An Irish-Catholic Tale, Part V

In the early 1930's, Rosie had a bright and glorious future ahead of her. Her brother, Matt, was bringing that fun-loving Chet around quite a bit. Her sister, Nora, was about to become a Sister. Hopefully, that would later carry some weight with Mary Agnes.

Here's Rosie and her mother, Nellie, dressed for her sister's Profession.
I have to admit that when Aunt Mary Ann sent me the photo and it read "Nellie and Rosie (Nora's profession)," I thought it meant that Nora's profession was as a photographer, and her mother and sister were posing for her! It wasn't until I read all the biographies that I understood what profession meant in this case.

At any rate, I love the hats, the shoes, the dress suits. I love how neat and pulled-together they look!

Rosie seemed to have a playful side. The picture below shows her with her sister the Sister, Nora. Rosie is dressed as a boy and pretending to smoke a cigarette. She's 14.Rosie was very sociable and always had friends. As a teen and young adult, she loved acting and took advantage of every opportunity to play a part in an amateur stage production. She also loved to read almost as much as she liked to dance. She couldn't hear a beat without moving her feet. She never had a lesson, but Rosie could play the piano by ear pretty well.


Chet was Rosie's kind of guy, a real partying fella. She must have laughed and laughed when he and Matt would talk about their time in Milwaukee and their road trip, or being asked to live in a boarding house by Aunt Kate because of their late hours.


Here's Chet and Rosie's version of a myspace or facebook photo. I'll bet they used one of those old box cameras to get this, then hoped for the best until it developed. Note the matching bathing suits.

From the example her own parents set, Rosie had every reason to smile for the camera on her wedding day. She was fully prepared to be married, care for her husband, bear his children, and keep his home. She'd see him off to work in the morning and kiss his cheek when he returned in the evening. Supper would be ready and he would wash up while she set everything out on the table.

For a while, I'm sure that's just how things went. Their firstborn son, John, came in 1932 and is the squirming blond youngster in the very front of the photo. Rosie and Chet are in the back row, far left, and next to Rosie are her parents, Matt and Nellie.
The little girl in the front row, directly in front of Chet, would eventually give birth to an American Icon. But that's another tale for another time.

Rosie's sister, Sara, is standing all the way to the right. Her role in Rosie's life would also come later in the tale.

Coming from such a large family, it was probably hard for Rosie when she had only one child and no others seemed to be coming. At this U family reunion, Rosie is seated on the left, hanging onto John. Her sister the Sister is next to her, and various family is all around. Nieces and nephews had arrived in abundance, but still she had only one.

Rosie, John, and Sara in the desert.


Six years, one miscarriage, and one operation after the birth of John, the children finally began to arrive. That's Terry with Chet.

Arrive they did, every two years, like clockwork.

Terry, 1938. Mary Ann, 1940. Kathleen, 1942. Rita, 1944. I have probably ended any status I may have had in the family by putting up those dates, but there ya go.


Things looked pretty wonderful in the house of Chet and Rosie. It may have seemed to Rosie like she would never please Mary Agnes ("Have children!" "Stop having children!") but in actuality, Mary Agnes was the least of her worries.

Rosie had a secret.

It was a secret, or she was in denial. Either way, it probably would have gone to the grave with her if an irate son hadn't blurted out the truth one day. Back then, women didn't bad-mouth their husbands to anyone who would listen. They didn't go onto talk shows or internet chat rooms and tell the world their problems. In fact, they probably did everything they could to make sure his image was protected, no matter what went on at home.

Chet's image needed protecting. I'm sure their closest family knew, especially Rosie's brother Matt, but no one really talked about it openly.


I remember my mother-in-love showing me this picture of her father. She and her siblings were all laughing about it, because they had reached a point in their lives where they were able to laugh about it! And because I wasn't from an Irish-Catholic background of R-s and U-s, I had to have someone explain to me what was so funny about Chet being on a wagon.

Oh, on the wagon.

Actually, the joke is that this was probably the only time he was on the wagon!

Chet, the fun-loving guy Rosie fell in love with, struggled with the disease of alcoholism. His late-night ways continued even after the children began to arrive and Rosie had so much on her hands. The thing about society back then, however, was that it probably did everything it could to discourage alcoholics from finding the help they needed.

Don't say anything about it to him. He's had a hard day at work and deserves a drink.

Don't tell anyone else.

Don't let anyone know how bad it really is.

Cover it up. After all, he's not a drunk! A drunk is someone you see on the street, the bums with the brown paper bags. Chet's a respectable man and goes to work! He's not a bum. If he lost another job, it was the fault of the manager/supervisor/co-worker, not his.

Because society forced the cover-up, getting help was rare. Chet's alcoholism was basically unchecked until finally, in 1945, he tried to get help at a "treatment facility." I don't know much about it, but it was probably a place for drunks to dry out and try to start over again.

For Chet, and for Rosie, the "treatment" came too late. On February 5th, 1945, while still in the treatment facility, Chet died.

It was his 42nd birthday.

Rosie, at age 35 and after almost 13 years of marriage, found herself a widow with 5 children.
This is the reason the above photo is the only photo of the entire family. This is the reason the man who walked my mother-in-love down the aisle was not Chet, but her oldest brother, John. At the time of their father's death, John was 12, Terry was 6, Mary Ann was 4, Kathleen was 2, and Rita was not even a year old.

In the biographies, Aunt Mary Ann writes:

In spite of our precarious financial situation, it's a great tribute to our mother that we never felt deprived. We rarely had new clothes or toys, but it didn't matter. I remember Mother trying to decide whether to buy me some needed new shoes or spend the ten dollars on a dental filling. It seemed like a normal dilemma at that time.

Our life seemed rich with fun and imagination and love. We always had nourishing, home-cooked meals, lots of laughs, and the sure sense that our mother would always be there, always take good care of us, and she did.


From that day forward, Rosie knew she had to go it alone. In the above picture, she's with my MIL, Kathleen.
Above are Rita, Kathleen, and grandpa CT (on a rare visit to his home base of California). Alcoholic or no, I can't help but grieve for these two little girls who knew their father the least.

I grieve for all of them, but this isn't an Irish-Catholic story about grief. Far from it! It's an Irish-Catholic story of triumph.
Kathleen and Rita in 2006.

Before it could become a story of triumph, there was a long road to walk. Their walk would become even more interesting with the arrival of one woman:

Sara.




*Please note: All information was taken from conversations over the years. Information was also taken from emails and background biographies from Aunt Mary Ann. Any errors are mine alone! :-)