Irish Above All

by Mary Pat Kelly

  I fell asleep with Aunt Nelly’s nightgown wrapping me. Chicago. Welcome home.

  2

  “Do you remember,” I said to Ed, as we drove out to Argo the next day, “when we lined up to get on the Ferris wheel at the World’s Fair? Me fourteen, and you seventeen, Ed. So excited, you were, telling me about pistons and horsepower and such until all of us Kellys, fifty-strong, piled into the gondola as big as a Pullman car for our ride to the top. The whole family together, Granny Honora holding Agnella. Such a happy moment, just dusk, when the colored lights outlining every building flashed on! Every one of us, child and adult, sighed, ‘Ahhh!’ then ‘Ohhh! Ohhh!’ as the darkness was suddenly bright.”

  “I remember,” Ed said. “That’s what I want for Chicago, a skyline shining against the night sky, buildings gathered along a great highway: Lake Shore Drive. Nonie, I want to have a grand fountain, all lit up, shooting spumes of red, yellow, blue, and green water up toward the heavens. Chicago can do it. I’m on the South Park Commission now. The land we need is under our jurisdiction. We’ve the plans Daniel Burnham made. And we can get the money, private as well as public, to fill in the lakefront. Rich people want roads for their new automobiles, so they’ll let the poor have parks. And I can do it. I know how to get crews of men to work. Pat Nash’s company is ready to go. He’ll lay all the sewers we need.

  “But there’s this fellow Wilcox, who calls himself reverend, though of what church I don’t know, who’s sure I’m the Devil incarnate and out to steal the taxpayers’ money. Calls our projects boondoggles. He started his own newspaper just to attack me and the other fellows working for the city. Accuses us of giving bribes and taking bribes. But Wilcox doesn’t know what it takes to actually construct something. And if the wheels have to be greased a bit, so what?”

  Ed certainly wasn’t hurting. He told me his salary as chief engineer was fifteen thousand dollars a year. Amazing! Twenty times as much as either of our fathers could ever dream of making, and yet his car had to cost five thousand, and that house … Mary Roche came from money herself, and I suppose she’d left some of that to Ed. Not that his house could compare to the real mansions on Prairie and Michigan Avenues where the Armours, McCormicks, and Potter Palmers lived. Okay to make big wads of money, as they had, from buying cheap and selling dear, from paying your workers buttons, but wrong to get a bit of the commission on a job well done? Why shouldn’t Ed give the contracts to Pat Nash when his company did the job best?

  Ed explained to me that as well as attacking him for his lack of qualifications (“Didn’t I learn more working with the Army surveying team than some Eastern university can teach?”), Wilcox was after him for featherbedding—putting too many men on a crew and overpaying suppliers.

  “Let him try to pave a road or get concrete delivered on time. Does he want mobs of fellows without jobs wandering the streets, getting into trouble? No telling what a man desperate to feed his family will do. Jobs, that’s what makes Chicago great. We know how to put our people to work. And all this folderol about sealed bids and such? Technicalities. I want the contract to go to a company we can rely on. I’ve no patience with these Reformers.… They could never push one big project through from beginning to end. We’re building the greatest stadium in the country. If I could shake off these gadflies and get to work, who knows what we could accomplish.”

  He said that the just-elected Democratic mayor, Bill Dever, was with him, but the Republicans were determined to get Big Bill Thompson, the biggest crook the city had ever known, back in office.

  “They can’t bear to see the Irish getting real power,” I said.

  “Good to have you home, Nonie,” Ed said as we pulled up to Michael’s house. “I always could talk to you.”

  “Cousins,” I said. “Closer than friends, less complicated than brother and sister.”

  Ed jerked his head toward the back seat where Ed Junior was trailing his hand out of the window and probably listening to every word. Ed turned to him. “That’s how it’ll be for you and Mike.” And Ed Junior smiled.

