James William McGunnigle - written in 1995 by Susan McGunnigle Condon

My father was born May 1, 1908 in Central Park, New York. Central Park is now called Plainedge, next to Bethpage. He was born in a big farmhouse on Hicksville Road (which was torn down only about ten years ago). My grandfather, Will McGunnigle, built this farmhouse when he married my grandmother, Delia Conway in 1900 with the $1,000. he received from his father, Joseph McGunnigle as a wedding present. Each one of my great-grandfather Joseph's children was given $1,000. when he married (a lot of money in those days).

My father was one of eleven children. His family called him James. He went to a one room schoolhouse until he was in the fifth grade - then he needed to quit school to work on the farm. My father always asked me to write his "Z's" for him - he told me he didn't stay in school long enough to learn that letter.

My father was very Irish and very Catholic. He was proud of his heritage. He was only 5 feet 6 inches tall and he was very thin and wiry as a young man. He married my mother in 1934 when he was 26 years old - according to my mother his life had been pretty wild before that.

My earliest memories of my father are very happy and warm. He seemed to have such big hands. I remember the feel of my small one in his as we walked along. When he was dying I remember holding his hands and thinking "They seem so small now." I remember his rough beard on my small face. I remember watching him shave and the sound of him shaving as he sang "Tora Tora Lora". He sang that song all the time. I remember him patting me on the head when he came in from work (which was several times a day - it drove my mother crazy. I remember standing on his feet when he walked - his workshoes or his Sunday black shoes - he would walk me all over the house like this.

I knew my father loved me- I never doubted it. I was special to him and felt secure with him. I knew my father was a good man. He loved to talk. Talking and telling stories was his hobby - he was a very good and funny story-teller. In our house we rarely got up from the dinner table right after we finished eating - sometimes we would sit there for hours. My mother would leave us sitting there with my father while we listened to his fascinating stories or we would have a quiz. My father would try to stump us and we would try to stump him. My father was an avid reader and he knew amazing trivial facts about every subject - although history and animals were his favorites. If one of us would try to leave the table for some reason - like doing our homework - he would say "c'mon - sit down!" He usually consumed several cups of coffee during these conversations. He was a very funny man.

He was an extremely hard worker. Today I would probably label him a workaholic. He enjoyed working - it was his passion. He was very organized with the things that he owned and almost compulsively detail-minded. There were many years that he made quite a bit of money in his plumbing business and those were the years that my mother and us spent it and lived well.

He was very tight with money but he could be manipulated - and my mother knew exactly how to get money out of him - she used me. One of my earliest memories is my father sitting in his chair at night reading the paper and my mother taking me aside and telling me: "Ask him for $20. If you get $10, I'll be happy - but start with $20."  I would go to him and say "Dad, Mom wants $20."
He's reach into his pocket and pull his change out and hand me a washer - he'd laugh and I would laugh. Then he'd say: "How about a dollar?" I would say "Mom wants $20." He would say "How about $5.?" I'd say "$15". He'd say "$10.". I'd say ok and bring the money back to my  mother. This was a ritual. When my mother asked my father for money, they'd argue - so it became my job.

On Sunday afternoons, my parents would usually argue and my father wanted to get out of the house. He would take us to the movies (the morgue is what we called the little theater in Roosevelt) or he would take Kathleen and me to the Baldwin House where they had a big merry-go-round where you tried to get the gold ring for a free ride. We would ride for what seemed hours, while my father sat on the bench watching us and smoking cigarettes. Every time we went by he waved at us and we waved back - if we got the gold ring we would show him and he would smile. I can still see his face. Then he would buy us cherry vanilla ice cream in cups that we ate with wooden spoons - it was so good and i would suck on the wooden spoon for the rest of the day.

My father was one of eleven children. There were five boys and six girls. His brother Joseph died of pneumonia when he was six months old. His older brother was Walter and his younger ones were Gerard and Willie. I thought he had another brother, Uncle Lawrence, but I found out later that he was really my cousin. His sisters were Bernardine, Gertrude, Margaret, Emily, Alice and Mary who died when she was 33.

His family spent a lot of time together - usually on Sunday afternoons and evenings. They all told funny stories and laughed. Whenever I or any other of the many cousins came into the room the aunts would say something like: "Isn't Susan grand?" They'd all answer "yes - grand - Oh, she is a McGunnigle - she looks just like the Conways". They said this to me almost every Sunday night for most of my childhood. My mother did not really enjoy these Sunday nights. She missed her own family but they had all moved to Florida.

My father's best friend was his older brother, Uncle Walter. They talked and talked - mostly about the great depression that they had lived through - and the one that they predicted would happen again - any time now. They talked about this inevitable depression almost every Sunday night from 1944 until 1981 when my father died. They had phrases they used all the time like "the cookie is going to crumble" or "the s--- is going to hit the fan." They never did get to see it happen.

