November 17, 1937: The Story of Fran...
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A cross-country road-trip was not easily achieved in 1937, but it was not impossible. The car turned off of Parrish Street onto Haverford Avenue in West Philadelphia and then headed across Pennsylvania. Most likely they chose a route that took them through the southern portion of Ohio. Maps from 1937 indicate that these travelers probably followed an established road or series of roads that veered them away from the Great Lakes, but there was no rush, so maybe it was up towards Cincinnatti that they headed.
As they progressed towards their Northern California destination(s) Fran and her two new friends chatted about their mutual acquaintances, and learned more about one another's past. No doubt, much time was spent speculating about the opportunities that awaited them in California, and I'm sure the travel proceeded without much worry or concern amongst them. The excitement of the trip, the new scenery, the adventure, and the folly of youth allayed any fears or trepidations that they may have harbored.
Mid-October brings beautiful weather to the northern tier of the United States. Some of the trees are showing their fall colors, but most have not yet begun turning. It's the oak leaves that seem to drop first. Piles of them seem to gather in dried brown clutches in the corners of the wilting gardens whose rose bushes manage to push out one last bloom. Here and there you'll see chrysanthemums and pumpkins, but it is 1937, and there's not a lot of extra money around for landscaping. So the mum's that are seen are the hardy varieties that were planted many years before. There is a distinctive sense of fall weather and the air boasts the scent of burnt wood from fireplaces that are just now seeing their first logs of the season. The days are warm, and the nights are cool. Sometimes there is frost in the morning. A smart traveler would have packed last winter's sweaters and outerwear and no doubt there was a slight scent of moth balls on those not yet fully-aired-out clothes.
Rest stops, were not as we know them today. Howard Johnson restaurants were just beginning to dot the landscape, and it was the local café, truck stops, and diners that serviced the bus and railroad travelers that road warriors availed themselves of for respite. Long distances between stops and the expense incurred at those stops would be a challenge to Fran and her friends; so food and drink needed to be carefully planned. A Thermos with lemonade, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, maybe a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch with a pickle or two. A stick of Wrigley's gum kept the driver and passengers in the car entertained.
A newspaper would have been picked up in the morning. FDR was President. Hitler was in power. The Hindenberg had crashed in May, with Amelia Earhart being lost in July. In September Bessie Smith had died from injuries sustained in a car crash, and on October 10th 1937 the New York Giants had won the World Series. There was no DVD player, no Sirius XM, and not every car would have a radio, so the primary entertainment was the passing scenery, and conversation about the cover stories on Time, Life, or The Saturday Evening Post.
I would imagine that the occupants of the west bound car that my aunt travelled in, were following the train tracks for most of their journey. On occasion, their car would be overtaken by a freight or passenger train, and that must have been interesting. Of course, equally interesting, was to overtake a slow moving train, or to play cat and mouse with a train across the countryside. You'd catch up to it just outside of Philadelphia, and it would then stop to disgorge passengers or freight. You'd continue onwards, and then after a night's rest you'd recognize the same train as it caught up to you as you crossed into Ohio.
I generally like things to be all of one color. Particularly when these things are in a straight line. So, if it had been up to me, if I had invented trains and boxcars, I probably would have made all boxcars and locomotives the same color. But, it wasn't up to me, and at some point locomotives were painted all kinds of colors, and when viewed en-masse in the train-yards, the boxcars that were attached to the locomotives were lined up as if a child had emptied their box of Crayola Crayons into straight lines across the living room, dining room, and kitchen floors.
With their corporate advertising, logos, striping, and other painted decorations the train's boxcars create a wonderful parade that make it so much easier for 'car-counters' to practice their avocation while stuck at a railroad crossing when a two hundred car train delayed their journey. Boxcars are connected together and arranged so that ones being unloaded in Scranton are grouped together: cars being unloaded in Altoona are grouped together; and so on, and so forth. It's a tricky business this organizing of trains, but I grew up along the train tracks and spent many summer days watching the trains connect and disconnect their multi-colored cars in a back-and-forth, do-si-do that could entertain young minds for hours.
The point of all this is to not that they are not arranged by color, nor really by the contents of their containers, but by their points of embarkation and deportation. While not being intentionally arranged in a decorative fashion, the yellow one, next to the blue one, next to the white tanker car, with three black coal cars, then a bright green cattle car, followed by a red car, a burgundy car, a blue car with yellow lettering, and so on and so forth; when seen from a distance with the still verdant fields farmlands as a backdrop, the cars on the train most certainly looked like brightly colored toss pillows cast upon a green sofa. But, I doubt that a train's engineer would think of his freight or his train in such artistic terms.
This particular train had no passenger car. The caboose on this type of train was rarely any color but red, but sometimes they were yellow, but on this train it was red. The engine that pulled this eighty-five car train was massive. Even at full stop, with its diesel engines purring, one would be awestruck by the unrelenting forces that were harnessed in its engines.
I don't really think about how much energy it takes to make a plane fly, to make a ship sail, to make my car drive, until I am standing next to a dormant plane, ship, or car. It is only when I'm hand-washing my car, or when my car gets a mind of its own and decides to break down on the side of the highway, that I realize the enormity of the beast. I am never scared by large objects until I stand next to them and realize how insignificant, how frail, and how powerless I would be against the full fury of this monster's energies.
In 1937 the roads that were best kept, and the roads that were quickest, were the roads that paralleled the train tracks. Should the train or the train tracks require repair, a car or truck could be sent to fix the problem. Similarly, in times of disrepair, or in emergencies, the roads could be serviced by the trains. Both road and train traffic could find comfort such as food, drink, entertainment, lodging and other resources necessary for their travels at the various small towns where the trains and the roads intersected.
Maybe Fran and her friends had seen this train along the way. Certainly they noticed it as it merrily clickity-clacked alongside the car, or saw it from a distance on that October day. Maybe this train was a friend met on the outskirts of Philadelphia that (like the automobile and its occupants) was on a long journey westwards It may have well been a newly found friend that had no interest in anything west of Chicago or Des Moines. Or maybe (and most likely) this train and this car had not yet been made aware of one another.
At some point the road that Fran and her friends drove on, united with, and crossed over the train tracks that bore the locomotive, the red boxcar, the white boxcar, the three black tanker cars, the other cars, and the caboose. The driver of Fran's car may have been riding alongside the railroad tracks for dozen of miles and could not have reasonably anticipated the road deviating from its path so quickly; putting them in harms way without so much as a how-do-you-do. The driver may have been in a state of boredom and most likely placed too much trust in the road's seemingly unending parallel to the train tracks. Maybe they were not riding parallel to the train tracks and the driver was gazing at some amber-waves-of-grain that he had dreamed about and heard Kate Smith singing about. Amber-waves-of-grain can be quite mesmerizing for those of us who have never before seen them, and it is easy to understand why the driver was lulled into a state of tranquility. He would have no reason to believe that such a pastoral scene could possibly ever require any vigilance. He had never seen such beauty from his alleyway bedroom in Philadelphia and in the photographs that he had seen of these vistas, there lurked no harbingers of danger, no threats, only promises of freedom and opportunity. Back then, not every crossing had lights or gates, or maybe there were lights and gates, and the driver thought...