  Aunt Nelly had washed and ironed my blouse for me. “Lovely stuff,” she’d said. “But what do you have for everyday?” Taken aback when I’d pulled out the trouser suit. “Dear God, Nonie. Please. Enough talk already about…,” she’d said. And she’d stopped. What has Henrietta been telling people about me? I wondered as I followed Ed up the front walk.

  Rosemary and Ann were out with their friends. After school they moved from the front porch of one to the backyard of another, with occasional trips to Stone’s Drugstore. But Marguerite was staying close to Rose, next to her while she cared for baby Frances. Marguerite seemed afraid her aunt would disappear. Ed Junior joined Mike, Bobby Lambert, and the gang of small boys who roamed the prairie from early morning.

  “A peaceful house without that other Mrs. Kelly,” Jesse said as the two of us went through the kitchen cupboards, making a shopping list. “Your sister and that son of hers went to other stores on their own,” Jesse said. “Not great quality considering the amount of money they claimed to spend. But poor Mr. Kelly never questioned her, and it wasn’t my place…”

  Toots up to his old tricks, and Henrietta going along with him. Ed had driven over to Michael’s plumbing office, and Mame was sleeping. Quiet.

  But late that afternoon the children came into Mame’s room. She sat up in bed with a framed photograph on her lap—a portrait of the family I’d noticed on her dressing table. The girls snuggled up. Mike stood at the side of the bed. Ed had picked up his son, and they’d left. I planned to spend the night. Rose sat at the foot of the bed holding baby Frances, with me next to her.

  Ann traced her mother’s face in the photograph. “Tell us the story again,” she said.

  “Alright.” Mame smiled up at us.

  “Once upon a time,” Mame said, “there was a very happy family that lived together on a lovely, leafy street in a place called…”

  “Argo,” the children shouted together.

  “There were four sisters,” Mame said.

  “Rosemary,” the children said together, “Ann, Marguerite, and Frances.” As they went on, they pointed to themselves in the photograph.

  “And one strong brother,” Mame said.

  “Named Michael,” the girls said in unison, and Mike put his finger on his own face.

  “And a wonderful mother and father,” Ann added.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “But one day a very sad thing happened,” Mame said. “The mama got sick, and she was very sorry that her body became so weak and tired that she had to go to bed.”

  “And then the wicked old aunt came,” Rosemary said.

  “Stop, Rosemary,” Ann said, “that’s not part of the story.”

  “It should be,” Rosemary said.

  “Go on, Mama,” Marguerite said.

  Mame continued. “Now these children had two very lovely fairy godmothers. One lived far away…”

  “That’s you, Aunt Nonie,” Ann said.

  “… and the other didn’t know the family needed her.”

  “Like you, Aunt Rose,” Rosemary said.

  “But the mother knew those women loved her and her children very much. And so she prayed to Our Lady to send them to Argo to help their godchildren.”

  “And you came!” Ann said.

  “Be quiet,” Rosemary said. “Let Mama finish.”

  “And when the mother saw her two friends, she felt ever so much better, and everyone lived happily ever after.”

  Little Marguerite clapped her hands. Rosemary and Ann each kissed one of their mother’s cheeks, and Mike stroked her hair.

  “Please God,” said Rose, as she rocked baby Frances.

  “And now that your two godmothers are here, we’re not going anywhere,” I said, and picked up the photograph. “This is a wonderful piece of work, beautifully lit, you all look so natural.”

  “Mabel Sykes is the best portrait photographer in Chicago,” Mame said.

>   “You know your aunt Nonie takes pictures, girls,” Rose said.

  “I do,” I said. “Soon I’ll bring my camera and take a picture of you all, but not as posed as this—outside in the yard, say.”

  “Or we could go on a picnic like we used to,” Ann said. “Remember, Mama, when you drove the car all the way out to the woods and we had sandwiches and lemonade and cake? Nobody else’s mother could even drive a car, and you brought us on an adventure.”

  “Mama’s word for fun,” Rosemary said.

  “I remember,” Mike said.

  “I do too,” Marguerite said.

  “You don’t. You were too little,” Rosemary said.

