Mary of Willow Grove

My family moved from Germantown, Philadelphia to a blue-collar suburb of that city when I was five years old. It was one of those post war developments with neat rows of identical houses suggesting, if nothing else: order. The houses varied from one another only so far as each owner tried to distinguish their home from the next, which was not important to most of the neighborhood as evidenced by how little variety was expressed. Our house was differentiated only slightly by a white wooden rail fence along the front edge of our back yard, and a light fixture from my father’s favorite hardware store adjacent to the front door.  Our next-door neighbor built a back porch on his house; it took him three years to do it and he had no help from any of the neighbors, including us. I don’t know if that was because his embellishment put the rest of us to shame or if Joe’s role as the neighborhood bagman for the local Catholic Church’s St. Joseph’s Fund earned him that distance. There was even one house on the street that was made of white brick that really stood out compared to every other house that was made from red brick. But aside from those quiet distinctions the houses were all the same size and shape, the same distance apart, landscaped more or less the same each with our little patch of lawn. As I look back what was perhaps most surprising was the fact that everyone – and I mean EVERYONE in the neighborhood was Roman Catholic – everyone that is, except for the Ship family who lived in the white brick house. They were Protestant. But in its own way, that fact added to the order of the neighborhood: at least we knew where the Protestants lived. To this day I have an association between Protestantism and white brick!

In this little neighborhood of identical homes that occupied two parallel streets, we had two German Catholic families, five Italian Catholic families, and the rest were Irish Catholic. We had O’Callahans and McLanahans, Flahertys and McCaffertys, O’Connels and O’Donnells, Doyles and Boyles, Feeneys and Sweeneys. Mine was one of the five Italian families, although on more than one occasion the fact of my mother’s Irish heritage served me well. I once overheard Mother Mary Good Counsel commenting in her Irish brogue to the Pastor of our church/school, Father Flanagan, about whether or not I should be considered as an altar boy, saying, “Oh, it’s all right Father. He’ll do fine. His mother’s Irish.”  

There was order in the world. The Irish were dominant. Roman Catholics were the majority and the Catholic view of the world was the only right one. Our houses were all in a row. Children were to be seen and not heard. Fathers had a drink at night after work – sometimes a few. Mothers ran the homes and raised the children, although a few did so with more than their fair share of gin as their daily companion. Given the amount of time we children were not to be seen, we had our own secrets. We would sneak cigarettes, curse with each other, get in fist fights and lie about the cuts and bruises, ridicule our parents and teachers behind their backs, and by the time we hit the fourth grade, we’d even cut school every now and again and go to the local amusement park. Otherwise we maintained a façade of obedience to the nuns and priests – as well as our parents, but we pretty much thought them fools. Little they said made sense. Even at age six or seven, when we’d ask one of our priests a question like, “How can Jesus be both human and God?, or why do you refer to the Blessed Virgin as the Queen of Heaven? Why do they need a queen in heaven? to which we would receive that familiar answer, “Oh my son, it’s one the Church’s great mysteries,” somehow we knew we were being tricked. Either that or they didn’t know the answer themselves. But even our ignorance was part of the order of my youth. In those moments of fear it made sense that there was a place for the inexplicable: the Church. They held it for us; they studied it and dispensed what knowledge they thought we could handle and kept the rest to themselves – sort of guarding it – or perhaps protecting us from the awful truth. But in those glorious times when we were free of our fears, we didn’t buy any of it. The order we saw in our neighborhood, the church, and our homes was at its best - pretty fragile.

The order of life as we knew it was put to a test one summer, a scrutiny that any presumption of order ultimately must tolerate. A woman moved into the last red brick house on our street, and after days of surveying our new neighbor, it became apparent that Mary lived alone. If that wasn’t shocking enough, (this was the 1950s) it was obvious that she was pregnant. Even carrying the glorious name Mary wasn’t enough to buy her acceptance. And once it became clear that Mary was pregnant, apparently unmarried, wasn’t Catholic – or Irish - and didn’t attend ANY church, she became an authorized object of derision.

Mary never seemed to leave the house and an older man with a beard used to come and spend a few days at a time with Mary. The neighborhood speculated he was her lover. It all made for great mystery for us children. At age 7, I was keenly aware of the problem this woman was for the neighborhood. It was when I learned about real estate values and how they can fluctuate based on criteria other than the design, condition, quality, size, and location of the house itself. After school as we met at a friend’s house we heard moms talking about “that woman,” and how she hadn’t cut the lawn, and being pregnant how could she? And how could she allow her lover – this man – with a beard – to come to the house in open daylight. That’s when I learned that it’s O.K. to do things in secret. I also learned it was O.K. to make fun of this woman. And so we did, as did most everyone in the neighborhood. There was an unspoken conspiracy between parents and children that Mary’s house and reputation were fair game for all.

We walked to and from school in those days and passed Mary’s house each way. One day on our way home from school, two of my 8 year old friends and I sat on Mary’s sloping terraced lawn playing with matches. We’d never sit on anyone else’s lawn without permission – but we didn’t need permission to sit on Mary’s lawn. Her lawn had become overgrown with grass so tall it reached our shoulders. We accidentally set Mary’s lawn on fire. We extinguished the fire by sliding up and down the terraced lawn and smothering the fire with our backsides – but not before half Mary’s lawn was charred. As we ran away – laughing wildly – we could see Mary looking out her window at us.  When one of my friend’s parents heard about our escapade, she decided that she’d had enough of Mary. If she took care of her lawn this wouldn’t have happened. My friend didn’t even get scolded for playing with matches, and they agreed not to tell my parents. We knew something was very special about this Mary.

A neighborhood meeting was called, and since no one could afford such luxuries as babysitters, all the children attended as well. I remember parents saying things like, “We’ve worked hard to keep our yards maintained. That house has become an eyesore. Yes, and she’s pregnant and not even married. How will living near THAT effect our children?” It’s remarkable how easily momentum can build in situations like this. As one of the more fervent speeches about God, home and country was being delivered, a sudden quiet came over the gathering. We turned to see Mary standing in the doorway. She came inside and told everyone that she knew she hadn’t kept her place up, and that she was sorry about that. The man we’d seen coming and going was her brother, who had helped her buy the house, and he was due to arrive again later that week to help her with the lawn, clean up a little and then help Mary move in with him and his family in New Jersey. Her pregnancy wasn’t going well, and that’s why she hadn’t done much work around the house; she was supposed to be in bed. The house was going up for sale, she told us, and she was very sorry for the troubles that she brought to us during her time in the neighborhood. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, and I remember how beautiful she looked with her big belly. I remember how gently she spoke and I remember feeling shame – perhaps more clearly than ever before in my life. And if the silence that endured after her departure was any indication, I think even the adults felt shame.

When Mary finally did move – some three months later – only the Ships showed up to help her – you know the Protestants in the white brick house? And they hadn’t even come to the neighborhood meeting. I always wondered about that. Maybe the rest of us were still just too embarrassed. Maybe we needed more time to understand what we had experienced. Maybe some of us didn’t want to understand.