Well, we'll never really know what the driver was thinking.
We've all made mistakes. When the jar of mayonnaise begins its descent from the countertop to the kitchen floor; when we reach just a little to far on a ladder; when the dog runs into traffic, or maybe when we watch these things happen to others: it's that 'frisson', that paralyzing moment where you know that what is about to happen cannot be averted, delayed, stopped, or avoided. "Oh no!" you might cry out. But it is too late. The glass breaks, the mayo explodes over every surface. You've reached too far, you're imbalanced, your foot slips and you fall to the floor, arms legs, back, and neck turning this way and that, to avoid the worst of the fall. At first it doesn't hurt - you're so surprised, but you know it's coming soon - the pain will be there momentarily. The dog runs into traffic, s/he is so happy to prove to you that they're so smart, and free, and happy, they look back at your horrified face, and the car or truck hits them. If only. If only you had........
We've all been there: the death that comes too soon. What if? What if? What if? If only. If only... It's easier when it happens to a stranger. Maybe it's a plane that has crashed: "Oh, I took that flight once." You pass by an oft travelled street corner that now 'boasts' one or two of those white crosses that mark 'the spot' where someone met an untimely death. You think: "Oh my, that could have been me.". In those cases we don't really have ownership of the emotion. It is only when tragedy intrudes directly on your life do you realize that death almost always comes to the dying person or animal with some awareness of what is happening, and what is about to happen.
Philip F. Scanlon Sr. (my grandfather) is a person whose face is unknown to me. His wife (my grandmother) is Kathryn E. Scanlon. Kathryn died three years before my birth and Philip Sr. died three years after I was born.
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| Kathryn Scanlon |
Kathryn had survived her husband' abuses, neglect, philanderings, alcoholism, and frequent absences. But he wasn't always that way. Kathryn converted to Catholicism from her Methodist or Protestant upbringing so that they could be married in the Catholic church in Scranton Pennsylvania. They were young when they were married, and as it is with 'young-love', there was passion and hopefully at least a moment of intention to hold true to the vows spoken at the wedding ceremony.
My grandparents had ten daughters and three sons: Joseph (1917), Frances (1920), Philip Jr.(1922), and Edward (1927) were healthy and strong. Well, they were as healthy as they could be considering that they had little to eat, and often suffered from malnutrition. Kathryn and Philip's other daughters were less sturdy and died not in infancy but sometime between their toddler years and the age of ten.
I am told that Philip Sr. was handsome and charming. He and Kathryn were born in the late 1800s near Scranton Pennsylvania and moved to the bright lights of Philadelphia to escape the coal mines and confines of that hard-scrabble town. At some point in the marriage the pressures of his family life were too much of a burden for Philip, and he sought relief from those pressures in the ways that were most accessible to him. He would not leave, and could not leave his family - he was, after all, Catholic by birth. So, he would dilly-dally with temporary vices that he could absolve himself of guilt by confessing his sins on an infrequent basis. Divorce would have excommunicated him from the church and was simply out of the question. Besides, he was not doing anything that was not being done by every other man on his block, every man in the bar, or every man where he worked.
I would imagine, that like many vices, it started with something small: a flirtation, a smile, a wink. The booze had always been there, and maybe if it hadn't, a flirtation would have remained just a flirtation. In matters such as this, once the cow is out of the barn, does it matter how many cows get loose?
As the marriage progressed, Kathryn knew Philip to be a womanizer and I cannot imagine her own lusts being used as a trap to keep this man in her life. If he was a man who forced himself upon her then she was in fact a victim. I doubt that this was the case. I believe that she derived pleasure from their love-making and did not go to him out of duty, but in a state of mutual consent, for their mutual pleasure(s).
Being a devout (although converted) Catholic, Kathryn saw Philip as a path to create that which she loved the most: her children. How could possibly have 'been' with him so many times, when he came home filthy from work, filthy from the bar, filthy from his whores, filthy, filthy, filthy, but still wanting more. But with him, it was not the satisfying of his lust that he yearned for, it was an insatiable desire for control over a completely out-of-control situation.
It was common knowledge in the neighborhood that Philip did not limit his carnal urges to pleasure his wife. But I suppose that his extra-curricular activities did not start until after the fourth or fifth child. Until then, the marriage was quite possibly happy and normal. Was my grandmother an impoverished version of Rose Kennedy: happy that he came back to her, and powerful in the knowledge that the Catholic church bound him forever to her side? Situations like this tend to start small, and a smart wife learns to ignore her husband's flirtations - convincing herself that his hand-on-the-bible promise that it was no more than a flirtation can be trusted as a truthful representation of what occurred. Then, as now, people will gossip, and while the wife is often the 'last-to-know' I believe that Kathryn was rarely surprised at what she learned while hanging sheets, or diapers out to dry.
At some point in the marriage, and for many years thereafter, Kathryn had either just given birth or was yet again pregnant. Children died more frequently then but no parent can lose their child without grieving. Let us imbue Philip Sr. with some sensitivity and empathy for his grieving wife and children. There would be little sympathy shown to him mostly because his Irish stoicism would not allow any exhibitions of remorse or grief. It was the grieving mother who got all the attention - the attention of the neighbors, the attention of the priests, the attention of her children, but not the attention of her husband. Philip may have resented the attentions that Kathryn received from 'decent' society, and may have thought the condolences he received from the barmaids were sincere, when in fact, they were the sentiments being expressed by a woman who needed to pay the rent, to feed her own children, who was manipulating a weak, and drunken fool into paying those bills.
To Kathryn and Philip the children kept coming, and each child represented a mouth to feed - and that meant an expense to be paid. Each child that died represented an additional expense. There was little respite for them from this horrible cycle of birth, death, expense, birth, death, expense. Where was happiness? Didn't they deserve some moment of happiness?
Then there was the hunger. Quite literally the hunger. Philip and Kathryn did not come from wealth, so they were not accustomed to fully-stocked kitchens and pantries - but after the children were fed, there was little left to feed themselves.
There was no money. Philip was a contractor, a laborer, a builder. When the bank's closed in 1927, he was wiped out. I seriously doubt that he had much to be 'wiped'. As for his drinking. Yes, there was always money for his drink, and little money for the family's food. But how drunk could you possibly get on no money? Certainly, not as drunk as he wanted to be, nor drunk enough to blame his irresponsibility on the disease of addiction.
Philip Sr. can be faulted for his actions, and his reactions, but I don't think he can be 'blamed' for his behaviors. To blame him suggests that had no motivations for his actions. To think that he acted with callous indifference and without reasonable catalyst is too ask too much of a man of his limited education and life experiences. A therapist would have found his circumstances and upbringing as the reason for his actions and I would agree - he acted the way many in similar circumstances have reacted. I would think it is the minority of people who when faced with his circumstances have risen above all fleshly temptations, but, I would add, most people do have some type of 'impulse control' that limits their indulgences - Philip seemed to lack this trait. He was raised by rough people in rough times - how could he (or how can any of us) be anything but incrementally better than the previous generation? I know nothing of his parents, or of his siblings. But I do know how his Irish parents were likely treated when fled The Great Famine of 1845 -1852 in Ireland to become slaves in the coal mines, and on the railroads in the United States. From the railroads we came, and in 1937 it was to the railroads we returned.
