MA

Ma was the 4th of 5 children born in January 1929 in Buffalo, NY in the "Old First Ward". Her father was a self taught stationery engineer who managed to provide modest necessities throughout the depression. They were not well off but they didn't miss any meals. Her mother was a hardworking type with a heart of gold. She never turned away anyone that was hungry and she often fed the men jockeying for day labor on the waterfront from their meager provisions. They were devout Catholics and Ma was as reverent as you could imagine. Everyone in the First Ward were Irish Catholics, or so it seemed, and the community shared common challenges during difficult times. People all knew each other and the community bonded together in their support of relatives still in Ireland. St Brigid's church was built by Bishop Timon, the first Irish Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Buffalo, and the church became a gathering place for the faithful. It also became a place where guns were smuggled to Ireland and the rebellious Irish met secretly to organize unions on the waterfront and in the steel mills.

How ma, a devout and reverent woman, ever ended up with my rabble rousing father is still a mystery to me. He was worldly and charming and she was unworldly and quiet. Mom and dad were married in Buffalo in 1951 and at first settled in the Ward. I was born when they lived over the "Soda and Ice Cream" shop on South Park Avenue. I was born in March of 1952 and sometime in the next year we moved out to South Buffalo before my Bother was born in July of 1953, Irish Twins. There were originally 5 of us born about 15 months apart, but a third boy died in child birth. My sisters were born in 1957 and 1958. We lived in a house purchased by my parents and paternal grandparents with whom we lived until I was about 12 years old.

We were not well off as my father was in and out of work until he went on the Fire Department in 1961. Ma supplemented our household income by working as a waitress. She was a hardworking loyal woman who never really had any interests other than her children. Relatives would joke about ma taking all us kids shopping on a Saturday. We were all hyperactive and Ma spent most of her time chasing us down the aisles and putting goods back on the shelf. She didn't get a lot of help with us from my father. We were often watched by my Maternal Grandmother who was a great storyteller and my Uncle Tom who never married.

Our home was a war zone at times as my father would disappear for weeks at a time and return home drunk and mean. Ma protected us kids from his temper and took the brunt of his abuse herself. She put up with a lot until my father stopped drinking in 1961. Soon after he stopped drinking he separated from Ma off and on for the rest of his life. Home 3-4 years at a time and then gone an equal amount. When he was around he was working, holding 3-4 jobs at a time. He was a hard worker but a difficult man.

Ma was the sole caregiver for us kids and had to work to provide us with the basics. She worked all kinds of crazy shifts to allow her to be home when we got home from school so she could monitor our free time. She really had no personal life to speak of and her only social outlet was her work as a waitress. This is very important because as she aged and degenerated she became unable to work and she had no other interests.

As my siblings and I grew up and had families of our own, Ma took care of our kids while we worked, vacationed or just needed time for ourselves. Ma took an important nurturing role with all of her grandchildren and sacrificed all she had for their care.

Ma was a self diagnosing patient when sick, using Vick's VapoRub for everything from a common cold to a heart attack when she was fifty. She didn't like medicine and I don't believe she ever took a medicine for as long as it was prescribed until she was about 50 years old when her heart attack and other ailments required her to take medicines daily or die. My story starts there and is ongoing today as she has dementia and can no longer live alone and I don't have the heart to put her in an assisted living facility. Our day to day living experiences are the source of much frustration and humor as we muddle through the dementia, hardening of the arteries, COPD and advanced hearing loss.