The Curtin Clan of Reading, Massachusetts

My cousin Donald once confided, “Those times in your life when things turn to shit – that’s the Curtin in you.”

Obviously, he was speaking from experience. I declined to offer much in the way of acknowledgement as this topic was like the family bogey man and I knew exactly the times he was speaking of as it related to my darkest chapters. My silence was my acknowledgement.

We were related through our mothers, mine Mary, his, the older by a few years Patricia. They grew up in Reading with their brothers Edward and Arthur in what today I think of as a clan – their house sat next door to their aunts, uncles and cousins – the whole bunch of them proximate, knowing each other’s business, just like it would’ve been in the old country.

They were just third generation Irish. My great grandmother Margaret Cox and her younger sister Mary Alice immigrated in 1882 via Nova Scotia where she worked as a maid in a well-off family’s home. There was a tutor who would come on a regular basis and when he saw her interest in reading and writing he offered to teach her, too, as she was more motivated than his young students. By 1884 she had paid off her passage and relocated to Massachusetts where she had an aunt; it was how you legally immigrated at the time.

I know little else of her other than she was strict, which is a common trait of striving Irish immigrants. They knew nothing about raising children other than to take them to church each Sunday and strictly enforce the doctrines, which became the basis of their child rearing techniques.

My father wss always busy doing something around the house or in the basement; my mother was smart. She loved telling stories of how she would take no grief from bullies in the schoolyard – how she’d punched a boy who caused her trouble. She was proud of sticking up for herself. She was also proud of being class salutatorian, second in rank to the valedictorian, who was probably a boy and I’m thinking school administrators in those days would’ve been reluctant to give such recognition to a girl.

She also grew up in an alcoholic home. She would keep this secret from me until she was well into her adult life; it carried shame. Today we think of it as a disease, but not in the times she grew up in. My uncle Art was not shy to speak around about it, “Take it easy on the sauce,” he’d warn me at every family picnic or party when drink was served. I had to read between the lines to understand that they all paid a price growing up with a drinker in the house.

But there were so many happy times my mother loved to share. Growing up with all her cousins right next door – they could wander out for some jump-rope, to shoot marbles, play patty cake and whatever other pastimes they preferred.

Anchoring this commune was Aunt Mamie’s big house sitting up high on a stone bluff, two stories above the corner of Charles and Pearl Streets – it had a gothic look to it.

Every one of the kids loved Aunt Mamie as she was a great cook and she knew many of them were hungry. Mamie loved to spoil her nieces and nephews, mostly I suppose as she spent much of her early married life having miscarriages, four is the number I remember, but then two others died shortly after birth, which must have been a tragic burden to bear for her.

Eventually two children survived… Agnes in 1925 and Hugh in 1928. She spoiled them rotten, as you can imagine.

Hughie lived at home and never married.

But Aunt Agnes grew up to be the character Disney would use to create Cruella DeVille in 101 Dalmatians, or so I thought. She was tall and had dark features. She wore dark sunglasses; she smoked and drank and engaged in sharp commentary. She’d get in your face, which to us kids was frightening. But as an adult when I reflect, she was not cruel, but she had “party” written all over her. She had an on-again, off-again marriage with John Ferrick, a WW II Purple Heart recipient and an ex-con, who was a fine enough guy, but even as a young kid I was wary. John and Agnes, they would not be your ideal parents, but they had two girls, Dianne and Karen, who spent many of their formative years living with their grandmother, my aunt Mamie.

It’s just a few days ago that this family history came to mind again. One of my 3 sisters was posting in the family chat room about how she was looking for one of Agnes’s daughters, Karen Ferrick McCarthy. There’s been no contact in 50 years, but my other sister was quick to find Karen living close by in Tewksbury, MA – just one town over from where we grew up.

I imagine we’ll soon know more about Karen and her life story, but in the meantime we siblings have been sharing remembrances of these second cousins. I can clearly remember my sister Mary and I visiting Aunt Mamie, Karen and Dianne – us kids would disappear upstairs where there was a record player with Elvis 45s. Mary and I had never seen a record player or listened to Elvis, so this is what made the visit so memorable. We mimicked dance moves that Karen and Dianne knew and we didn’t – it was great rainy day fun.

So it’s ironic that this exact setting, upstairs, probably on the third floor of this big old house would be the setting of some of my most common nightmares. Nothing unseemly ever occurred in Mamie’s house, I’m guessing that there were a few steps from this third story bedroom, up to a door that led to the attic. Something of that attic stuck deep in my unconscious, fueling my nightmares over the years. I’m guessing that writing up these memories will likely bring back this spooky attic to a bedtime sometime soon.

But my sister Mary’s interest in reconnecting with Karen opened another door, that being the tragic death of her older sister, Dianne. I never knew the details until now…

Miss Dianne Ferrick
WILMINGTON – Two teenagers were killed early today when the car in which they were riding smashed into a bridge abutment at Rtes. 93 and 129, on the south bound lane. State Police said the driver, John Gordon, 15, of 88 Hancock St. Stoneham, and Miss Dianne Ferrick, 17, of 14 Mt. Vernon St, Melrose were killed instantly.
Both were pronounced dead at the scene by Medical Examiner Thomas P. Devlin.
State trooper Arthur J. Bourkue, who is investigating the accident, said the car was completely, demolished.
(The article goes on)
In Fitchburg, a couple celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary were killed Sunday when their car plunged over an embankment on Rte. 2A opposite Snow Mill Pond.

My sister Maureen added,
I remember Mom getting the phone call.
I was in the downstairs bathroom and heard Ma on the phone. I was frozen in
fear. Didn’t want to overhear the conversation but was too scared to leave the
bathroom. I would have been 9.

As for myself, I can almost hear my mother’s screams.

But I was not home at the time, I was away at university. If I got word of this tragedy, it might’ve been well after the fact. Hours away in the opposite direction at a time with little to no public transportation, if anyone even thought about telling me they blanched at the idea of having to go fetch me for the services. Instead, I would learn later. The Irish are good at keeping secrets.

It’s only decades later that I ever thought what this tragedy must have meant to my aunt Mamie. Her life was filled with lost children.

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