It was not a time where intimate feelings were expressed between husband and wife. It was a time where husbands and wives (especially Irish husbands and wives) would inflict small emotional cuts upon one another. History does not record the first slight, the first indignity, the second infringement, or third mistake that occur in a marriage. History only records the big gaping wound that is created when there is no room or space for a fresh small cut. What we see in the end is the large scar (emotional and physical) that are made up of the previous small cuts that then congeal into the scar that cannot be removed.
How can a father - even the most heartless of fathers - watch his daughters die? One death is horrible. Then another, and another, and another, and another. How can you go home to learn that your lovely daughter - the pretty one, has a slight cough today, then a fever tomorrow, and is dead by Saturday, then in the grave next Wednesday. You have three sons. They're strong. The other daughters will be strong too - and then they die.
You have one daughter left. She isn't the pretty one though. She has seen too much. She is smart. She sees through you. She can smell the beer (even if it's just one beer and maybe a quick shot) on your breath. Her friends laugh at her and tell her that her father is dating the corner whore. Her cousin tells her that his hugs linger too long, and then one day she finds her father in an intimate embrace with that cousin. She doesn't understand that you (her father) are hungry, you're scared, you're just tired of all the pressure, all the pregnancies, all the death, all the......
Fran sees that her sisters are dying. Her Mother is shell shocked. Kathryn is too far away from her own family to find support and The Church provides no comfort. The church demands that Kathryn continue to be the good wife, to continue paying the church for the children's education even though there is no money, to continue her tithing, even though there is no money. To continue producing children for the church to teach.
Fran tries to help. She bathes the children, nurses them when they are sick, feeds them with portions from her own plate. There is no money for pretty clothes. That suits Fran because she prefers playing with the boys, and it is easier to play with the boys when you dress like a boy. Fran enters into her maturing years and her figure remains boyish. Fortunately, strong women like Katherine Hepburn are all-the-rage and Fran's preference for pants (there is only one photo of an uncomfortable looking Fran in a skirt - her school uniform) is provocative, but stylish. Of course, Fran has no money, so it is not a stylish look that can be, or is, achieved.
All teenagers have feelings of unease about their looks, and feelings of inferiority. Fran was not one to dwell on her problems, and she decided that she had no time for her insecurities. She was lively, funny, conversant, outgoing, and fearless. Too many adult responsibilities had been thrust upon her at too early an age. She dealt with the deaths of her sisters, and resolved that she would survive. She saw that her brother Phil (my father) was the weakest of the boys. He was two years younger than she was, so they became a team. Phil Jr. was not liked by Phil Sr.. Phil Sr. would often tell his namesake that he was 'a mistake'. Just as she had often protected Kathryn, so she protected Phil Jr. from his father's scorn.
One day, Philip Sr. brings his latest girlfriend home for Kathryn to make them dinner. It takes some nerve to bring your girlfriend home for your wife to make dinner, but if nothing else, he was a bold character. I just wonder about the character of the woman he brought home with him? Where did she think she was going, and how did she think she was going to get away with it? The family has not eaten yet, and Kathryn explains this to Philip. He raises his hand to hit Kathryn and Fran intervenes. It is the first of many occasions where Frances (who is barely a teenager at this point) must defend her mother from Philip's behaviors.
In August of 1937, Kathryn and Frances are photographed on Long Beach Island NY. I would imagine they were the guests of some friends or family from Scranton, and I am quite sure that Philip was left in Philadelphia. The scene is happy. It is now 80 years since that photograph was taken, and it was only thirty years ago, that I learned that seventeen-year-old Frances Ann Scanlon knew herself to prefer the affections of Barbara, Beatrice, and Bernice over the affections of a Bob, a Bill, or Benjamin.
Fran was gaining the upper hand in the household, and Philip Sr. would not have it. It was not 'his house' by any means. He was rarely there, and certainly the sofas, chairs, pots and pans meant nothing to him. Bullies don't want things, and they don't want people: they want control of things and control of people. Fran had control over Kathryn's happiness, which meant that Philip did not have control over Kathryn's happiness. But, he still could control Kathryn's unhappiness. The key to making someone unhappy is to give them respite from that which makes them unhappy. After all, how will someone know it's dark, if they have never seen the light.
Philip would grant Kathryn relief by not speaking to her. There was a two year stretch, where he would tell the children what he wanted Kathryn to know. It wasn't uncommon for them to communicate by leaving notes. When he wanted Kathryn to be truly unhappy, he would come at her with his full-force. Striking out at her, and the children. A most unhappy situation, about which, little could be done. Little could be done, until Fran found an inner strength, and slowly, slowly, Fran started gaining ground, and little by little, Fran started winning the small battles against Philip.
Fran could only make Kathryn momentarily happy, but she could stop Philip Sr. from making Kathryn permanently unhappy. Philip Sr. could not control his wife's happiness (that was a candle he snuffed out years ago) but he could control her unhappiness, and as long as he could provoke some emotion from his wife, he knew himself to be in control.
Kathryn was careful to not let Philip Sr. know that Fran had developed a crush on a neighbor's daughter. Kathryn was especially careful not to let Philip hear or see any evidence of her budding emotional emancipation from his tyranny.
Fran was the light in Kathryn's life. Her son's were loving and devoted, but Fran was the last surviving daughter - it was her survival that was such a triumph to Kathryn. That triumph, that success, needed to be carefully hidden from Philip, because he would take that triumph and destroy it - just as he had destroyed everything else that Kathryn treasured. It was not furniture, dishes, glasses, or jewelry that he destroyed. These were not things that a woman with a large family would treasure. He destroyed her faith, her trust, her self-respect, and it was her most precious treasure that he was after next. It was hope. He could not have her hope. With Fran at her side, there was hope. It was an undefined hope, certainly not a "I want a big house on the Main Line" kind of hope. But a more practical hope: "May tomorrow's burden be less than today's burdens" - kind of hope.
Unfortunately, Fran did not have the sophistication to know that it was dangerous to let Phil Sr. learn that he had lost his control and his powers over those in his household years before this summer of 1937. Maybe it was a smile, maybe it was a gesture, maybe she made him sleep-it-off on the porch one night, but at some point, she was too fast and too strong to be struck by his fist or his belt. He needed to be more cunning. He would wait. His moment would come soon. His moment always came - always.
It is better and safer to let the bully believe that everything is continuing the way it always had, so that the final exit can be more surgical, cleaner, more precise. Maybe Fran and Kathryn went away to Long Beach Island in August of 1937 as a little test of their mettle. Maybe they were planning a clean break from Philip, we will never know, because Kathryn remained married to Philip until her death in 1955.
It is much too difficult to keep a poker face when you've been dealt four aces and a wild card. Phil Sr. may not have been told directly that he had a losing hand, but he knew he no longer had the winning hand.
Honorable gamblers know when to fold 'em. They know that gambling is very 'tidal' in nature. Money comes, money goes. When dishonorable gamblers, recognize that they are losing, they smile calmly, place their cards on the table, grab all the money on the table and run for the door.