For my sixth birthday my parents gave me my first two wheeler. They said "it's only a second hand bike". I thought that was something to be proud of - it was shiny and blue. I had a hard time riding it at first. My father spent Sunday afternoon pushing me and running alongside me until I got the hang of it - on the path that formed a circle around our house made from five children and all their various vehicles.

Sometimes I'd watch my father shaving after dinner - he would be singing and seem especially chipper. When I'd ask him where he was going he would say "a wake". One of his many Irish cousins, aunts, uncles or friends had died and in the McGunnigle family this was an opportunity for everyoine to get together and catch up on the news and see old friends. My father's family was not a drinking family, but the wakes were still exuberant. At my father's wake, in the midst of the talk and laughter one of my aunts said "Ah, Jim would have love this wake - this is a good one!"

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons my father would take us to the cemetery where everyone, going all the way back to great great grandfather Patrick was buried - Holy Rood in Westbury. We'd play among the tombstones and he'd tell us stories about each deceased relative as we passed their headstones. I never thought there was anything morbid about how we sometimes spent Sunday afternoons.

Sunday mornings Kathleen and I would go to the 10:30 mass with Daddy. We'd walk and stop on the way home to get rolls and the New York News. As I got older I was kind of embarrassed to sit with Dad in church. He's make strange sounds with his nose and sometimes tell me a tibit of gossip about the person in front of us - in a very loud whisper - and everyone in church would turn around and stare at us as I shrunk down in my seat.

One Sunday old Mr. Fenn asked Dad to help take up the collection. My father passed the tray down the pew - somehow it disappeared. I shrank down in my seat as I heard a commotion  in the back - Mr. Fenn yelled "Jim, what do you mean you lost the tray?"

The town I lived in, Roosevelt, had a population of 10,000 people and my father knew most of them. He had a good story about everyone. He also had his own names for people. Harry, the Jewish man who owned the gas station he called "Harry the Hebe". Another Harry who had a big face he called "Harry the Horse". Louis Garage, one of his customers he called "two-car".

My father drove a plumbing truck all around town with his name painted on the side in big letters. "Jas. McGunnigle Plumbing and Heating". All my friends in high school called him Jazbo. My mother said he had Jas. painted on the side instead of James because it saved him $5.00. She was probably right. Dad had a reputation  of being the most expensive plumber in Roosevelt. At school one day one of my friends said, "Your father parked his get-away car in our driveway yesterday". My sister Kathleen was embarrassed when Dad drove her to school in his truck - she'd crouch down on the floor where no one would see her and make a run for it when the coast was clear.

Dad loved music - especially Irish music. Kathleen and I would sing "Danny Boy" as we did the dishes. He'd say "C'mon in here and sing that for me" - so we did - quite often. On Dad's 70th birthday we had all the grandchildren sing "Danny Boy". He loved it.

His favorite food was leg of lamb. He'd slice the roast and always say "who wants the skin?" Around 1975 when we lived in Wantagh we invited Dad over for a lamb dinner. When he arrived, he called a number to have his pacemaker checked. They called right back "Mr. McGunnigle - please get right over to St. Francis Hospital - your battery is low". We said, "Let's go".  "No" he said "Not until I eat the lamb". We could not convince him - We nervously watched as Dad slowly consumed a lot of food. Then we drove him to the hospital for his surgery.

Dad saved everything - probably because of his experience with the Great Depression. He saved string, aluminum foil, broom handles and pails with holes in them. He did not believe in throwing anything out. Every Sunday we had dinner in our dining room. Mom and Dad at each end and us five kids in between. I remember a Sunday when I was four or five years old. Kathleen was sitting in her high chair next to my mother eating off of her white metal plate with the blue horse on it. Dad remarked that he had noticed that my mother had thrown some stale bread out for the birds. He asked her why. My mother said it was stale. He said she could have used it to make bread pudding, stuffing, french toast, etc. Why did she throw it out? He kept it up and kept it up. My mother was very quiet. As he talked we felt the tension in the air build - we were no longer eating but watching my parents. My mother very quietly picked up Kathleen's plate loaded with food and flung it the length of the table at my father. He saw it coming and ducked. The plate hit the wallpapered wall behind him and latched on with a suction. We sat there in silence watching the plate slowly oozing down the wall - the rest of the meal was quiet.

Some say that we view God the way we view our earthly fathers - this may be true with me. I always knew my father loved me - I saw it in the twinkle in his eye when he looked at me. I felt it in the warmth and strength of his big hand when he held my small one. In a big, confusing, scary world, I had my father's love and I knew it. I believe it gave me the strength to go through many trials.