A Glimpse into Rita and Charlie’s Married Life

Last night I sat in the recliner in my family room while decades of cancelled checks gave me an overview of my parents’ life together.   I realize that my parents could certainly be categorized as “pack rats”.   In all honesty, it appeared that they never seemed to part with anything; every single piece of paper that entered the house remained there forever.   

Interestingly though, in many ways they were extremely organized.  My Mom had an intricately cataloged library she created for St. Michael’s Parish in East NY Brooklyn many years ago.  The library is partly contained - I say partly since it quickly outgrew this one bookcase - in a home-made wooden bookshelf that my father had specifically built for this purpose.  This bookshelf is a rather elaborate thing; folds like a book; can be locked, and is on wheels for easier transport.  Every book is meticulously numbered.  I can only imagine how much time this entire operation must have required.  The sad part is my parents ran out of room for all this stuff and this marvelous co-creation ended up mildewed in the basement. 

So when my son – who continues to work diligently on the monumental task of cleaning out my parents’ basement - handed me a shoebox of canceled checks and deposit record logs to shred or burn, I just couldn’t resist.   I had to look them over.   I just had to.   

Talk about organized!  Every month of every year since 1962 is folded away neatly inside that month’s Checking Account Statement from the bank.   Each little packet contains the canceled checks from that particular month, stapled together and attached to the statement.  Then a rubber band holds the activities of that month all neatly together.  On the outside of the packet in my Dad’s distinctive print is written the month and year.   As an example, I picked up a little packet labeled Nov 1983.  It was a busy month apparently.  A lot of checks were written and the packet is a bit bigger than some other months.  The Checking Account Statement is from the Queens County Savings Bank of Flushing, NY. This information alone reminds me of my father’s typical routine.  Although he officially retired from his position as Physics Assistant and Adjunct Physics Professor at Queens College in Flushing, NY in 1976, he loved that job and that place and had a permanent desk there.  On his way back and forth from work (he always loved going against the traffic and away from NYC) he would stop at a local supermarket to buy the groceries and do the banking.  This simple bank statement reminded me of this time.  It was a pleasant memory for me.  There were many other mostly pleasant memories that were provoked as I “looked” quickly through the days and the months, and the years.  

I easily gleaned a feeling, once again - I say once again as I guess I knew this already- of the type of people Rita and Charlie were.  Not surprisingly, where you spend your money says a lot about you.  Certainly there were a bunch of practical requirements of life in the 20^th century represented in these checks – The New York Telephone Company – Nov 7, 1983 check # 1597 - $47.66; The Brooklyn Union Gas Co. check # 1598 - $30.14       In that month alone, my parents wrote checks for the following “charitable” donations: The Maryknoll Sisters - $10 (my parents sent money to the Maryknoll Sisters religiously for decades probably because my mother was prouder than a peacock that her mother’s first cousin – her cousin once removed – was Mother Mary Coleman, the Mother General of the Maryknoll Sisters from 1959 until 1971.

There was a check # 1602 for $25 for the “Oblate Missions” – This check has “IMO, Anna Dannenhoffer “written in small print in the left hand corner of the check so it is obviously something my father’s Aunt Anna (his father’s sister) requested.  This reminds me of the fact that my father did a heck of a lot of things for a heck of a lot of people and it makes me think that Aunt Anna probably didn’t do checks.

There was a check for “The Sacred Heart League” for $10.  I believe that my parents subscribed to a magazine entitled, The Sacred Heart Messenger. There was a check for “Our Sunday Visitor” which I believe was a Catholic Newspaper periodical.  Over all these decades of checks I could observe that apparently my parents read a lot about being Catholic or at least they subscribed to a lot of Catholic literature.  

There was a check for $5 for “The Society of the Divine Savior” I don’t know why other than that my parents were Catholic through and through.  Possibly my mother knew a priest or brother connected with this organization.  She was always befriending one priest or another. Once, the parish priest at St. Michael’s in East New York told my mother she was more religious than the Pope (or something along those lines).  

There was a check for “Our Sunday Visitor” which I believe was a Catholic Newspaper periodical.  Over all these decades of checks I could observe that they apparently read a lot about being Catholic.

There was a check for $25 for the “Nat’l Committee of Catholic Laymen”. I like to think this had something to do with the Vatican II philosophy that we, the people, are just as much the Incarnation of Christ as any of the priests and bishops.  

There is a $20 check to the “Bishop’s Diocesan Support Appeal”.   It is still a “big deal” annual appeal today in 2015.  I wonder how long this appeal has been going on.  And, not to be rude, I wonder how much of this money has been used to pay for retribution to Sex Abuse victims.  Nonetheless, Bob & I still give to this Appeal as we don’t want the poor to suffer because of the sins of the father.  Hope never dies!

There is a $10 check to Misericordia – Heart of Mercy and in the memo section it says in my Dad’s handwriting “ATT: SISTER ROSEMARY.  I assume this was a nun he/they befriended unless it had something to do with my Dad’s younger sister, Rosemary Fries McBride.   This reminds me that my Father chauffeured the nuns around his entire life.  He took them wherever they wanted to go and when they said, “jump”, he said, “how high”? I know he believed that catering to the Sisters would get him into heaven.  He wanted me to enter the convent, for that very reason.  If I became a nun, he would have a sure ticket through those Pearly Gates.  As most of you know, I was far from a nun so my Dad had to earn heaven in another way.

There is a check for St. Michael’s Community Church for $5 and in the memo is written “raffle”.   St. Michael the Archangel was the parish in East New York Brooklyn that I grew up in. This is the parish that my father grew up in. It is on Jerome Street and it is a beautiful structure inside and out, built by German immigrants in? (I’ll have to look this up again).  I have compared every other church and every other Catholic experience to this church and these experiences. I dare say, so did my father. My mother had experiences in a previous Church that she knew and loved- Our Lady of Good Counsel in the Bushwich section of Brooklyn. Rita married Charlie there on Oct. 19^th 1940.  Nonetheless, while she raised her children, St. Michael’s became her church home.   

This is far from over but I have to do other things - like shower, clean closets, etc.  

Does this mean anything to anyone? I wonder out loud but I guess it doesn't really matter in a way, since it means something to me and no one forces you to read it.  I want to believe that our lives matter and that the people who came before us and on whose shoulders we stood, should not disintegrate entirely into dust.  Who they were and what was important to them influences who we are today and what we will be in the future.