Kathryn knew that 'playing cards' with Philip meant letting him win. Philip was a sore loser and a bad winner. As a winner, he was less likely to hurt someone, so Kathryn learned to fold her cards when she was sure she possessed a winning hand. There was no winning with Philip. If you won a nickel or a dime, he would spend a quarter on some whiskey and a dollar on some whore. To do so discretely would have been the gentlemanly thing to do - unfortunately, Philip was not a gentleman.
When Fran and Kathryn returned from their seashore respite in August of 1937, they most likely paid little heed to the gossip about Philip's behaviors during their absence. Men like him depend upon the hysteria of those that they subjugate to fuel themselves and fuel their waning egos. I suspect, that Fran and Kathryn could not have cared less about Philip's summer antics. Whatever had happened in their absence, was no surprise. What would have been a surprise would have been if IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!
If he drank and womanized while they were gone, it was no scandal, because he drank and womanized while they were home. Did he do so in family home while they were away? Again, it would not have been a scandal, because he did so, when they were home. An earring not belonging to her that was found in the sofa would not have alarmed Kathryn - she had discovered too many earrings in the sofa to be shocked at the discovery of yet another.
It was important to get a reaction from Kathryn because he was probably the only woman he respected. Desi Arnaz was devastated when Lucille Ball finally divorced him. He tried to explain to her, that the women he bedded were whores, and that he had not respect for them. He had too much respect for Lucy to bed her in the same fashion as his whores...
Philip most likely had enough common sense to know that a man should never fall in love with his whores. By their very nature, whores do not love only one man, and ultimately that is what even the most philandering of men want: one person, who loves them and only them - while they (the man) bed everything else in town. He could anger his girlfriends, but knew they could easily replace him. Kathryn would not replace him with another husband. He had been replaced with the children. More specifically, he had been replaced with her surviving daughter Fran.
He could have released Kathryn and their children, and let them win one hand in this long-running emotional game of poker. Instead, he chose to grab the thing that Kathryn was rightfully winning, had won, had earned, and he was heading out the door with it.
Kathryn's joy and pleasure in life was her daughter Fran.
It was not Fran's choice to leave Philadelphia. Kathryn did not think it was in Fran's best interest to go west. It was Philip Sr. who wanted to punish both Fran and Kathryn for transgressions that he had imagined and transgressions that he anticipated. He likely used his limited understanding's of his Catholic faith to support his condemnation of Fran, and he condemned his wife for her part in the creation and support of such a vile creature. I have no doubt that he thought (and possibly expressed) a feeling that it was Fran and not his lovely, and beautiful daughters who should be in the grave.
Kathryn's brother Harold Smith had established himself in Oakland California. He is pictured below with his friends. He never married. He owned a woman's shoe store just outside of San Francisco. In the parlance of the time: Uncle Harry was a confirmed bachelor. There would be no Bernice nor Betty in Harry Smith's life. But I suspect that one of the two gentlemen in the picture below might have been a special friend of his (possibly a Bob, or Ben). Uncle Harry became something of legend and his story will be told in another essay. I would imagine that because of his "extended bachelorhood" and his proximity to San Francisco, Fran and Kathryn chose his home to begin Fran's new life. It would not surprise me to think that Kathryn had a small hope that one day soon, she too, could or would decamp from Philip's grip to join Fran and Harry in California.
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| Harry Smith (center) with unknown friends or colleagues. |
An old proverb states:
There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip....
Kathryn and Fran's future depended upon Fran leaving Philadelphia to finish her education, secure employment, and find housing that would suit them both. It was not unlike the exodus that the Irish faced during the potato famine of 1845. Families in Ireland would send a scout to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, or Boston to get things started, and then the rest of the family would follow.
It was Saturday morning, October 16, 1937. Kathryn had baked some cookies for Fran to enjoy on her journey westward. Some sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper and placed in a shoe box More likely, those food stuffs were tucked into pages from yesterday's newspaper. The paper being folded carefully and tightly so that bugs would not gain entrance. The car was ready, and Fran headed out the door. Hugs were exchanged, tears shed. I may be wrong about all of those details. Maybe there were no cookies, or sandwiches, hugs, or tears. Maybe it was Friday and not Saturday.
Maybe the car was a Packard, Buick, Chevrolet, or Ford. I doubt it was a Lincoln or a Cadillac.
Fran did get into a car and if there was no food packed, no clothing packed, there was surely one thing packed: the hopes and dreams that a seventeen-year-old girl would have for a brighter future. A future that might include an emancipated Mother joining her in California. A future in a place where Philip could not reach out to inflict his pains, his tortures.
Philip Sr. was not there when the car left the curb of the Parrish Street home in West Philadelphia. Kathryn and Phil Jr. waved goodbye to Fran. Fran was seated in the back seat on the passenger side, and when the car turned left at the corner and headed towards Haverford Avenue, Fran scooted over to the driver's side so that she could continue waving goodbye.
It was Saturday morning, October 16, 1937. Kathryn had baked some cookies for Fran to enjoy on her journey westward. Some sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper and placed in a shoe box More likely, those food stuffs were tucked into pages from yesterday's newspaper. The paper being folded carefully and tightly so that bugs would not gain entrance. The car was ready, and Fran headed out the door. Hugs were exchanged, tears shed. I may be wrong about all of those details. Maybe there were no cookies, or sandwiches, hugs, or tears. Maybe it was Friday and not Saturday.
Maybe the car was a Packard, Buick, Chevrolet, or Ford. I doubt it was a Lincoln or a Cadillac.
Fran did get into a car and if there was no food packed, no clothing packed, there was surely one thing packed: the hopes and dreams that a seventeen-year-old girl would have for a brighter future. A future that might include an emancipated Mother joining her in California. A future in a place where Philip could not reach out to inflict his pains, his tortures.
Philip Sr. was not there when the car left the curb of the Parrish Street home in West Philadelphia. Kathryn and Phil Jr. waved goodbye to Fran. Fran was seated in the back seat on the passenger side, and when the car turned left at the corner and headed towards Haverford Avenue, Fran scooted over to the driver's side so that she could continue waving goodbye.
Across Pennsylvania the car travelled. They stopped in Scranton to have lunch with some friends that Kathryn had known before marrying Philip. They neared the Ohio border and stayed overnight in an inexpensive roadside lodging. It was Saturday night, but they were not inclined to go bar hopping. Maybe they went to a movie to pass the time, but most likely they listened to the radio, and drifted off to sleep.
Breakfast on a road trip is always delicious. Scrambled eggs are always more scrambly, toast is more toasty, orange juice has more zest, and coffee has more caffeine. This was the second (maybe the third) day of the trip and things were going along smoothly. A few mistaken turns had been made, but the mistakes were readily apparent, and quickly corrected. They were in no rush. No deadline had to met on the other end; so shortcuts weren't being taken, speed limits weren't being exceeded, and the rules and regulations of the highway were being obeyed.
The road turned unexpectedly to the right and with no warning the car was being torn apart by the train.
Breakfast on a road trip is always delicious. Scrambled eggs are always more scrambly, toast is more toasty, orange juice has more zest, and coffee has more caffeine. This was the second (maybe the third) day of the trip and things were going along smoothly. A few mistaken turns had been made, but the mistakes were readily apparent, and quickly corrected. They were in no rush. No deadline had to met on the other end; so shortcuts weren't being taken, speed limits weren't being exceeded, and the rules and regulations of the highway were being obeyed.
