Tim: This is, this is the fifth one we've done. Oh boy. I wanted to ask about Grandma Toohey. Alright. How many years you lived right here and she lived there? That'd be from like forty...  

Mom: We moved here in forty six. She died in...  

Tim: Sixty four. Sixty four. So that's,  

Mom: uh... Twenty some years. Eighteen. Okay. What do you want to know about her?

Tim: Did she ever leave the house and walk down here? No. Mom, I know.  

Mom: Only when we would leave town, she would come and babysit and darn socks. Nobody probably darned socks anymore. But I'd have a whole basket of socks that needed darning. And she'd make them so thick and awful. Thick with darn. But that was her job.

She sat here when we were out to a baseball game or something like that.  

Tim: And the kids, some kids were here?  

Mom: Oh, yes. Maureen was a favorite. She ran errands for Grandma all the time. Took care of what Grandma Toohey needed at the store.  

Tim: It's funny, I don't, I never remember her being in this house, not once.

Not once? Nope, not once. And she lived right there. Yes. That's amazing. I must have a bad memory.  

Mom: She stayed here. She stayed overnight? Oh yeah. Where? Up in your bed? I don't know. Maybe in our bed. I don't know.

Tim: Did she cook for us? She must have if she stayed over. Probably. I remember being there a lot in her kitchen.

And, you know, she'd actually give me whiskey when I had a toothache. Nine, ten years old. I'd stagger down the yard to get back here.  

Mom: And I didn't know it. Was she a good cook? Not particularly. Irish.

Tim: Irish food? Soft. Just boil the water, put the meat in, and then take it out and eat it?

Mom: Let it boil. Yep. And...  

Tim: We didn't go there, like, on Sundays, like, for a family or anything, did we?

Mom: Quite often. We did? Yes. Holidays, always. Aunt Ann...  

Tim: Would come here? Come to her house?  

Mom: Come to her house. Yes.  

Tim: Would you say she was a happy woman?  

Mom: No, never. If you saw pictures I have, she looked a hundred years old when she was in her sixties. She was so unhealthy. Mentally and physically. Mentally, really? Oh, yes.

And I didn't realize it, but... Was it depression or something, would you say? They used to put patients in that thing where they... I don't know what you called it, Tim. Where they take your brain and take it apart.  

Tim: Like electro... Yes. Electroshock therapy, something?  

Mom: Shock. That's it. They did that to her? They gave her shock treatment.

Tim: Well, her life had its ups and downs, didn't it? Right. Very much so. She lost a daughter.  

Mom: And a husband.  

Tim: And, and a son. Yes. One son, right? And John, of course, was a tragic situation. Right. So the daughter, how did the daughter die?  

Mom: I don't know. First they said, what I heard, she had an accident in skiing. Or sledding downhill over on the hill by what was the Buena Vista. 9th Street. Yeah. Yeah. And she had a sledding accident that... Do you... And back in those days, you know, the sleds were not...  

Tim: She might have had a brain injury or something she died of? Probably. Gee, why do you, do you question whether that was accurate or,

Mom: I didn't know her or anything about it.  

Tim: Do you remember her name?

Mom: She was Mary.

Tim: Mary, yeah. Was she about 12? Uh, probably. Yeah. And then John, do you know how John got sick? Was he born with some,  

Mom: They claimed it was on the disease at, at the point of the, uh, 19 hundreds at the World War I, there was some disease that went through. And left everybody mentally disabled. But I think he might have been a problem child.

And who was the other one they had with a bad arm?  

Tim: They had a son other than Matt, Pat, Dick, and John. John, he had a bad arm? I think so. Did you ever see him? No. So when you came here, he was gone to the, uh...

Mom: I didn't know anybody but the twins and their big brother. Dick.  

Tim: Dick John? No. Dick John was the one who went to the hospital.

Yeah. Dick  

Mom: and And Aunt Ann, yeah. Mary was gone.  

Tim: So did... those things might have contributed to Grandma Toohey's...?  

Mom: Oh, I'm sure they did. Sadness. I think so. Her decline. Yeah, but uh,  

Tim: she never drove, did she? No. I don't remember even taking a walk. Did she walk down out to the,  

Mom: probably not. She had bad legs.

Tim: Did Uncle Pat do a lot for her, would you say?

Mom: Always. He did? I think he and Dad. But Uncle Pat was more inclined to be over to her house every day. Make sure she had everything she needed. And she was well taken care of.

Tim: Was she close to Mary? Aunt Mary, would you say? Oh, Mary visited. Yeah. You know, she had some connection with the Tuscaroras, too.  

