all those who could now view ‘Ma’ Griffin’s offspring,that the passing years had been kindest to Kay. It slowly occurred to Kaythat her affluent reappearance into Jimmy Griffin’s life had once againforced Agnes into the background, and that Ag’s old resentments towardher had been rekindled. Strangely, this thought took some of the chill outof the afternoon air and warmed Kay a little.

As the years passed, Kay noticed that fewer and fewer of residents, staffand visitors to the nursing home, or the people in suburban shops andstores, seemed interested in the behavior or antics of Buffalo’s Mayor. Butwhat distressed Kay most were the reports that her son, Tommy, was notmentioned as a valued member of the Griffin Administration. In fact, Kayhad heard from her brother that Tommy was considered by many to be anenemy of the Mayor. Kay had always known that jealousy and envy werethe outstanding traits of the Irish, but she was always sure that her son wassmart enough to recognize when he had “a good thing staring him in theface” and she couldn’t understand why Tommy wasn’t a prime cheerleaderfor his cousin. One day, while visiting at the nursing home, Kay asked herson why he wasn’t more supportive of his cousin. Tommy responded,“You know Mom, he’s really a nasty little sonofabitch!”. Kay couldn’t takethis attitude any longer and replied, “You know your problem is thatyou’ve always been jealous of Jimmy Griffin’s success!” The room fellsilent. Suddenly there was an unexpected eruption,—from the other sideof the room! Barbara, Kay’s daughter-in-law, waded into the dispute. “Youdon’t know what you’re talking about!”, Barbara stormed. “Your son istwice the man that Jimmy Griffin could ever hope to be but you’re soblinded by the name of Griffin in newspaper headlines that you can nolonger determine the true value of anyone or anything!”

When Kay looked over at her stricken husband, she saw a gleam in hiseyes that said that he understood what had been said, and that he washappy that someone had finally spoken up against the constant harangue


in praise of anything that any Griffin ever did. Kay was completely struckdumb! She didn’t know what to say or what to think! Why would hermost cherished loved ones now turn against her, simply because she wasdisplaying the ‘tribal loyalty to kith and kin’, that was part of the make-upof every ‘Old First Ward’ resident.

But what bothered her even more was that Kay noticed that her ownenergy and enthusiasm was flagging. Tom was fading noticeably. He hadsuffered a few more small strokes and any look in his eyes that indicatedunderstanding, enjoyment, sorrow or anger had all but disappeared. Patri-cia was tiring of the tasks of being nurse, companion, caretaker, and chauf-feur to both of her parents. And Kay had come to detest visits to thenursing home. She found the sights, smells, and sounds of the facility, andit’s patients, to be repugnant. Kay didn’t want to stay home alone on Con-cord Drive any longer, and she didn’t want to stay with her daughter,Patricia, and her family! Kay came to the conclusion that it was time forher to visit her favorite daughter, Nancy, and her family, in Medina, Ohio.Nancy, who had often invited her to visit, would welcome the change inher daily routines.

For the first time in her life, Kay was afraid! It was apparent that Tomwasn’t ever going to get better, and probably didn’t have long to live. Andthe future without Tom seemed nightmarish! Kay knew that her personalneeds were few and that she could still take care of herself, but she alsorealized that she didn’t relish a solitary old age. She also knew that a timewould come that she would require assistance and care, and she remem-bered the family squabbles generated over who was to care for MotherMurphy. Kay certainly didn’t want to get shuffled from one family toanother, and she never wanted to be a “bother to anyone”. The thought ofspending her final days in a nursing home, among ailing and sick people,was nauseating to her. And finally Kay had to face the certainty that some-day soon, she must die! She had always obeyed God’s Ten Command-ments, and therefore she was certain that she would go to heaven andwouldn’t have to ‘suffer the pains of hell’. But as the years passed, theuncertainty and ethereal nature of ‘the hereafter’ began to terrify Kay, sothat, at times, she could think of nothing else! Kay hoped that by visiting


her youngest daughter, in a new city, she would forget the sight of agingpeople and the smell of death, and that by getting to know, and learningto love, her youngest grand children, she could regain, and retain her loveof life. Kay left her home and family in Buffalo, for her holiday in MedinaOhio, with no fanfare, and with few regrets.