The road turned unexpectedly to the right and with no warning the car was being torn apart by the train.
If only the car had been 'torn apart' by the train, then maybe, possibly, there would have been an avenue of escape for someone in the car. If it had been ripped in half, maybe the driver and front seat passenger would have been hurled down the tracks and Fran could have clung to the back of the car as it spun backwards, away from the oncoming train engine, the yellow freight car, the blue freight car, the oil tankers, the caboose and all the freight that added weight and force to the onslaught that descended upon the hapless travelers.
The train hit the car squarely in the passenger compartment. In such situations, it is only human nature to raise one's hands in some futile act of defense. If there were screams, they went unheard. The roar of the trains engines would deafen the ears of the passengers in the car. The car's glass would be the first thing to shatter. The glass shards would immediately enter into the faces of the passenger in the front seat. The driver would momentarily be spared the smaller shards only to be impaled by the larger sheets of glass from the windshield as it broke apart. Fran most likely tried to escape by pulling away from the crush of glass and car metal as it came towards her. There was space in the back seat, and in that space, there was, for just one second, a moment of hope: the hope that there would be a place to run to, to escape to, to push away from the steel of the train, the car door, the glass, the car's upholstery, the luggage, the magazines, everything that was now being pushed and shoved at her, and then pulled, and tugged, and twisted and turned. With the car glass gone, the hot steel of the train was what her hands most likely tried to stop next. Failing to stop the oncoming metal, she no doubt tried to gain leverage, but found herself being pushed to the ceiling of the car as it tumbled onto its side. Her arms and legs pushed away from that which intruded into the car, but bones snap more quickly than metal, and within seconds she could do nothing to defend herself from what was happening.
The occupants of the car glimpsed the horror of each other's decimation, each other's impalement, the crushing of limbs and faces, the dragging of bodies in and out of the car, the dragging of themselves alongside the train and under the train, they witnessed each other's dismemberment, and death.
The occupants of the car glimpsed the horror of each other's decimation, each other's impalement, the crushing of limbs and faces, the dragging of bodies in and out of the car, the dragging of themselves alongside the train and under the train, they witnessed each other's dismemberment, and death.
The car did not derail the train, nor did the car go under the train. It was turned on its side so that the occupants were thrust against the driver's side doors. That side of the car now faced the train track, the occupants of the car had moments ago broken their arms, their hands, or had their arms and hands dismembered so that they could not protect their faces from being pushed into the gravel of the train bed. It took only a moment for Fran's decapitation to occur. From the moment the train hit the car, it was probably thirty to forty seconds before death occurred. Unfortunately, they were thirty or forty seconds of awareness....
The train stopped as quickly as it could. The engineer dismounted from his cab, and the train's other employees ran from the caboose. There was an incredible silence that entombed the scene - in situations like this, the world becomes too horrified by the events. The birds know to stop their caw-caws, and bird-songs, because they know that in this moment, something horrific has occurred. Other than the sound of the train's engine's and the sounds of feet rushing to the destroyed car, there was no noise. The trees moved, but the leaves moved silently. I know that no one cried out from the car - they were all dead. The train's employees were too horror struck to say anything. The silence was deafening. The only sound was the train's diesel's engines as they purred their contentment at their victory over the object that had foolishly crossed their path.
I don't doubt, that one, maybe more witnesses (if there were witnesses) ran to the car in the hopes that there might have been some safe space for the occupants to cling to, to find safety in, during this horrible accident. It is likely that the engineer hoped that by reversing the train, the car would disengage from the locomotive's bumper and that by doing so, the passengers in the car would disembark from some safe space in the car dusting themselves off, with some small scratches, and a story to tell. Certainly, he had yet to realize the total devastation that had been wrought upon the occupants of the car. Most likely, it was Fran's headless corpse that was discovered first. There were so many small bits and pieces of car, luggage, train, and other things, that it was only the large things like the car seats and torsos of the car's occupants that attracted attention. The smaller items would not be distinguished for their gruesome reality because they mixed in with the broken headlights, car parts, and scattered luggage.
I would imagine, that in 1937, the wreckage of the car was removed from the tracks within hours of the accident. Those hours must have hung in the air like days. How long did it take until 'help' arrived? Even if it was an unlikely twenty or thirty minutes, those minutes must have seemed like hours. It may have taken many hours, possibly a day, to extract and identify the occupants of the car. It was someone's job to clean the wreckage, to gather and assemble the remains. To package the remains, and to return the remains to Philadelphia was someone's job, and I can not imagine the horror it must have been to match the mangled parts to the correct bodies.
I don't doubt, that one, maybe more witnesses (if there were witnesses) ran to the car in the hopes that there might have been some safe space for the occupants to cling to, to find safety in, during this horrible accident. It is likely that the engineer hoped that by reversing the train, the car would disengage from the locomotive's bumper and that by doing so, the passengers in the car would disembark from some safe space in the car dusting themselves off, with some small scratches, and a story to tell. Certainly, he had yet to realize the total devastation that had been wrought upon the occupants of the car. Most likely, it was Fran's headless corpse that was discovered first. There were so many small bits and pieces of car, luggage, train, and other things, that it was only the large things like the car seats and torsos of the car's occupants that attracted attention. The smaller items would not be distinguished for their gruesome reality because they mixed in with the broken headlights, car parts, and scattered luggage.
I would imagine, that in 1937, the wreckage of the car was removed from the tracks within hours of the accident. Those hours must have hung in the air like days. How long did it take until 'help' arrived? Even if it was an unlikely twenty or thirty minutes, those minutes must have seemed like hours. It may have taken many hours, possibly a day, to extract and identify the occupants of the car. It was someone's job to clean the wreckage, to gather and assemble the remains. To package the remains, and to return the remains to Philadelphia was someone's job, and I can not imagine the horror it must have been to match the mangled parts to the correct bodies.
Kathryn may have softened her sadness about her daughter's departure by spending a few blissful days believing that her daughter was enjoying an exciting journey. Maybe she looked forward to the day when she too would get in a car, to turn onto Haverford Avenue and begin a journey westwards. The accident occurred on Sunday, but I do not believe that the family was notified until Tuesday or Wednesday of Fran's fate. It took many days for Fran to be returned to Philadelphia, and so, the finality of the funeral mass, and burial was delayed - making a torturous event even more tortured.
Kathryn knew the sting of believing that a good thing was happening, when in fact a bad thing was happening. Anyone who has had an unfaithful lover knows that sting - you're sitting at home thinking "la-ti-da' having complete faith in the whereabouts and doings of your beloved, only to learn how you've been deceived. How many times had Kathryn trusted Philip to be working, to be sobering up, only to find out that he was on a bender, with that washer woman down in South Philadelphia. When she learned of Fran's fate, how could possibly ever sleep soundly? How could she ever 'trust' anyone, anything, ever, ever, again?
