To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon nature is the perfect refreshment.”
By Jane Austen
Hubby and I took advantage of the day last week when the temperature was 70 degrees to take one last look at our miniature tomatoes before he yanked them out of the ground. He brought the plants to me and I took off all the little red cherry tomatoes on the vines. There were so many vines that they filled one entire barrel.
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I must return to the birthday book that daughter Sue made for our 80th birthday celebration. There is a photo of Sue and me at the City of Boston’s Valentine’s Day celebration at the Irish Social Club in West Roxbury last February. Sue and I are standing behind all three World Series trophies. The trophies look great with our red sweaters as a background, On the next page, there is a photo of both grandkids, three and four years old, sitting on the rim of an abandoned well. The photo beside that one shows them bundled up from the cold, with their backs against the ocean in their hometown of Rockport. Also on that page, Sue placed a large photo of our outdoor cat Louie, who lives under our front porch. Both kids love Louie, so that is an appropriate page on which to put him. The next page is a black and white photo of my grandpa and grandma taken by my Uncle Tom when he was home on leave during World War II. Below that photo is a lovely colored photo of cousins Margie and Janet. They are also the grandchildren of my grandpa and grandma. Our mothers, who were sisters, married our fathers, who were brothers. We have all the same relatives. It is great that I can sit with them at all our family functions.
On the next page is a photo of Hubby’s sister Peg, with her five kids, Terri, Jim Jr., Steve, Eddie, and David. My brother’s kids are also on that page, the girls not yet in their teens. The top photo shows my brother‘s younger son Brian on his wedding day, with wife Denise. The next page has a photo of lots of my Horgan relatives, all with their arms in the air, just like the pose that my Cousin Steve made famous during the 2013 World Series as the “Bullpen Cop.” On the next page, there is a photo of the bobblehead of Steve that the Red Sox made of him. (It is priceless.) There is even a photo of a container of M&M’s, with Steve’s Bobblehead photo imprinted on the candy.
The two photos on the next page are of our longtime friends from State Teachers’ College at Boston, (Class of 1956), Elaine De Costa and Agnes (Farquharson) Smith, both of whom lived in Dorchester when we were students. There is a panoramic photo of the nine members of Bill and JoAnn Leary’s family, now all Floridians.
The next photo is of Tom and Barbara Cheney. Many in Neponset know this couple. Tom served as president of the Pope’s Hill Neighborhood Association for years. There is a photo of my pal at work, Barbie, with her son Joey. There is another photo with Marty Allen and Gregory and Sarah Ashe with me at Gerard’s. (How we love traveling with Greg and Sarah.) There is a photo of Ann Hayward with Ken and Mary Bruynell, all residents of the Neponset area for many years, and active in senior activities. There is a photo of five of us State Teachers’ College at Boston alums sitting at the Charles River Country Club as we attended the annual November Alumni Brunch. How we enjoy seeing our classmates every year.
There is also a photo of my pal Sue Asci, with her Mom Doris. Sue was my boss at this newspaper for years. There is a photo of my friend and neighbor, Helen Bradley, who, with her husband George “Spike” Bradley, attended Mass at St. Christopher’s each week. They were so welcoming when we first came to church. There is also a photo of our other friends from church, Theresa and Sharon; these gals are a big part of our church family.
Then Sue took some photos from some different areas of our lives. There is one of Mary Norton and her sister Nora Boyle, both of whom welcomed me into Boston’s County Mayo Association. There is a photo of us with my Cedar Grove friends Loretta Phillbrick and Mary Shea, along with our great singer and friend John Scannell. Sue then put in a large photo of the Dorchester seal. Next to that was a good-sized photo of a street sign saying, “THANK YOU FOR VISITING DORCHESTER.” There is a wonderful photo of Hubby, with his former terrific principal, Eleanor Perry, and his school’s great former secretary, Helen Nichols, both of whom are, sadly, deceased. There is a photo of my longtime friend Eileen Burke, probably at an Irish function. We also have a photo of our longtime friends and traveling companions, Walter and Doris Pienton, from Savin Hill. What a great time we had with them on a trip to Washington, D.C.! Then we have a photo of our friends from Keystone: Eileen Collins, Norma Conley, Marilyn Ferrara, Evie Dunne, and Phyllis Hartford. (How they have welcomed us into their group. They even include daughter Sue in many of their activities.)
