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Mom part 5...

10/25/2016

Life’s a Beach

Over the years, our family had a number of vacations. There’s no question, though, that Mom was drawn to the water. She loved to get in the water, and even more she loved to bask in the sun and get a tan at the beach or poolside.

Whether it was a lake, a pool, or the ocean, Mom could be found there over the years. For a while she and Aunt Helen rented condos during the same week at Bethany Beach in Delaware. Kids slept on sofa beds, couches, floors, and even out on the balcony, and there were friends as well as family. Later, she and her friend Ceil McCabe joined Aunt Helen and her friends at Aunt Helen’s condo in Florida for a girls’ week. She and Ceil and their families also joined forces on more than one ocean vacation, and always planned at least one night out without the kids.

“The Irish are...typically clannish and place great stock in loyalty to their own…”
Monica, McGoldrick, Ethnicity and Family Therapy

Mom had plenty of clashes with other members of the family, particularly big brother Bill. But no matter what the issues that initiated conflict, the clan pretty much always rallied together in times of difficulty or rejoicing. When Mic and I hit our teens, as teens do, we wanted to go our own ways, convinced we were quite adult. Mom and Dad gave us a fair amount of freedom to be with our friends and do the things we liked, and they also knew when to say no.

I was a freshman in high school when Mic and I got involved with the North Hills Youth Ministry. Mom taught with Bill Haley, one of the leaders, and encouraged us to join, even though it was a non-denominational group. For the next three years we went to weekly youth group meetings, attended retreats (Mom said at one point, “Stop retreating, start advancing!”), and became part of a Core group that was our primary interest through most of high school.

Dad's Abraham Lincoln look may have been a reference to Mic and I in our teenage years - not quite the Civil War, though he and Mom needed all the patience they could muster

She did get a bit fussed when our weekly meetings moved to Memorial Park United Presbyterian Church. No way were we allowed to eat with the rest of the youth group there, and she got defensive when we criticized the Catholic Church. Our primary leader then was a young Presbyterian seminary student, and she felt a real concern that he was leading us away from the Church. Her fears weren’t unfounded, but at that point neither Mic nor I had any real interest in trading one church for another.

One of the NHYM activities in our first year was the coffeehouse every Saturday night, over on Cumberland Road. The building is no longer there, but Dad would drop us off every week around 7 or 7:30 or we would get a ride from someone, and then be picked up around 11.

Some parting of the ways was inevitable. When Mic started going to Midnight Mass with her boyfriend Dean, it was a natural, if painful, precursor to further separation as we all grew up. Mom took it in stride, even if she didn’t particularly like it.

Sisters

Mom and Aunt Helen were always close. Growing up, Mom often took Aunt Helen with her, much as Mic later did with me. When we came back from Indiana every few months we stayed with Aunt Helen. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas was at one sister’s house or the other. That was when they became the Yum-Yum sisters. They couldn’t resist testing the food as they prepared to put it on the table, and even when everyone was seated and eating, they would interrupt each other to say, “Mmm, this is wonderful!”

I never thought, growing up, that they looked like twins. However, they did have very similar mannerisms like the way they chewed gum, the way they walked, they way they talked, so that if you didn’t know them well, it wasn’t hard to mistake the one for the other.

When Mom was dying and in hospice care, Kelly, the nurse, said that people often wait to die until someone in particular comes to see them. Aunt Helen and Uncle Jim were in Florida when Mom went into hospice care at Vincentian. They came home early, so they could see her. They spent hours at her bedside with my dad, and later that day, after they’d all gone, she died. I was convinced that she waited for her sister to come and say goodbye before letting go.

Mom and Aunt Helen through the years...

On a personal note, I've been fortunate to spend some time with my Aunt Helen even before Mom died. Her love and support has meant a great deal to all of us in these past years. It's her turn, now, to be the matriarch of the clan, and she is a worthy successor to her sister, my mother....Doc

Mom, part 4...