When Phil Jr. joined the Air Force (the only son to serve in WWII) did she trust that he would be safe, or did she sit on the porch awaiting the arrival of the officers to tell her of her son's fate. When the Air Force mistakenly informed her that Phil Jr. was AWOL did she not immediately assume that he was not AWOL, but that he was dead? How could she not assume that? Fran was supposed to be safely travelling in a car, heading to a safe place, to a safe future, where she (Kathryn) would soon find safety and sanctuary for herself, and maybe one (if not more) of her sons. Could Kathryn not feel guilty for the moment of happiness she allowed herself, when, at that very moment in time her daughter suffered a fate that Kathryn could not help but repeat in her mind over, and over again? Should Kathryn have had an inkling that Fran was in distress? Wouldn't a good mother somehow 'know' that all-was-not-well? How could Kathryn have NOT felt Fran's pain, how could she have not known? These thoughts tormented Kathryn for the remainder of her life. But these thoughts were not just the exclusive thoughts of Kathryn, they were the thoughts of the many others who knew and loved Fran. Of course, the most torturous of questions, the one I ask eighty years later, is: why, why, why?
'The Call' originated from the police in Ohio. Philip received 'the news' in a bar. Kathryn was home. Phil Jr. came home to learn of his sister's death. Who received 'the call' at the house is unknown to me. I doubt that the Philadelphia police were called first, to soften the harsh news.
'The Call' originated from the police in Ohio. Philip received 'the news' in a bar. Kathryn was home. Phil Jr. came home to learn of his sister's death. Who received 'the call' at the house is unknown to me. I doubt that the Philadelphia police were called first, to soften the harsh news.
I know that a funeral was held in Philadelphia and that Frances Ann Scanlon was the first to be buried in the Scanlon family plot at Holy Cross cemetery in Yeadon. The Scanlon Grave I do not believe they buried a 'body' as we know it to be. I believe that the 'remains' of Frances Ann Scanlon were returned to Philadelphia, to be mourned, celebrated, and then buried. I have no idea how the remains were identified, or if the entire body was returned.
Kathryn had now buried all of her daughters. (The names and whereabouts of their remains is unknown.) Her husband could not, and would not provide comfort. Even if he had, could she ever forgive him for his complicity in Fran's death? As the family dressed for the funeral, how did they not blame Philip for the events that had transpired. Did he attempt to handle the situation with humor? That would be the Irish way.
Can you imagine: the day of the funeral: everyone is preparing themselves. Kathryn is dressing herself: undergarments, nylons, her best dress, a hat, a coat, her rosary. In the same room Philip also dresses: his boxer shorts, shirt, tie, suit, belt, his 'good' shoes freshly shined. Philip Jr. is fifteen years old, Edward eleven, Joseph is nearing twenty - they are young men. They have all seen too much death. They are showered, and are quietly, silently, once again, putting on their funeral garb, which is their school attire, their special occasion attire, their going to the corner attire, and probably one of the two or three outfits that they own.
Philip Sr. is the first to be ready, and he waits downstairs. He could ignore his failure to provide proper nutrition or medical care for his other deceased daughters and so he no doubt felt he bore no real blame for their deaths. He was not so religious a person to believe that Fran's fate was God's retribution for violations of the churches teachings, and certainly, no one in the family would allow him this escape. His eyes were red from drink and tears. The tears were not for Fran. The tears were for himself, and for Kathryn. He had meant to hurt Kathryn with his actions. It was a game that they had played for many years. He cried for Kathryn because he knew, that he was not only burying Fran's remains, but burying Kathryn's spirit. Without her spirit, there would be no game. With no game, there would be nothing to win. He could no longer control the cards, the table, the 'pot'. With no one to control and in this new, and unexpected scenario, who would he be?
November of 1937 presented the Scanlon's with a challenge: what to do about Thanksgiving? It was decided that things would proceed as they had in year's past. Kathryn would host the family meal, and all would gather at the Parrish Street home to enjoy the turkey and all the dressings. They did the best that they could that day. Kathryn cooked, and the relatives gathered. Not much was said about the previous months events. Any references to Fran were light-hearted. The celery with cream cheese had been nibbled at, the crackers and cheese served. It was now time for everyone to enjoy the turkey, the stuffing, cranberry sauce, peas, carrots and mashed potatoes. The dining room table had been set, and everyone found their place.
Sometimes, we forget. Sometimes, the mind blithely ignores reality. On this Thanksgiving Day, at this table, someone had forgotten that Fran would not be there that day. They were all chattering and excited, as they took their seats. Simultaneously, the turkey was being delivered from the kitchen. Across from Phil Jr., and next to Kathryn's seat at the long table, was a plate, a knife, a fork, a spoon, and a napkin... There was no Fran. There would be no Fran.......
Kathryn and Philip Sr remained married. Kathryn died in her son Joseph's home near Cheltenham Avenue on December 28, 1954 after a short battle with cancer. She was in the early stages of the cancer, and was getting out of bed when she passed away. Joseph had married Cecelia and they had two daughters: Frances, and Marie.
Philip Sr. buried Kathryn and went to work installing roofs so that he could provide Kathryn and Fran with the proper tombstone that you see on the grave today. The respect he failed to show them in life, he showed them in death. Philip was 'difficult' until the day he died. His sons and daughters-in-laws took turns hosting him until he was hospitalized in a Catholic nursing home. Philip Jr. (his least favorite son) was visiting him one day in 1961. Philip Sr. had been spending most of his days sleeping, and Phil Jr. was preparing to leave. Suddenly, Philip sat up in bed, looked to the ceiling and declared "I'm ready to go...". He then died.
Joseph Thomas Scanlon had somehow avoided serving in the armed services. Most probably because he was married with children by the time the United States entered WWII. I think it can be safely said that Joseph was his father's son. This apple did not fall far from the tree. He was clever, and witty, he did not feel a great duty to hold a steady job, stay sober, or necessarily remain faithful to his wife. His daughter Marie, attended my parents wedding, and she later became a close confidant to my mother at the end of my mother's life. Joseph died after walking out of Regan's bar near Oxford Circle in the area of Philadelphia known as the Great Northeast. He came home, sat down, and as his wife Ceil was chatting with him, he died.
Edward was the youngest son. Ed and Philip feared being 'stuck' with Philip and Kathryn's ongoing care, and so within week's, both men announced their engagements. Edward married Gloria. They had four children. He too, was inclined to take after his father. He drank too much, and had difficulty maintaining employment. His youngest son (Edward) died in infancy. Ed left Gloria to raise their three children. Two daughters: Pat, and Kathy, and two sons: John and Eddie. Ed died in the early 1980's. He and his girlfriend had enjoyed breakfast at the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City that fateful June or July morning. They had no sooner stepped onto the boardwalk, taken a deep breath of the unmistakable and unforgettable creosote, salt water, and Planter's Peanut scented air, when Ed suffered a coronary embolism. The funeral director told us he was dead before his face hit the boardwalk.
My Dad (Phil Jr.) was the most responsible of Kathryn's three sons. He discontinued his high school education (St. Thomas More) to join the Air Force. I now believe he choose to die in battle as opposed to being hit by a train. He served honorably, as a Corporal in North Africa and Italy, returning to Philadelphia to finish his high school education.
He was devoted to Kathryn, and did all that he could to make her remaining years as comfortable as possible. He was also incredibly generous and kind to his brother's children. Phil would episodically try to find Ed to make sure that he was doing OK. Ed would never be doing well, and OK was the best that could be hoped for. Finding Ed was never really difficult. It might take a few days, and certainly, it took more than a few trips to the worst bars that West Philadelphia had to offer, but Ed always left a trail. It was usually a trail of bar tabs, but a trail none-the-less.