Her reception in the Dempsey household was far better than she hadever dared to hope for! Of course Nancy was delighted to see her again andNancy’s husband, Bob, made Kay feel welcome every time they were ineach others company. Kay was given her own room, and wasn’t expectedto participate in any of the household tasks, although, had she been asked,she would have been more than happy to lend a hand. What made thisvisit so extraordinary for Kay was the affection, even adoration, thatNancy’s children, Kelly, Kim, and Mike, lavished on “Grandma Murphy”.For the very first time in her life, Kay felt loved! She looked upon the threelovely children as if they were her first,—her only grandchildren. And, forall practical purposes, they were! When she was younger, and raisingNancy, Kay never felt comfortable in the role of grandmother. She hadloved Tommy’s kids, and she had always enjoyed the cheerful banter withPatricia’s four children, but Kay had always felt more like an aunt, than agrandmother with them. Here in Medina, Kay could answer the call of“Grandma, look at this!” with joy, and just as importantly, without hesita-tion and without embarrassment. She could dote on each of the children,without worrying whether she was playing favorites, or placing herself insome compromising position.

After only a week or so Kay noticed that a chill permeated throughoutthe household. Nancy and Bob rarely spoke to each other and there wereno ‘terms of endearment’. Bob was seldom home for dinner, but Kayunderstood that retail sales work entailed many evening and weekendhours spent away from home. Kay hoped that this was the cause of theapparent family friction and not the presence of ‘Grandma’ in the dailyaffairs of the Dempsey family!

Nancy’s twin pleasures seemed to be her early morning jog with herneighbors, and the care and nurturing of her children. She rose before day-break, ran in all kinds of weather for 45 minutes to one hour, then


returned home to serve the children their breakfast, prepare schoollunches, and see them off to school. Kay generally slept until later in themorning, but even at those times that she awakened early, she remained inher room until the children had left for school, so that she was no inconve-nience to Nancy at this busy part of the day. After the children left forschool, Nancy and Kay would visit over coffee and toast.

At one of these morning klatches, Nancy appeared to be distracted anddistraught. Kay jokingly quipped, “Well, what got you out of the wrongside of the bed this morning?” Nancy burst into tears. “Mom,—I don’tknow what I’m going to do! My marriage is in shambles! When Bobcomes home at night, we barely speak. We never do anything together! I’mnot sure that Bob loves me or his children. I’m thinking of filing for adivorce!” she blurted.

Kay was taken aback, but she quickly counseled, “Now my dear child,you’ll do no such thing! You have a roof over your head and food on thetable, that’s what is important”.

Nancy continued her lament, “But Mom,—Bob is drinking every day!If he’s not drunk when he comes home, he gets drunk after he comeshome! And when he’s drunk, all we seem to do is argue and fight!”

“I have been living with your father for fifty years, and putting up withhis drinking! You’re not telling me anything new.” was Kay’s onlyresponse.

Kay knew that her response seemed harsh, and she never meant to com-plain about her marriage to Tom! Rather she acknowledged, as ‘Ma’ Grif-fin had under similar circumstances some forty years earlier,—thatmarriages and lives were ‘imperfect’ and that it was often better to “livewith the devil that you know, rather than visit with the angel you don’tknow”. Kay had truly come to believe that “nothing is so bad, that it can’tbe made worse!” and that “it’s better to be sorry and stay, than to be sorryand go away”. She simply could not counsel her youngest daughter toleave her husband, or to seek a divorce.

Kay and Nancy never discussed the problem of the Dempsey’s maritaldiscord again, but Kay realized that her days of living in the Dempseyhousehold were numbered.