10/18/2016

The whole family at Ocean City, NJ on one of our rare vacations at the beach

1022 Homer Avenue became home to the growing Dougherty family. It’s strange to think that we only lived there for maybe five years, because for Mic and I, that’s the place we think of as home, though we lived on Link Avenue for many more years. It was Mom’s first chance to really have her own home—at least, a full-sized house. The blond bedroom furniture they had there (and maybe they did have it before—I wasn’t around) Dad still uses to this day, although the mattress has been replaced. Our big night out was Saturday night at Carmassi’s, still known then as Rebel’s Corner. We would have hamburgers at a table in the bar, and watch Studio Wrestling in the hope of seeing Bruno Sammartino wrestle.

Mom sent her daughters off to school for the first time; kindergarten at Perrysville Elementary School, and then first grade at St. Teresa’s. We were allowed to walk back and forth to school alone, because in those days it was safe to do so. And in the summer, to save her sanity, Mom would let us pack a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some Oreo’s, and an empty Skippy jar filled with water to go up to Scharmin Park for a picnic lunch. Mic and I both had our First Communion at St. Teresa’s, where Dad was in the choir and we attended weekly Mass. In those days, you had to fast for 3 hours before taking communion, so no breakfast until after Mass. Mom and often Mic would go to 9:15 am Mass, then I’d go with Dad to 10:45 and listen to him sing in the choir. Then along came Vatican II, and the fast was dropped to 1 hour.

Mom got involved in co-chairing the Bridge Luncheon for St. Teresa’s, held at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Babcock. She and Jeri Noble were there once for a meeting and some of the local mob guys who hung out there mistook them for prostitutes. They set them right.

Mom also joined an informal group of friends that called themselves The Club. It consisted of Mom, Jeri Noble, Rita Darr, Lorraine Young, Bea McClure, and Lois Cole. Everyone had kids around the same ages, and the purpose of the Club was girls’ night out. Once a month they’d meet at a different house, the hostess would provide the food (it got fancier as the years went on), and the ladies would sit and talk through the evening. In the summer there was usually a picnic out at North Park, and the women remained friends for the rest of their lives, though they stopped meeting monthly around the time the kids went off to college.

During the 60’s Mom and Dad were Kennedy Democrats. They invited a young Nigerian student from Pitt to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. His name was Bayo, and he was the first person of color Mic and I had ever met. At that age, their liberalism made a powerful impression on us, one that for me, at least, didn’t dissipate in later years when they swung more to the conservative side. Two things happened while we were on Homer Avenue that profoundly affected all of us, but particularly Mom and Dad.

The first has already been mentioned—Vatican II. “This (Vatican II) was actually very stressful for many Irish Catholics, who were raised with the security that there was a clear, definite source of authority in their lives. Once anything about the Church could change, their whole foundation was shaken.” (McGoldrick, Ethnicity and Family Therapy) Not only was the fast shortened before communion, but eventually permission was granted to eat meat on Fridays, and the Latin Mass would disappear and be replaced by English.

The Bridge Luncheon committee - Mom is seated, second from left, Jeri Noble is seated fourth from the left, Lois Cole is standing on the right

The second thing was the assassination of President Kennedy. The first Irish Catholic president, who had safely shepherded the country through the Cuban Missile Crisis, who was just like them with his young wife and family, was brutally killed. The days to follow, right through the end of the funeral were in everyone’s face, hour after hour, on the television.

The religious and political foundations of Mom’s life were rocked in the early 60’s. Before the end of her 30th year she had lost both of her parents, the young handsome war hero Irish Catholic president of her country, and the bedrock certainty of her Catholic traditions. The one major family loss during the early 60’s was the death of Aunt Mary, Mom’s mother’s sister. Then Dad lost his job and even Mom’s economic security was in question.

Eventually Dad found a job in Columbus, Indiana, a place Mom would forever remember as “godforsaken Columbus, Indiana.” While it was heaven on earth for kids, it was hell on wheels for Mom. Torn from the heart of her sister, brothers, and myriad cousins, Mom was deeply unhappy and never stopped hoping we would return to Pittsburgh.