  “But I do, I do, Mama.”

  “I know, Marguerite,” Mame said. Then she closed her eyes and went into a half sleep, where she spent the rest of the day.

  “She gets so tired,” Rose explained after we had sent the children downstairs to the kitchen and Jesse for an early dinner, had put the baby down, and were sitting on the front porch. Michael wasn’t home so we had a chance to really talk about Mame’s condition.

  “The doctor said she can’t throw off the infection. I wish she’d never had the operation. That’s when Michael let Henrietta move in to help with baby Frances and the others. But she didn’t get better. Henrietta kept saying it was TB, but we’ve never had TB in our family,” said Rose.

  Still shameful to contract TB, a disease of the poor, crowded into basements, drinking dirty water.… “But the doctor said she needed the operation because of ‘female problems.’”

  “That’s what I told Henrietta,” Rose said. “But she told me Michael had probably bribed him to lie. That’s what led to our big fight. It was terrible, Nonie. I actually took Henrietta by the shoulders and shook her to make her stop. Mame was upstairs. If she had heard…”

  “What does Mame think is wrong?”

  “She blames herself for not getting better.”

  “Poor Mame,” I said. “That doctor…”

  “I know,” Rose said. “Too late to do anything about him.” She took my hand. “We have to help her children, Nonie. If Mame … well, we have to make them ours.”

  “I’m sure you and John—” I started.

  “We need you, Nonie. You have a way with Michael and Ed, can talk politics with them, make them laugh. You’ll stay, won’t you, Nonie?”

  “Alright, Rose. But we’re being too gloomy. Mame may rally.”

  “Yes,” Rose said. “Too awful though to think of these children losing their mother so young. I was twenty-five when Mam died, and a blow then. Who else loves you no matter what, except your mother?”

  And Mame did seem to hold her own. All through April and May she was stable. Sleeping a lot, but able to get up for an hour or two—even sit in the yard. Dr. Gillespie came once a week. “The will to live can be powerful,” he said.

  * * *

  I settled into a routine. I had a nice room at Ed’s. Aunt Nelly, Ed Junior, and I spent the evenings playing cards together and listening to a fellow called Uncle Bob read stories on their big radio when Ed was out at political meetings. Most days I took the Archer Avenue streetcar out to Argo to be with Rose, Mame, and the Kelly kids.

  But one night in May, Ed said he was spending the next day out at the stadium building site. “Let me go with you,” I’d said, “and take some photographs.” I’d come down to breakfast dressed in my trouser suit, Seneca in hand.

  Aunt Nelly looked at Ed. “Do you have an account at Field’s?” She turned to me. “We’ll buy a few skirts and sweaters for you as a welcome home gift. Until then, come upstairs with me—I think I can find you something to wear today.”

  What could I say? I put on what probably had been a dress of Mary’s and went with Ed to the stadium site. I took the usual-type shots of Ed with the workers and the foremen. But then I posed him between two of the Corinthian columns, the light slanting in behind him creating a kind of halo effect.

  Ed had my photographs developed and printed, and a few days later laid them out on the dining room table after dinner.

  “Excellent, Nonie!” Aunt Nelly said.

  “You look so big, Dad,” Ed Junior told his father.

  “Well done, Nonie,” Ed told me. “I want to frame these and put them in my office.” He handed me a ten-dollar bill.

  I shook my head. “You’re supporting me,” I said. Room and board and a Chicago wardrobe. I started to imagine Mame cured and me returning to Paris.

  There might be a letter waiting for me now, at the Irish College. Cyril, Peter’s comrade-in-arms, had promised to write and tell me where Peter was buried and when I could safely visit his grave. “Best to stay away during all this tit for tatting,” he’d said when he brought me the terrible news. “We’ll wear ourselves out sooner or later.”