Excluding Fran, God was merciful to the Scanlon's when he called them from this mortal coil. It was Philip Jr. who was least capable of handling a long, protracted, drawn-out, suffering, and so it was Philip Jr. who suffered a long, protracted, drawn-out, suffering before his death in 1997.
My mother had pre-deceased him by five years, and in the end, the burdens of his youth, came to visit him at his death. What he feared most as a child, the monsters and demons real and imagined that he could not slay in his prime years, came to visit him in his senior years. Exacerbated by the willy-nilly heavy-handed prescription writing that was prevalent in those days, he victimized himself, and became the victim of those who prey upon the elderly and infirm.
By understanding what transpired in 1937, I began to understand what transpired in 1997. Philip Jr. had made many mistakes, but the last mistake endangered the life of someone else, and he could no longer enjoy the freedoms (limited as they were) that he had been enjoying. Fortunately, the state did not choose to prosecute. Unfortunately, the social safety net, that had protected him, quickly turned into the locomotive, boxcars, and caboose that Fran encountered on October 17, 1937.
Shortly before his death, I visited him in the nursing home that the state had selected for his care. It was a very nice place, and if life were fair, he would have passed away in some level of comfort and in some state of dignity in this very nice place. However, the funds for this nice place were limited to a ninety-day stay, and the next place was a not-very-nice-place that I could do nothing about.
A full moon was occurring on this day that I visited my Dad, in this very nice place. I found Dad in a wheelchair. He was clean, and wearing the new clothes I had purchased for him. My brother refused to visit him, and I could not visit frequently because it was far away from where I worked and lived. Dad recognized me, and reached into his pocket to get some change so he could 'buy me' some candy or soda from the vending machine. Well, no, that came later. I walked down the hallway, and he was sitting there yelling: "Fran, Fran, Fran......."
At this time (1997), I knew the general story of Fran's death. I did not know the particulars of her life, or why she was in that car, that day in 1937. I knew that she had protected Dad from his Dad, and I knew she had protected Kathryn from his Dad. My Dad rarely spoke of her, rarely spoke of Kathryn, never spoke of his father, and we only occasionally saw Joe, and never Ed.
He called out to Fran and I hoped that maybe like Philip Sr. this was the moment where my Dad was ready-to-go. That maybe Fran had come to guide him, to ease his journey. It would be so fair. If (dear reader) you only knew what the previous five years had been like for my Dad, well, hell, if you'd known what the previous five months had been like, you would have seen this as a fitting end.
My Dad and I weren't close. I liked him, I understood him. He did not like me, nor did he ever indicate that he had any kind of understanding of me. I suppose, I should just direct you to watch Field of Dreams and we (the men reading this) and I, can all boo-hoo with one another. Please don't misunderstand, I didn't start liking my dad until I was in my 20's (he died when I was 40). In spite of what he told others, I liked him for the last twenty years of his life, and I continued to like him after his death.
It was not until I wrote this essay that I understood why he did not like me: because like-father, like-son. Much like his sister Fran could 'see-through' her/their father's secrets, he feared that I would see-through him. That I would know his secrets. That I would detect a tell-tale odor; not of booze, but of a deeper secret. Let me be perfectly clear, my Dad never abused me. However, he made it perfectly clear that I was always to stand away, keep myself at arms-length physically and emotionally. Phil Jr. look in the mirror and meet Phil Sr.; pot meet kettle-black. Unlike Fran, as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, and really as an adult, I did not know his secrets. I had all the evidence - it was in clear sight. I just didn't know what the evidence meant. I put the stories together with the evidence and now - and if you take me out for a drink, I'll tell you THE BIG SECRETS But I'll never write about them.
On that full-mooned evening in the spring of 1997, none of that mattered. I sat next to him (because no one else would) I held his hand and asked him: "Do you see Fran?"
He turned to me. Dad had these steely blue eyes, and he looked at me and with a clarity and honesty I had not seen in him in a decade he stated: " I haven't seen her for sixty years."
I did not see him again until I walked into the funeral home in Lambertville. I can only hope that he spent his last days being comforted by Kathryn and Fran....
'Fran, Fran, Fran'.......... scream on old man!
EDITORIAL NOTE: I wrote this story under the mistaken impression that the accident occurred in October 1937. The only archive that I possess of documents from that time period was believed to have been lost or discarded. I recently found those documents and as can be seen from the prayer card below, Frances Ann Scanlon died on November 19, 1937. This would mean that Thanksgiving dinner shortly after Fran's death.
The photos below are of Frances and of Kathryn.
Can you imagine: the day of the funeral: everyone is preparing themselves. Kathryn is dressing herself: undergarments, nylons, her best dress, a hat, a coat, her rosary. In the same room Philip also dresses: his boxer shorts, shirt, tie, suit, belt, his 'good' shoes freshly shined. Philip Jr. is fifteen years old, Edward eleven, Joseph is nearing twenty - they are young men. They have all seen too much death. They are showered, and are quietly, silently, once again, putting on their funeral garb, which is their school attire, their special occasion attire, their going to the corner attire, and probably one of the two or three outfits that they own.
Philip Sr. is the first to be ready, and he waits downstairs. He could ignore his failure to provide proper nutrition or medical care for his other deceased daughters and so he no doubt felt he bore no real blame for their deaths. He was not so religious a person to believe that Fran's fate was God's retribution for violations of the churches teachings, and certainly, no one in the family would allow him this escape. His eyes were red from drink and tears. The tears were not for Fran. The tears were for himself, and for Kathryn. He had meant to hurt Kathryn with his actions. It was a game that they had played for many years. He cried for Kathryn because he knew, that he was not only burying Fran's remains, but burying Kathryn's spirit. Without her spirit, there would be no game. With no game, there would be nothing to win. He could no longer control the cards, the table, the 'pot'. With no one to control and in this new, and unexpected scenario, who would he be?
November of 1937 presented the Scanlon's with a challenge: what to do about Thanksgiving? It was decided that things would proceed as they had in year's past. Kathryn would host the family meal, and all would gather at the Parrish Street home to enjoy the turkey and all the dressings. They did the best that they could that day. Kathryn cooked, and the relatives gathered. Not much was said about the previous months events. Any references to Fran were light-hearted. The celery with cream cheese had been nibbled at, the crackers and cheese served. It was now time for everyone to enjoy the turkey, the stuffing, cranberry sauce, peas, carrots and mashed potatoes. The dining room table had been set, and everyone found their place.
Sometimes, we forget. Sometimes, the mind blithely ignores reality. On this Thanksgiving Day, at this table, someone had forgotten that Fran would not be there that day. They were all chattering and excited, as they took their seats. Simultaneously, the turkey was being delivered from the kitchen. Across from Phil Jr., and next to Kathryn's seat at the long table, was a plate, a knife, a fork, a spoon, and a napkin... There was no Fran. There would be no Fran.......
Kathryn and Philip Sr remained married. Kathryn died in her son Joseph's home near Cheltenham Avenue on December 28, 1954 after a short battle with cancer. She was in the early stages of the cancer, and was getting out of bed when she passed away. Joseph had married Cecelia and they had two daughters: Frances, and Marie.