Our one and only Christmas in godforsaken Columbus, Indiana

She began her autobiography in Columbus, perhaps as a way to be close to her family in mind, if not in body. We made a number of trips back to Pittsburgh in the year that we were away, once in a blizzard (we took refuge in the Town House Motor Lodge in Springfield, Ohio), once on the train (we saw Phyllis Diller at the train station), and always to stay on Simplon Street.

It was on one of those visits that Mom showed her “Smitty” side to us kids. She and Aunt Helen told us we could go over to Aunt Mary’s house and look through it. She had died about a year before, and it was to take literally years before it was cleaned out. We went over, a bit spooked at the idea of being in the house of a dead person. We were all upstairs when we heard strange noises. Suddenly two “ghosts” appeared on the stairs. There was a lot of screaming and running around until Mic bravely challenged the ghosts and claimed they were Aunt Helen and Mom. She recognized them by their tennis shoes!

Mom smoked constantly in Columbus, and the ulcer that had plagued her since her father’s illness continued to give her trouble. At the same time, she made sure Mic and I had swimming lessons, tennis lessons, golf lessons, joined 4-H Club, and were in an ice show. Kevin started kindergarten, and Mom dressed Mic and I in identical clothes and fixed our hair in identical Patty Duke haircuts.

The only family we had in Indiana, Paul and Cookie Catherman and their daughters Paula and Janie, were a lifesaver for Mom. They lived in Indianapolis, and about once a month we would drive up to see them or they’d come down to see us. A few years ago I found a short letter Mom got in Columbus from Aunt Florence, another of her mother’s sisters. It was a response to an inquiry from Mom about a recipe, and included the family news that Uncle Sonny (Mom’s youngest brother) seemed likely to be getting engaged soon (he did).

Mom and Dad went to their one and only Kentucky Derby while in Columbus, and took the entire family to see the new film, My Fair Lady. We went down to the legendary Brown County and had dinner at a well-known restaurant, but all we kids cared about was the old-fashioned candy available at the country store. Mom may not have liked Columbus, but life there was seldom dull.

A little more than a year after moving to Columbus, Indiana, Mom’s dream came true and we moved back to Pittsburgh. By the time we returned, all three children were in school, which left Mom free to go back to work if she wanted to. The one job she could get that would make it possible for her to be home for us after school was for her to teach school. Although she hadn’t completed her degree, St. Teresa’s hired her to teach, and she eventually taught English, religion, and spelling.

Mom had a gift for teaching. She was creative, buying stocks with her students so they could learn to watch the stock market, developing her own version of Junior High Quiz for the students, and introducing her religion class to Passover and matzos. She expected the best from her students, and she got it. It was not unusual for her to find ways to help students who were having difficulty. Without extensive training, she was able to pick up on learning disabilities and find out who could provide a solution.

In 1969 Neil Armstrong stood on the moon. We were over at the Rooney house for the event with Mom’s cousins Rita and Steve, and their children, Maureen, Steve, Jr., and Bill. Rita was like the older sister that Mom never had, the older woman who probably helped fill the gap left by her own mother’s death. Rita’s house was perfectly coordinated and always spotless; looking back I can see how strong her influence was on how Mom decorated her own home. Rita, unfortunately, got cancer at a time when cancer was almost invariably a death sentence. Mom went over and took care of her on a daily basis, and after her death stayed closely connected with the rest of the family.

After Rita’s death the holidays became more focused on getting together with Aunt Helen’s family. Sometimes one or more of the brothers and their families would come also, but the Doughertys and the Burnhams were always there. We kids were growing up, and Mom was considered the “cool” mother by all of our friends. Many a summer afternoon either Mic and her friends or my friends and I would sit around the kitchen table with Mom, drinking iced tea and talking about life.

If you wonder where my dad was - he was often behind the camera!

The further adventures of Mom and the rest of us next week...

Mom, Part 3...

10/11/2016

This is the continuing saga of the matriarch of our clan, my mother. Enjoy...Doc

Family

It didn’t take long for Mom and Dad to get started on their own family. First to come along was Karen Michelle, also known as Mickey in her younger years, and now known as Karen and sometimes Mic. The Christmas picture on the right was to be one of the last Christmases the senior member of the clan would share with them. Fortunately, he did get to meet Mic (Mom was pregnant with her in this picture). It seemed sadly ironic that the newest member of the family arrived followed all too quickly by the departure of the oldest member. The family that William Claney Smith had struggled to raise by himself was now branching off into new families. His clan was growing, and he would soon join their mother to watch it grow from a very different perspective.