  * * *

  Then, in June, Mame relapsed. In bed all the time. I took Mike, Ed Junior, and Bobby Lambert to the Fourth of July parade to see the Civil War veterans from the Irish Legion and the Irish Brigade march down Archer Avenue. A good few of them still alive, since they had all been so young when they enlisted. My dad at twenty-one had been one of the oldest to join. Granny Honora and Aunt Máire never stopped arguing about whether or not the boys should have fought.

  Michael had let me take his car after I’d proved to him that I could drive by going around the block five times. I started to tell him how I’d been at the wheel of plenty of ambulances, taking patients from the battlefield to the American hospital in Paris, but he’d said to me, “Not now, Nonie.”

  I’d dropped Ed Junior back at his house.

  I wondered if Ed Junior understood how sick Mame was, and was he remembering when his own mother was struck? What age had he been … about six—Mike’s age. Old enough to remember.

  My brother was with Mame in her room when we returned. He still slept beside her every night. Mame liked to have him close, Rose had said to me, because she was afraid she’d die in the night and no one would know.

  So hot in the room, drenched in the afternoon sun that day. Michael patted Mame’s forehead with a damp towel while Mike told his father about the soldiers and the flags, and how I’d said that his grandfather had fought in the war along with all his uncles and cousins. Michael only nodded his head, though I thought Mame started to say something to him and then stopped.

  That night, I stayed over, sharing the guest room with Rose. I got up after midnight to go to the bathroom, and there was Mike standing in front of his parents’ bedroom, holding a stick on his shoulder.

  “I’m guarding Mama,” he said. “Something’s trying to kill her, but I’m going to get it first.” After a pause, he asked, “Will my mama get better?”

  “Your mother wants to stay with you more than anything else in the world. She’s fighting very hard,” I said.

  “I wish I had a whole lot of soldiers to fight with me, like those men with rifles in the parade. I’d stand with them and never go out or play or sleep or anything.”

  I heard soft voices coming from Michael and Mame’s room. I brought Mike in to them. He stood next to the bed at attention as his mother smoothed his hair, and his father lay with his eyes closed, though I knew he was awake.

  That next morning, Mame’s breathing got very labored. Michael told Rose and me to bring the children to her room. They stood together, each one finding some bit of Mame to touch. Ann and Rosemary each held one of her hands, Mike and Marguerite the other. Rose cradled Frances while Michael sat on the bed and stroked her cheek.

  Mame opened her eyes. She looked at Rose. “Take care of them, Rose. You and Nonie. Help Michael.” And then she smiled. “Ah, Michael,” she said.

  “Oh, Mame,” he said, “Mame, don’t go. I love you so.”

  “I love you,” she answered, “all of you, so much.”

  Rose knew the moment had come when, with the softest of sighs, Mame left us. Rose looked at me and shook her head. Michael saw the exchange.

  “No,” he sai
d. “No, Mame. Wake up, please! Mamie, don’t go. Not yet.”

  Then Rosemary started crying, sobbing.

  Ann said, “What? Is Mama…?”

  Mike and Marguerite pulled on Mame’s hand.

  “Mama. Mama. It’s warm out, Mama. We could go to the lake,” Mike said. “Take a picnic.”

  Marguerite dropped Mame’s hand and ran to Rose, who picked her up, holding Frances on one hip and Marguerite on the other. Rose moved slightly from side to side, rocking the little girls and murmuring, “It’s alright. It’s alright.”

  But it wouldn’t be alright for the Kelly kids, not ever again. They would recover from the most awful parts of grief and would go on, I hoped, to find happiness with families of their own. But always, always, this scene would wait in their memory. Mame’s death. And the terrible, sad days that followed.

  3

  “But, Aunt Nonie, they’re laughing!” Ann was crying as she pointed to the crowd gathered in the biggest viewing room of the Kelly–Doran Funeral Home. Viewing Room—that’s what was written on the card in the doorway. Viewing Room, and poor Mame on display in the same silk dress and pearls she had worn in the family portrait taken by Mabel Sykes. In fact, Ed had given the photograph to his chief embalmer so that he could see what Mame had looked like before the last months when she got so thin.