Late in August, Kay received word that Tom had suffered anothersevere stroke, and had only a very short time to live. Kay told Nancy thatshe didn’t want to return to Buffalo immediately, because Tom wouldn’trecognize her, or even know that she was with him. Besides, Kay wanted toremember the man that Tom had been, and she didn’t want to watch himdie. On August 30th, less than two months after Kay had left for Medina,her husband died in his sleep.

Now Kay was faced with the quandary of whether to return to Buffalofor the funeral. She hadn’t wanted to see Tom while he was ill, she hadn’twanted to watch him die, and now she wasn’t sure that she wanted to seehim in death. But she knew that her children would expect her to partici-pate in the burial ceremony. Nancy was already preparing for the trip toBuffalo and Patricia had made arrangements for Kay and Nancy to pickup Patricia’s son at college and bring him to the wake. And Kay knew thatthere were other housekeeping details that only she could see to.

Kay arrived at the funeral parlor the night before the burial was to takeplace and found ‘holding a wake’ to be a less unpleasant experience thanshe expected. All of the grandchildren were there and seemed glad to seeher. Each was solicitous toward her grief and welcomed the opportunity ofexchanging small talk, reminisces, and condolences. Kay spent only a fewmoments at the bier, and managed to disguise her anguish over her loss.The next day, the funeral Mass was well attended and it was great for Kayto see so many of her old friends in attendance. After a brief burial cere-mony, Kay was ready to resume her life.

The days of fear were behind her. The worst had happened! Tom haddied and now there was no one for Kay to care for, nor would she rely onothers to care for her, if she could help it!

She had no intention of ever living at the Concord Drive address again.During her stay in Medina she had realized that if she returned to herformer home, she would spend the rest of her life reliving memories, bothgood and bad, and she had no intention of spending her old age “lookingback”. Kay now knew that she could not be happy surrounded by the tur-moil that was about to erupt in the Dempsey household, so she urgedNancy to return to her home without “Grandma”. Kay urged Nancy to


secure the well-being of herself and her children before she took any rashdivorce action. It was obvious to Kay that her daughter, Patricia, had ‘justabout come to the end of her rope’ in the role of sole caretaker, chauffeur,housekeeper and nurse to an aging parent, but Kay knew that she wouldhave to impose on the Bluemle’s good nature for a bit more,—until Kaycould make other arrangements.

Kay told her son, Tommy, that under no circumstances was he to allowanyone to “dump” her into ‘any nursing home’. Tommy replied that hehad heard of some ‘assisted living’ facilities, that provided housekeeping,health services, and meals, but where senior citizens could live indepen-dent, self sufficient lives, in their own small apartments. Kay said that anarrangement like that seemed to ‘suit her needs’ and she asked Tommy toinvestigate further. Tommy agreed to ready the Concord Drive residence‘for sale’, and Kay said that she would marshal the rest of her resources, toinsure that she was never going to have to take any action that ‘she didn’twant to take’.

After inventorying her modest assets, Kay devised her Last Will andTestament, then died alone, peacefully, without suffering, after watching aWorld Series baseball game on television,—exactly six weeks after Tom,her husband, had passed away.

On October 20,1988, following a simple funeral ceremony, which wasattended by the Mayor of Buffalo, Catherine Murphy (nee) Griffin, waslaid in peaceful rest, next to her beloved husband, Tom.

“Rest with me. I am old; but thou hast never met a youngermore beautiful than I.I dwell in eternal summer; I dream in perennial sunshine; Isleep in magical moonlight …My charms are not the charms of great gold or great riches; butthou mayst feel with me such hope and content as thou hasnever felt before.I offer thee eternal summer, and a sky divinely blue; sweetbreezes and sweet perfumes, bright fruits and flowers fairer


than the rainbow.Rest with me.”

—Lafcidio Hearn

978-0-595-46821-80-595-46821-7

the mayor's aunt

Documents