By trade he was a pipe coverer, and at a very young age he opposed the union on certain unpopular issues. As a result, he was almost totally ostracized for a time. However, he came back and became president of that union for fifteen years until the day he died.

Dad looked on life as a challenge, never complaining, rather thankful that God had given him the strength to meet these challenges...We felt ten feet tall when he put his arm around our shoulders, a twinkle in his eyes, and a lilt in his voice as he proudly introduced you as “his” son or daughter.

Mom's Father's Day article on her Dad, published in the PGNorth, 6/15/78

William Claney Smith in his work togs

I think from top left clockwise, Mom's Dad, brother Donald, Mom, brother David, maybe brother Milt

Mic was quickly followed by me, after which Mom and Dad waited four years before they could face having Kevin. Makes me wonder if I had anything to do with the delay?

During those years Mom and Dad moved a few times. They started off with their first apartment on South Euclid in Bellevue. They shared the house with Jack and Dorothy Roberts, and had a weekly card game which featured a 6-pack of Pepsi and a breakfast roll (I guess they figured they’d be too tired to eat it in the morning, or too hungry to wait till after Mass). Dorothy and Jack had two kids, David and Nancy, who were around Mic’s age, and who we saw periodically when we were older.

After Mom’s father died, she and Dad moved over to the Simplon Street house to live with Aunt Helen and Uncle Dave (Uncle Bill lived there for a bit, then moved out). This is where my memory begins to kick in. It’s a dangerous thing to have a child write the life story of a parent, because the things the child remembers are quite different from the highlights for the adults. Most of the time. In point of fact, Aunt Helen and I both have pretty good recall of how I ruined her nice new bedspread with a ballpoint pen. I was trying to write even then!

Mom, Dad, Mic, and me. You may notice that in one picture I'm on a horse, in another, I'm holding a dog. I started early...

Aunt Mary still lived through the back hedge, still played bingo, and thought she was Sarah Bernhardt reincarnated. In spite of her proximity, there was a day when Dad was left in charge of Mic and I, and everyone else was out. He put us down for naps, but Mic wanted to be Daddy’s little helper, so she decided to give me a good powdering with the Johnson & Johnson. When Dad came up to check on us, by the time he had me cleaned up his navy blue pants looked like he had a serious case of dandruff, or had been in a snowstorm.

Aunt Mary (our great aunt) with the three of us kids - I'm the one with the Dalmatian family...

Simplon Street was where Mic and I had the measles and were kept in a darkened room, Uncle Dave got in a serious car crash and spent months recuperating, the Larkins lived across the street, and the Daileys next door. The house had a big front porch where we rode our tricycles and the adults sat and talked. It wasn’t a big house, but somehow it seemed to expand or contract to meet the needs of whoever lived there. Eventually we were all to move out to the suburbs, but for those early years, Simplon Street was the center of the family, an extended family that we were never to know again in quite the same way.

The Dougherty family was now in the form it was to maintain until the next expansion, when my sister married in 1974, fourteen years later...

Mom, part 2...

10/4/2016

Just one note before I start - the part of this that is italicized in black is quoted from the autobiography my mother wrote and didn't publish, DON'T TELL MY KIDS. Enjoy, Doc

One of the many things Mom learned from her father was the lesson of helping others. He played Santa for kids at local children’s homes. And when one of the aunts in the family became bedridden he went out and bought a television set for her on the installment plan.

Many years later he was dying in the hospital, and she went in to spend time with him every day, in spite of having a new baby. She was there for other family and friends when they needed help, even though she was raising her own family. When Rita Rooney, who was one of her closest cousins, was dying of cancer, she went over to take care of her every day until the time we came home from school. And when I was in fourth grade and in the hospital for some tests, while I spent most of my time reading comic books she was out pushing children up and down the halls in the burn carts and talking with them, children whose own mothers didn’t have time to come in and be with them.

