Fire Dogs

Buddy and Jackie with Smokey, 1940

The family stories recalled mainly by Aunt Ann (and recorded by Bambi) is that Grandpa had two dogs, Teddy & Smokey.

Teddy, 1939

Teddy was the first. He was a retired fire dog from the station.

"He wasn't neutered and he used to get out to go carousing with the lady doggies. When he would come home Grandpa would yell at him and call him a bum etc., which Grandma and others didn't like - he had a people name and I guess they were afraid the neighbors would think he was yelling at a real person in the house for bad behavior."

Ann considered the second dog Smokey her dog. "Her Smokey" died while she was down South with George during the War, about 1944-45.

Smokey, 1944

Rex in Engine Co. #8, 1929

Fire dogs are usually Dalmatians. They still ride on the fire trucks.

Dalmatian next to the driver in York, Pennsylvania

Dalmatians were traditional coach dogs, which is probably why they became fire dogs.

The story is that they aren't afraid of the horses and can run at their feet.

1865 General Rufus Ingalls with his coachman and a Dalmatian

The last horse-drawn fire wagon in NYC, 1922

Why would you want a dog running with the horses? Before there were sirens and flashing lights the fire dogs ran ahead to warn people that the horse-drawn engines were coming. The dogs apparently continued to run ahead of the gas-powered engines after the horses were replaced in the 1920s. In retirement Teddy used to run in front of the McNally family car on the way to church.

Brooklyn Company #224 with Nellie's pups

1948

We had this book when we were kids. It's advertised as

"the story of Kerry, a real dog, who became the mascot of Hook and Ladder Company Number 29 of the New York City Fire Department. After nine years of faithful service Kerry answered his last call. His death resulted from injuries sustained in the line of duty. Kerry now rests in the Hartsdale Canine and Animal Cemetery, Westchester County, New York."

See more about the McNally dogs at this post
http://mcnallyfamilyalbum.blogspot.com/2010/04/dalmatians-timmy-teddy-and-smokey.html

The Curleys

A few weeks ago I posted this photo of Anna McNally and an unknown woman. I wonder if the woman who is standing so much like Grandma and dressed so much like her is her younger sister Elizabeth.

Bess about 1893, four or five years old

Elizabeth M. Valentine Curley was born December 9, 1888 in Brooklyn, the fourth of five children of Elizabeth Daly and John Valentine. The 1910 census found her living with her sister Anna and family in the Fort Greene neighborhood in Broklyn. She was working as an operator for the telephone company.

She married Francis Xavier Curley on June 17, 1914 and gave birth to seven children between 1915 and 1932.

She died April 2, 1940 at her home at 223 Adelphi Street in Brooklyn. She and Frank were living with her mother Elizabeth Daly Valentine. Bess died at 51 of erysipelas, a streptococcus infection of the skin. Dangerous complications from the disease included gangrene and septic shock, what they might call blood poisoning. She became ill on Easter and died shortly after. Scientists were developing penicillin and other antibiotics to fight strep diseases, but they would not be available until several years after Bess's death.

She left seven children (a daughter Joan had died soon after birth in 1930). Veronica, the youngest, was seven years old. It's likely her teenagers Marie, Joseph and Valentine were still at home. Her eldest boy Francis X (Frankie) had joined the Christian Brothers a year earlier.  Her two oldest daughters Ann and Betty were in their twenties. These children were my mother's first cousins.

Their father Frank died in 1946 at 63 years old. He had been born  in Brooklyn in 1883, son of James Curley and Mary Ann Robertson. In the 1920 and 1930 censuses he was listed as a chauffeur. At the time of Bess's death he was working for the city Public Works Department.

Bess's grandson Mark believes that the young man here is Bess's son Frankie, who entered the Christian Brothers order in 1939. He writes:

"Frank Jr. was born in 1920 (died in 1981), and he was a Christian Brother for all of his adult life.  I think he is wearing lapel pins that identify him as a Christian Brother, as he wore later in life.  With the suitcase in the foreground, I wonder if this photo may be a “going away” gathering for him, either to his studies to become a Brother or to a posting. "

Mark recognizes the man behind the suitcase as his grandfather Frank, Sr. It's possible that the woman here is Bess, in which case the photo is from before 1940.

But she really doesn't resemble Grandma. I had a memory flash about the hat that Grandma has on. We have another photo taken in May of 1943 when Grandpa and Grandma were visiting Jack at his army camp. She is wearing the same hat. So assuming our Grandmother was a woman of fashion and only wore that hat for a season or two we will have to guess that the photo above was taken after 1940. We still have no idea who the woman is.

May, 1943

written on the photo

Mark's Uncle Frank (Bess's oldest son) was known as Brother Adelbert Eugene or A. Eugene.