Then Sue put in some of the places we love to visit. We enjoy any time we visit the First Parish Church atop Meetinghouse Hill. Then Sue found a picture taken of Boston Harbor in 1850, when many of the ships looked very much like “Old Ironsides.” I love going over the Zakim Bridge so Sue has a photo of that span in the evening when the colored lights are on. There is a beautiful photo of the Public Garden’s lagoon in the early spring, with a flowering tree in the distance. The photo under that one is one of the Mother (Mrs. Mallard) Duck sculpture and her baby ducklings: “Jack,” “Kack,” “Lack,” “Mack,” “Nack,” “Ouack,” “Pack,” and “Quack.” The next photo is one of the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, all decorated for the Fourth of July. The following photo is near the end of the fireworks, with about 20 different fireworks “bursting in air.” The next photo is one of our Rainbow Gas Tank, designed by Sister Corita; I love the colors on it. I read many years ago that the paint lasts for such a long time because it is auto paint. Sue found a photo of State Teacher’s College at Boston, which Hubby and I both attended. Sue even found a photo of the New England Hospital for Women and Children on Dimock Street in Roxbury, where I was born many decades ago. (I think it is now called the Dimock St. Health Center.)
I turned to the next page and there is a gorgeous photo of “Old Ironsides” taken by Hubby. That is followed by the front of the Museum of Fine Arts, illuminated in the evening. There are two photos next, one of the old Boston Garden and one of the new Boston Garden (the TD Bank Garden). There is a photo of a Duck Boat, one of our more amusing excursions. There is a terrific photo of the interior of Mrs. Jack Gardner’s Palace. (I loved going there on Friday afternoons after school.) There is a photo of the Strand Pharmacy in Uphams Corner, which I visited quite often when our kids were very young. I loved our pharmacist Frank Oram, who kept the store open late on a Christmas Eve while Hubby was driving in a blizzard to get to the pharmacy because daughter Sue had a strep throat and needed medicine. There is a photo of the Strand Theatre, where I would go by myself, before kids, when Hubby was working his second job at Purity-Supreme Market. Up the street from the Strand is St. Margaret’s Hospital where Dr. John Bowers and his staff saved daughter Jeanne’s life. She was an RH baby and needed five blood exchanges (not transfusions) to be saved. On the fifth exchange, an intern who was assisting told Dr. Bowers that her heart had stopped; they restarted it immediately. She rallied and is now the nurse in our family. God had a reason for saving her. There will be a little more about Sue’s Book next week. You’ll laugh at some of the things she put in the book.
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I must mention the death of Mayor Menino. I feel terrible about his passing. I had hoped that he would have some time with Angela, their kids and their grandkids. The mayor knew me to see but never knew my name. I first spoke to him for a few minutes when he pulled a folding chair next to me at the Pope’s Hill Lawn Party in June 2010. He had a sore leg and I was using a wheelchair while recovering from knee-replacement surgery. The Bostonian had kindly allowed me to attend the Lawn Party since it was just up the street from the Nursing and Rehab Home. (Tom, the Home’s director, pushed me in the wheelchair all the way up the street.) The mayor was interested in my knee surgery. Then he asked me when I expected to leave rehab. I told him that I hoped to leave by July 2 because that was my 50th wedding anniversary. He immediately looked up to his aide Lauren and said, “I want this lady and her husband to get an invitation to the celebration for those married 50 years or more.” True to his word, Hubby and I were invited to the celebration near the end of the year. It was a lovely time, truly elegant, and we have a lovely photo to remember it. We also have two champagne flutes that look beautiful in our china cabinet.
I thank the mayor for his kindnesses to us seniors. We also want to thank his wife Angela for filling in for him so often. (She did stand-in duty for him at the 50th anniversary celebration.) The last time I saw the mayor was at the Simon of Cyrene Breakfast at the Venezia Restaurant at the end of September. (He was having a difficult time walking.) We came face to face and said “Hello” to each other. That was all. He did a grand job in his 20 years as mayor. I send my sympathy to his wife Angela, to his children, and to his grandchildren.