Mom: Well, there was rumor that there was Tuscarora in her blood.

Tim: Really? Yes. Well, that was kind of like a, that's more of a gossip. Yes. Well, you know...

Mom: But then Dad was very close to Tuscaroras, so whether there was a connection, I don't know.  

Tim: When I was trying to...

Mom: But she was a Pekin, you know, and was the daughter of a...  

Tim: Barkeep. Up in Pekin? Yes. What was her maiden name? Oh,  

Mom: don't ask me now.

Tim: I should know. I know. I'm terrible, I can't. You know, when I was, Joe Anderson hired me, the Smokin Joe, and then he came back the next day and he said, I can't hire you. My mom said, I have to hire somebody else. I said, where's your mom? He said, she works at the Fatima Shrine. I went to see her and I introduced myself.

She asked me if I was related to Elizabeth Toohey. She's, I think she said that she baptized her, or had some... I  

Mom: think, I think there was a big connection there, that I never knew, or was told about.  

Tim: We should explore that, that's fascinating. You should. Hmm. I... But, did Grandma die at home? Oh yeah. Did she? What, do you know what she died of?

Old age. She wasn't even 80, I bet.  

Mom: Yeah, but she, not well. I hope she went to sleep in her bed.  

Tim: Died in her sleep? Yeah. She might have been 80, I don't know, do you? No, she was not 80. She didn't live to 80? Late 70s. She looked old, I just, even pictures...  

Mom: She was sick. Huh. Yeah. And no will to live.  

Tim: Even with Aunt Anne and so on, and all the grandchildren?

Mom: I don't think she was thinking she was... You know, times were so different back then. Well, it was only... It was  

Tim: the 60s. It was only less than 60 years ago. I know,  

Mom: but Tim... There was hardly any television.  

Tim: Did she call you on the phone and say, Marilyn, how's it going? No. Did you watch Ed Sullivan last night? No.

She didn't do anything like that?  

Mom: She watched Ed Sullivan. Did she? And I don't know if we did or not, probably. She... Not living on the fact that we have to watch Ed Sullivan.  

Tim: She had friends, didn't she? And did she have any sisters or brothers or anything? Seems weird to me, like she lived right there, and I don't know, we don't know much about her.

Brian may know more. Brian did some research.

Mom: I think he makes it up.  

Tim: Ah! I don't think so. He, he does his research. He got, he, he, he checked some stuff out. But, gee, she died, I, do you remember her funeral? I do remember that, because I was, I was 17, 64.  

Mom: She was religious all her life.  

Tim: She was what? Religious.

Religious? Yes. Did she go to mass?  

Mom: Probably not, but rosary. Oh yeah. Things like that. Say her night prayers.  

Tim: She had, her wake was in her house, remember? Yeah.  

Mom: Do you ever remember our little baby dying?  

Tim: Gerald? Yeah. Of course I do, yeah. What year was that?  

Mom: His funeral was at her house.  

Tim: That I didn't know. Yes. In a coffin? That's where I remember it, yes. Not a open coffin.

Mom: A little baby. Yes. And he had this beautiful little blue outfit on and he was...  

Tim: did that break your heart? It must have. Oh, yes. Uh, you know, Brian and me were, we were, Brian and I were down at Jimmy McConnell's and we heard dad drive by in the morning, five o'clock.

It sounded like the, the loudest, fastest moving car I'd ever heard. He was apparently taking the baby to Dr. Alderman. He went, he went on. Onondaga toward fourth. That's my memory  

Mom: he must have done after, I thought he ran up there to Dr. Selzer  

Tim: with the baby in his arms. Yes, he might've, but I remember that speeding vehicle-  

Mom: Maybe that was because he couldn't help him. He went to Alderman.  

Tim: Yeah. Where That was sad. Yeah, baby was what, two weeks? 17 days? It's not unusual. That kind of sudden death..syndrome  

Mom: I had him in a crib.  

Tim: Right. He was in the right place. Yeah.  

Mom: Yeah, he was. That's what we did. The little darling baby on his stomach. They don't do that anymore  

Tim: Now they swaddle them, you got a monitor.

 If they fart, you go in and check them. Yeah. That was 1953 or something, I'd say, wasn't it? Maybe 54?  

Mom: Kevin was 53, so it was 55.  

Tim: It was after Kevin? Yes. Why did I think it was before Kevin? It was after Kevin. After Kevin. Mmm. So Kevin was born in 53. Dennis was born in 50. Colleen was born in 59. You had four babies in the 50s.

Mom: Uh huh. And look at me.  

Tim: The only, you had three in the 40s. That's pretty good. Amazing. Yeah.