Nobody had faith like my mother. Of course she went to Catholic school, but she had it naturally. She was good inside. I think she was born with it, really.
Mum was something else. There's nobody in the world like my mother, I don't think. I don't know how she ever did it. Not only that, but she went to choir practice every Thursday night ' cause I used to go down with her. And she had a lovely voice.
Can you imagine one woman doing all that? And all us kids, none of us were any angels, you know.
Bill adored Momma, and he was great with her and to her. He resembled her with her strong features -- the jaw the the cheekbones. She had high cheekbones and she had a jaw. Dad''s family had sort of a receding chin, but he (Bill) had a real firm neck and chin. Quite different.
I don't know where she learned to cook. I often wondered about that myself. It couldn't have been natural, but she never used cookbook that I know of. I think she was a good cook because she was a good cook, but she had to learn some of those fine points, like making bread.
She used to make nine loaves of bread and 54 rolls three times a week. Big ones, you know, real big loaves, not the kind you get at the store. That would get us through the week. And then down on Tilson's Avenue there was an Italian bakery, and we'd get none lives of that round Italian bread and that would do us over the weekend.
Dad was a basketball star. He loved basketball. They (his family) all lived in Rockland and they owned that little house across the street from 41 Willow that's where his mother lived, I think.
Before 41 Willow, we lived up on Warren Street. I don't remember being up there, but I remember Mum saying we lived up on Warren Street and came down to Willow Street.
Dad was the superintendent of mails at the end of his life. He was in the Eagles, benevolent order of Eagles. He was just a member. You know, some people are members of the Elks Club. This was the Eagles Club. I think it's gone by now.
Pincher was our family dog. There was another dog which followed Dad around. He didn't belong to us, but he took a liking to Dad, He'd meet him for work and walk down to the post office with him and waited for him to come out when he was done with work. Jack was his name. He was a collie. Beautiful dog, and he loved Dad.
The man who owned him came to get him one time and he took it back and tied him. Jack gnawed that rope and he came back to Dad. And I think they finally shot the dog. It broke my father's heart. He loved him. He'd wait for him to come out of the post office, from work, you know. He'd just like down there and wait for him to walk home with him. It was unusual.
We had Pincher, but nothing like the other Jud brought Pincher home from some place, I think.
We had different jobs around the house. One week you washed dishes, and then you make the bed next week, or something like that. We all stopped off. I always wanted to do Alice's hair. We combed her hair so Mum wouldn't have to do it. And Eileen would comb mine.
Alice and I slept in the room in the back of the second floor. I'm telling you that was cold-going too. The stove was down in the kitchen, but we were over the shed. So that was the cold part of the house.
At night we had a cook stove in the kitchen then. It really kept that part of the house nice and warm, so when Alice and I went to bed at night, we'd go down and open the kitchen door that went up the shed. The back stairway. You know, to get a little a heat.
And to this day I can hear Peg coming down in the morning, saying, "Those damned kids!" And she'd bang the door 'cause the kitchen would be cold and we'd huddle together.
The setup of the house all changed because Uncle Will Cushing had that back room when he lived there and the boys had the room right next to it. They had the big triple bed and another bed. John and Jim and Jud and I think Art. I think Bill was away at that point. You know, they all started moving away.
He (Bill) worked around Maine and when he came home I guess they doubled up or something. I don't know.
Then we had a bedroom downstairs we always shifted around. And when Aunt Ann Flanagan came, we had to get out of the room at the head of the stairs and all double up again. We had an awful lot of people in that one little house. And in where the bathroom is now there was a big bed an a single bed, and so sometime I would lie in there between Margaret and Eileen. And I tell you, sometimes that was tough going because they'd sleep all stretched out and put me in the middle. I was abused. You can see that, can't you.
We doubled up in bed when we had to, and we had to. There was a room downstairs too, where the den is now. That was a bedroom. We could use that ...You never knew who was going to show up in the morning to have breakfast.
There was a room at the head of the stairs. Later we used it as a closet for clothes. At one time there was a cot in there. We always had people eating and visiting house. Always. Always. All the time. Open house, you might say. We always felt free to invite anybody.
If we had friends, we'd invite them to come over and have dinner or something like that. We always ate in the kitchen around the big table. We had benches -- a big bench in the back. You were welcome. It was a house where everybody was welcome and they came.
My sister Kathleen was beautiful. She was a secretary at East Coast Fisheries. She got pneumonia and she went to work too soon afterward and she got worse and she never did get better. She had pneumonia and that developed into tuberculosis. She got the cold and pneumonia. Auntie Pat was with her when she died. She went over because she was sick. Mom went over too.