Mom and her father on her wedding day

Mom had a gift for friendship, and it was sometimes cultivated for interesting reasons.

I prefer to refer to myself as being on the clever side or one who was quick to evaluate life and its situations and put them in the proper perspective. Especially when it came to eating. I had that neighborhood pretty well assessed. Friday nights Conways went shopping and always bought a carton of Pepsi and if you hit over there at the right time you were sure to be able to share their good fortune.

Then there was the Schoen family, quite an interesting group. Their oldest daughter worked at Clark's Candy Company and every Saturday at noon she came home with a box of Clark Bars, which I was glad to relieve her of one or more.

Ah, but the Conways had something that the Schoen's didn't by the name of Kitty, and believe me this was no cat. Where Kitty's and my friendship began I'll never know. It seems like it always was and always will be. We were a great team, what I didn't think of she did. Kit had a real talent for making life more exciting.
(excerpt from PLEASE DON'T TELL MY KIDS)

Mom had another friend who literally became a Mother Superior—Jo Jo McMullen. They liked to hang out in the cemetery and smoke on lunch breaks at Mt. Assisi High School. Jo Jo became a nun and ended up teaching in Africa for some years, but eventually came back to her roots, Mt. Assisi, and her pal Smitty.

Mom with her friends at Mt. Assisi - Jo Jo is the blonde on the bottom in the center photo - Mom is in the dark letter sweater

For some reason, she and her friends liked to hang out in the graveyard and smoke...

One Christmas we played a game and Mom’s turn came to tell a story that would surprise her grandchildren. She told the story of going to a friend’s cottage at Lake Chautauqua one summer. It was a hot night, and the girls got tired of cards and decided to go skinny-dipping in the lake. Unbeknownst to them, they chose a spot right where the next car to drive in would shine the headlights on them in all their glory. Michael’s jaw dropped to the floor when his mother explained to him the exact definition of skinny-dipping. All he could say in a shocked tone was, “Grandma?”

College and Courtship
Mom lived at home and rode the streetcar in to Duquesne University. One of her favorite stories about Duquesne is the day she forgot what floor she was on in the Administration Building, and walked into the men’s bathroom. Sure surprised the guy who was in there. She seems to have let go of her stage fright long enough to participate in a Carnival show as a dancer. She dated a number of different young men during her freshman year, and then she met Dad.

Mom is the flapper on the left

The story is legend in the family. Mom and Dad met at Duquesne when he was a junior and she was a freshman. At the time, he was in the back seat of a car with Kissy Sommers, doing what you might expect, given her name. Needless to say, Mom was not impressed.

Going into the fall of his senior year, Dad put together a list of the girls he thought might be worth a date. Like a good accounting major, he intended to work his way down the list and see how it all added up. First on the list was Pat Smith. When he called her, she had no idea who he was until he said it was Harpo (his college nickname, given to him in honor of Harpo Marx, who also didn’t speak much). Once she realized who it was, she said she wasn’t sure she wanted to go out with him. Yep, she remembered Kissy Sommers.
In the end, he persuaded her to go out for one date, and they never looked back. He threw away his list, she left college (it would take her until the 1980’s to finally finish her degree), and on April 18, 1953 they got married at Assumption Church in Bellevue.

The Wedding
A strange thing happened on April 18, 1953. It snowed. That’s not rice that you see on the happy couple, that’s snow. In the family lore, Mom had an unusual relationship with snow. Not only did it snow on her wedding day, through the years, Mic was convinced Mom had the power to make it snow, because it invariably snowed on the nights she wanted to use the car when we were in high school. Two days after Mom died, on the morning before everyone was to gather at McCabe’s Funeral Home we woke up to an early snow. It wasn’t even Halloween and we had snow. We were all convinced it was a message, just to remind us that Irish Mother Superiors can do amazing things.

(To be continued...)

dialogue with doc

Mom part 5...

Mom, part 4...

Mom, Part 3...

Mom, part 2...

Carol (Doc) Dougherty

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