Philip Sr. buried Kathryn and went to work installing roofs so that he could provide Kathryn and Fran with the proper tombstone that you see on the grave today. The respect he failed to show them in life, he showed them in death. Philip was 'difficult' until the day he died. His sons and daughters-in-laws took turns hosting him until he was hospitalized in a Catholic nursing home. Philip Jr. (his least favorite son) was visiting him one day in 1961. Philip Sr. had been spending most of his days sleeping, and Phil Jr. was preparing to leave. Suddenly, Philip sat up in bed, looked to the ceiling and declared "I'm ready to go...". He then died.
Joseph Thomas Scanlon had somehow avoided serving in the armed services. Most probably because he was married with children by the time the United States entered WWII. I think it can be safely said that Joseph was his father's son. This apple did not fall far from the tree. He was clever, and witty, he did not feel a great duty to hold a steady job, stay sober, or necessarily remain faithful to his wife. His daughter Marie, attended my parents wedding, and she later became a close confidant to my mother at the end of my mother's life. Joseph died after walking out of Regan's bar near Oxford Circle in the area of Philadelphia known as the Great Northeast. He came home, sat down, and as his wife Ceil was chatting with him, he died.
Edward was the youngest son. Ed and Philip feared being 'stuck' with Philip and Kathryn's ongoing care, and so within week's, both men announced their engagements. Edward married Gloria. They had four children. He too, was inclined to take after his father. He drank too much, and had difficulty maintaining employment. His youngest son (Edward) died in infancy. Ed left Gloria to raise their three children. Two daughters: Pat, and Kathy, and two sons: John and Eddie. Ed died in the early 1980's. He and his girlfriend had enjoyed breakfast at the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City that fateful June or July morning. They had no sooner stepped onto the boardwalk, taken a deep breath of the unmistakable and unforgettable creosote, salt water, and Planter's Peanut scented air, when Ed suffered a coronary embolism. The funeral director told us he was dead before his face hit the boardwalk.
My Dad (Phil Jr.) was the most responsible of Kathryn's three sons. He discontinued his high school education (St. Thomas More) to join the Air Force. I now believe he choose to die in battle as opposed to being hit by a train. He served honorably, as a Corporal in North Africa and Italy, returning to Philadelphia to finish his high school education.
He was devoted to Kathryn, and did all that he could to make her remaining years as comfortable as possible. He was also incredibly generous and kind to his brother's children. Phil would episodically try to find Ed to make sure that he was doing OK. Ed would never be doing well, and OK was the best that could be hoped for. Finding Ed was never really difficult. It might take a few days, and certainly, it took more than a few trips to the worst bars that West Philadelphia had to offer, but Ed always left a trail. It was usually a trail of bar tabs, but a trail none-the-less.
Excluding Fran, God was merciful to the Scanlon's when he called them from this mortal coil. It was Philip Jr. who was least capable of handling a long, protracted, drawn-out, suffering, and so it was Philip Jr. who suffered a long, protracted, drawn-out, suffering before his death in 1997.
My mother had pre-deceased him by five years, and in the end, the burdens of his youth, came to visit him at his death. What he feared most as a child, the monsters and demons real and imagined that he could not slay in his prime years, came to visit him in his senior years. Exacerbated by the willy-nilly heavy-handed prescription writing that was prevalent in those days, he victimized himself, and became the victim of those who prey upon the elderly and infirm.
By understanding what transpired in 1937, I began to understand what transpired in 1997. Philip Jr. had made many mistakes, but the last mistake endangered the life of someone else, and he could no longer enjoy the freedoms (limited as they were) that he had been enjoying. Fortunately, the state did not choose to prosecute. Unfortunately, the social safety net, that had protected him, quickly turned into the locomotive, boxcars, and caboose that Fran encountered on October 17, 1937.
Shortly before his death, I visited him in the nursing home that the state had selected for his care. It was a very nice place, and if life were fair, he would have passed away in some level of comfort and in some state of dignity in this very nice place. However, the funds for this nice place were limited to a ninety-day stay, and the next place was a not-very-nice-place that I could do nothing about.
A full moon was occurring on this day that I visited my Dad, in this very nice place. I found Dad in a wheelchair. He was clean, and wearing the new clothes I had purchased for him. My brother refused to visit him, and I could not visit frequently because it was far away from where I worked and lived. Dad recognized me, and reached into his pocket to get some change so he could 'buy me' some candy or soda from the vending machine. Well, no, that came later. I walked down the hallway, and he was sitting there yelling: "Fran, Fran, Fran......."
At this time (1997), I knew the general story of Fran's death. I did not know the particulars of her life, or why she was in that car, that day in 1937. I knew that she had protected Dad from his Dad, and I knew she had protected Kathryn from his Dad. My Dad rarely spoke of her, rarely spoke of Kathryn, never spoke of his father, and we only occasionally saw Joe, and never Ed.
He called out to Fran and I hoped that maybe like Philip Sr. this was the moment where my Dad was ready-to-go. That maybe Fran had come to guide him, to ease his journey. It would be so fair. If (dear reader) you only knew what the previous five years had been like for my Dad, well, hell, if you'd known what the previous five months had been like, you would have seen this as a fitting end.
My Dad and I weren't close. I liked him, I understood him. He did not like me, nor did he ever indicate that he had any kind of understanding of me. I suppose, I should just direct you to watch Field of Dreams and we (the men reading this) and I, can all boo-hoo with one another. Please don't misunderstand, I didn't start liking my dad until I was in my 20's (he died when I was 40). In spite of what he told others, I liked him for the last twenty years of his life, and I continued to like him after his death.
It was not until I wrote this essay that I understood why he did not like me: because like-father, like-son. Much like his sister Fran could 'see-through' her/their father's secrets, he feared that I would see-through him. That I would know his secrets. That I would detect a tell-tale odor; not of booze, but of a deeper secret. Let me be perfectly clear, my Dad never abused me. However, he made it perfectly clear that I was always to stand away, keep myself at arms-length physically and emotionally. Phil Jr. look in the mirror and meet Phil Sr.; pot meet kettle-black. Unlike Fran, as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, and really as an adult, I did not know his secrets. I had all the evidence - it was in clear sight. I just didn't know what the evidence meant. I put the stories together with the evidence and now - and if you take me out for a drink, I'll tell you THE BIG SECRETS But I'll never write about them.
On that full-mooned evening in the spring of 1997, none of that mattered. I sat next to him (because no one else would) I held his hand and asked him: "Do you see Fran?"
He turned to me. Dad had these steely blue eyes, and he looked at me and with a clarity and honesty I had not seen in him in a decade he stated: " I haven't seen her for sixty years."
I did not see him again until I walked into the funeral home in Lambertville. I can only hope that he spent his last days being comforted by Kathryn and Fran....
'Fran, Fran, Fran'.......... scream on old man!
EDITORIAL NOTE: I wrote this story under the mistaken impression that the accident occurred in October 1937. The only archive that I possess of documents from that time period was believed to have been lost or discarded. I recently found those documents and as can be seen from the prayer card below, Frances Ann Scanlon died on November 19, 1937. This would mean that Thanksgiving dinner shortly after Fran's death.
The photos below are of Frances and of Kathryn.
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