The photo and resume are from his funeral card, courtesy of the Sheehan photos.

Veronica Curley Haverkamp, Bess's youngest child, died this summer in Nebraska. She was Aunt Vera's cousin Ronnie. She left seven children and 23 grandchildren.

More about the hat: You may think Grandma wasn't hip but here is Rosalind Russell wearing the SAME HAT (give or take a stripe or two). The hat is part of one of the world's great movie costumes in one of the world's great movies---His Girl Friday, released in 1940. 

Financial Advice

1943

Ben and Cele on the left with friends at Wyndham

1940

An unknown golfer in the family album

The photo of the golf gang at Finnegan's Tap Room in the last post brings back a few memories and inspiration to try a little internet research on the people in the photograph.

Here is a collage of George and Grace Walters Gerard. Vera said

 they owned the Halesite Golf Course where everyone golfed in the '40s.

It was at the top of Young's Hill.

These people were icons of my youth as they had, my father often told me, bought land on Long Island when it was CHEAP, operated the golf course there (near the Bay above) and then sold it when land was EXPENSIVE. At least this has been my memory.

Many times Ben bemoaned the fact that he'd never bought land on Long Island when it was cheap. As children we thought this marked him as rather foolish, letting that chance go by. It was certainly a mistake we would never make when we grew up.

Ad from 1914. My Dad was 4.

Were he around today I would remind him that he didn't have any money when land on Long Island was cheap, something I didn't realize until I was grown up. 

The ad below from spring 1945 in the N.Y. Times might be the time Ben had the opportunity to buy land from George. The ad for 65 acres says George will "sacrifice for less than the assessed valuation."

Ben in 1945

He had no money then and his first child was on the way.

I found out a little about George. He was a golfer, probably a sportsman in general, and he raised and judged registered English Setters and pointers. He was shot once as an innocent bystander in a hold-up. I found out more in this story from 1952, when he finally sold the land for $140,000 ($2,000 an acre).

 

The best thing I learned in the article was in the last 2 paragraphs:

"The Halesite golf course was laid out in the early Nineteen Hundreds by the late George Taylor and later sold for $900 an acre. About 1929 it was resold to the late C.J. Walters for $1,800 an acre. The present owner, George B. Gerard, who was Mr. Walters' son-in-law, has operated the golf course up to the present time..."

George did not buy the land cheap. He married Grace whose father owned the land. And he didn't make that much money on the land. Between 1929 and 1953 it only increased by 11 per cent.

It became the Marble Hills neighborhood. The developer advertised in 1953 that houses on 1/4 acre lots were expected to sell for $21,000 to $27,000. For those of you who don't live in Huntington I'll tell you those houses (now on smaller lots I'd imagine) go for $600,000.

 

Ben in 1966

I tried to follow out of my father's footsteps, but found that buying land when it is cheap is really no key to a fortune. I have myself purchased several parcels of land when land was cheap in Lawrence, Kansas and I am not rich yet. Land remains relatively cheap in Kansas. What he should have told me was to marry money.

 Huntington about 1910

As for local memories of the Halesite Golf Club and George...I did notice there is a Gerard Street in Huntington, right downtown north of Main.

1942. A Note From Aunt Vera

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of my mother. She is in the center

 with her sister Vera and friends at Finnegan's Bar.

Recently I found a letter from Aunt Vera with notes on the picture. No date to the letter, but perhaps in the early 1980s.  I'd sent her a photocopy and asked her to tell me about it. She identified most of the people and the event. I've spelled Grace and George Gerard's names wrong on this key---only one R.

"It's sometime in 1942---Jimmy Cooney was drafted and it was a good bye/good luck party. We had dinner etc. at Friede's in Smiththown, then came back to Finnegan's. There were more guys at the dinner. I know Turk O'Brien was there, probably the man behind George Gerard.

Guess your father took the picture
Jimmy and I are the only ones left in that front row....Mae was a friend of your mothers---a co-worker in AT&T. She and your mother became pregnant at the same time, after many years of marriage.

You're right about our having it made. [I must have admired the man/woman ratio in the group.] All the guys were from Halesite Golf Course. Cele and I were the only girls in the crowd who played golf regularly.
Tom Berry was next to be drafted. Grace Gerard owned the golf course. George, her husband, was the pro and manager."

She couldn't recall the name of the man at far right but wrote that he was a "steady customer in Finnegan's Tap Room, Wall St., Huntington."

See another post about Vera, Finnegan's and this photo by clicking here:
http://mcnallyfamilyalbum.blogspot.com/2009/10/aunt-vera.html

Cousin Lorraine said she had dinner at Finnegan's a few months ago.

Freida's in Smithtown burned down a long time ago.