I remember when Kathleen used to buy candy from Fuller Cobb Davis and put it in her pocket on her way home from work and I always stole some out of her pocket before supper. Used to be the best candy in the world. I'm sure she knew I took it -- just one or two pieces, not very much. Didn't spoil it for her. I depleted the supply.
Pat worked at Fuller Cobb Davis on the candy counter. That's where Kathleen bought her candy.
Peg was good in basketball. I think she was captain of her team. She played center. She used to do a lot of cooking at home if Mum was away or something.
Of course, Daddy used to cook when Mum used to go down and call on Prince Edward Island. She went down 'bout every year, and she put a big kettle of vegetable soup on the back of the stove and we had that ll the time she was gone. Daddy used to add water -- we lasted that quite a while.
You know, I think Eileen made 30 baskets in one game. Daddy used to teach her a lot about basketball. She was his pet. He taught her all he knew. She listened. Of course, I was on the same team. I was pretty good too.
We had sweaters given to us with an "R" on it if you were on the team. At an assembly ... they said, "Agnes Flanagan," so I went up to get the sweater and she said. Oh, I don't mean you. I mean your sister."
Wasn't that a shock? So I went back and sat down. I got one. Everyone on the team got one.
John was nicknamed "Gabby" because he talked so much. Uncle Will called him "Gabby."
Coming home from the movies, John and he (Jim) would go to the same movie, and they'd come home and Uncle Will would do this to test them.
He'd say to Jim. "What was the movie, Jim?" and Jim would say, "Cowboys and Indians."
Then he'd (Uncle Will) say,"What was it about?"
He'd (Jim) say, "Just cowboys and Indians."
So he'd ask John and John would start from the time the thing started and take it straight through to the end and Uncle Will said, "There you go. There's the whole story right there."
That's how he got the name Gabby. He always had a lot to say.
Jim was held back too. He was held back and he got in the same class as Carol and Jud. He didn't care anything about studying, Jim didn't. John was a good student. So was Jud. Alice was a good student.
The boys used to try to straighten out their curly hair. They used to get those skull caps and put 'em on and wear them to bed to straighten out their hair. And one time they all went to church. They had those skull caps on. We tok two pews right across. They forgot to take them off and someone said, "Tell John to take his hat off."
So John poked Jud and Jim poked Art and they took off the hats right there. They wore them all through mass until somebody noticed.
Jud waited on tables when he was going to college and when he came home on breaks, he showed how he worked. He had the best dishes lined up his arm and said, "This is the way you do it."
And Mum said, "Oh no, my best dishes. Put them down!"
He was throwing them around like they were nothing.
I skipped two grades. I went for half a year in fourth grade and then went into the fifth. And the I skipped the whole seventh grade and went into the eighth ... just to catch up with Eileen. I thought she was the star and the world and everything. She didn't think that of me, but I chased her around. I just wanted to be where she was.
I wouldn't do that again for anything. It's one of the worst things you could do. I missed my friends I made when I was going to school. They were my age. Then I got into these other grades and they were way ahead of me. And I never did get caught up, I don't think. I wasn't a good student after that. I was way ahead of myself. That was a big mistake. It must have been my idea or I wouldn't have done it. I guess it was kind of foolish.
I was also in glee club. So Was Eileen. She was president of glee club and captain of the basketball team. And we used to be in all the plays and things like that. And all the drives.
Eileen worked at the telephone company too. In 1928, she got TB. She went over to the Fairfield sanitarium. That's when we built on that room (to the house).
After graduation, I went to work for the water company. Then I left (the) water company and went over to the Lawrence Portland Cement Company. It's the Dragon Portland cement now. Then they closed don and I went to Senator Crane's office and clerked. Then I went down to Washington and worked for the FHA.
I came home when Mum was sick -- about a year before she died. Sister Carol was training in Portland and Mum died while she was over there. We thought Carol would come home and take care of Mum because I was doing it and I wasn't that great at nursing. But Mum wouldn't hear it. She said she wouldn't interfere with her training. That's how that came about.
I met my husband Ed about 1941-42. Then the war came and he went to Virginia. We did get married around 1947. He was a liaison between the Navy and the contractors working for the Navy during the war.
After we married, we lived in Yonkers. We've been up here 11 years. Boy, that brings me up to date, doesn't it?
Agnes Flanagan Fleagle, far right, in hat. Picture taken in the early 1960s, Rockland.
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