A Long Overdue

I don’t believe Hallmark makes Valentine cards for uncles. However, I have never looked for one before and to be honest, this one is long overdue.

Traverse City is cold and often snowy the week after Christmas. And so it was this year. Despite a festive and joyous Christmas Day spent with family, I was looking forward to enjoying some “down time” during the week that followed.

As my son was driving me home at the end of the Yule festivities I casually mentioned that I had declined an invitation to a movie the following evening.

He asked which one, and as soon as I mentioned “They Shall Not Grow Old,” he said,”Oh Mom, you have to go.” Before we reached the entrance to my apartment, I was convinced. Jerry had told me about the remarkable recreation of old films depicting WWI, and the fact that there was only one showing scheduled for our city.

My interest in history is not extensive, but I still remember the sadness in my Mother’s voice when she described having five brothers in France at the same time, and the disastrous effect the War had on her Mother. Mom always claimed it was the beginning of my Grandmother’s lengthy illness that virtually destroyed a family.

So I immediately added my name to the list of residents needing transportation to the film.

I believe now the following evening was when I really met my Uncles

Of course, they had been an integral part of my life during the 19 years I spent on 58th Street before marriage. The family lived together in the same tenement as ours just one flight above our flat. I saw one or two of Mom’s brothers daily during those years.

The Uncles were always generous to me. Yet we rarely spoke. Only three of the five ever entered our home. One on a daily basis; the other two when they knew their sister would be alone, and they needed a favor or perhaps a kind word or maybe something more. I never knew what because I was sent into another room so the siblings had privacy.

Sadly, the brothers did not communicate with each other. Still they remained in the same household with their aging Father who ruled the household with an iron fist and the younger sister who was appointed to care for “The boys” early in life.

I knew them, but I didn’t. I realized they were extraordinarily private, and never questioned the reasons. I understood two of them had obvious problems, but I assumed everyone’s family had something similar. Ours wasn’t so different, I rationalized.

Watching the film last evening, I finally realized what devastation this War to End Wars had wrought on a family living in Hells Kitchen, seemingly so far from the distant troubles of Europe.

John, Joe, Bill, Dan and Frank King all left the city streets together. They ranged in age from 18 to 23. Several were Irish twins. Portraits of each of them in uniform hung on their living room wall until Lincoln Centre caused the disintegration of a neighborhood.

I discovered from the film that America was only part of the war from April, 1917 until Armistice Day, November, of the following year. However by May 1918, over a million American troops were stationed in Europe. They remained then for another seven months, long enough to change immature boys into shattered men.

John, the oldest son, returned after having been declared Missing In Action. He never discussed where or what had happened, but the confident oldest son didn’t return either. The person who returned to West 47th Street and the arms of his family was a hopeless Alcoholic. There was no counseling for him or his parents. Only secrecy shrouded the shame and within the year John had left the family home and hearth and its protection. He returned only in the years before his death to visit my Mother, his sister. He was never welcomed back into the household still under the domains of his unforgiving Father. His four brothers unfairly blamed him for the grief that consumed their Mother the night he closed the wooden door and said goodbye.

The younger brother, Joe, seemingly emerged unscathed from the time abroad. At least that was the obvious conclusion, Yet while remaining the “good son” remaining home and contributing to the finances, he abruptly terminated his engagement and lived a solitary single life. His friendships, and/or pleasures were never discussed in the quiet of the house the family shared after my Grandmother’s death. When on rare occasions we dined at the same table, conversation was virtually nonexistent. His overwhelming generosity was constant to my Mother and sister and I. Sadly, beyond saying, “Thank you, Uncle Joe,” whenever we met, doubt if we ever exchanged many other words.

Bill probably was the one who seemingly was the least affected by his time in France. Yet he had been one of the victims of mustard gas, and was dreadfully scarred. Mom said her older brother had hoped to enter a religious order as a Brother before leaving for France. That never happened. If his appearance was the cause, no one said. Bill’s world was small, daily Mass, a nightly trip to the Public Library and an occasional walk down Eighth Avenue with a cousin. I don’t believe he ever went to a movie or a Broadway play or visited a friend. However, when my Uncle saw me walking down the street, he always invited me to join him for walnut ice cream ( his Mother’s favorite) at the corner Confectionery. While the War was never openly discussed, I remember being surprised the night he shouted in protest when America entered WWII.

What happened to Dan, I never knew. The degree of his disability has long been in dispute between my Sister and I. I felt it was minimal; she disagrees violently. I only know this quiet man, always sitting alone in a chair by the window, would take time to joke with his young niece causing her to giggle. Dan never missed a day working in a NYC hotel, and never left home for an independent life. If he had friends, we never met them, and he never joined his brothers or Father for meals always choosing to eat alone. And when the niece grew up and stopped giggling, he stopped joking or even speaking very much.

Frank was the youngest of the five brothers, probably 17 or 18 when he left for France, and apparently, not affected by the service. He married in his late 40’s and visited my Mother weekly from that time on. After marriage, he, never returned to the family home or perhaps he wasn’t welcome. I never asked or knew. I only remember his arrival in our kitchen at 8 am every Saturday morning, and the two siblings sitting together in total silence for 45 minutes when he quietly departed.

I attended the film the other night and while I didn’t recognize any of the young men on the screen, I began to see other faces, those of my five Uncles. After it ended and I was standing waiting for my ride, someone asked what I thought about it.

I said I only wondered, ‘Why?” I wondered what different lives my five uncles might have had if someone hadn’t decided they should go to France and fight. And I wondered whose decision it was to put other Mother’s sons in battle and sent so many to their death or changed their lives irrefutably.

So this year even though it is too late, I decided I should just look and see if Hallmark makes Valentine Day cards for Uncles. I should have sent them a long time ago, but at least I will look this year. Even though I know it is far too late.