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Above photo taken in South Carolina at Cathy's house
in December 2001
Back Row - Cathy, xxxxx, and Chrisy. Bottom row - Jo-Anne,
Tommy and Carol.
Aloha Family:
Last month you heard a story on gathered facts on
Grandma, this month it will be Grandfather, by my cousin
Cheryl (Mary Cheryl Sullivan Hess)
My final Grandparent whom I knew was Patrick Peter
Sullivan was about 5' 9", and slim, and was known to
his friends, as "Pie". How did he get this name
is quite a story. As a young man, he worked in the steel
mills in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In those days, they
carried their lunches in a metal pail. Grandpa was
especially fond of pie, and he would trade his other food
for pie, thus he became known as Pie.
All of his grandchildren called him Pop, as did his
children at this time of his life. He was born around
1877. We were never too sure when he was born, but I
remember his saying one time that he was born the year
after Zuggs' Mill burnt down or exploded, whatever. He
was a staunch Irish Catholic, Democrat, and quite an
independent man, but also lots of fun.
He tells of the time he took the Cure - a custom back in
those days. When a boy reached 12 years of age, he was
taken to the local pub, sent upstairs and allowed to have
as much liquor and cigars as he wanted. After that
experience, he never wanted to drink again and signed a
pledge to do so.
He went to Catholic Schools, somewhere near 14th street
in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the third grade,
he had a Sister Perpetuia. I guess he and she never saw
eye to eye. I bet he could be a handful. She used to go
into the boys bathrooms and chase the boys out of the
booths. They were probably hiding there. Anyhow, one day
he had enough with her and she was chasing him around the
room, probably with a poker, when he jumped out the
window, slid down the down spout, and never went back to
school.
He probably went to work in the steel mills about then.
He was a union organizer and complained that when the
Bessimer Furnace went in, it was bad for the workers. I
think this was a bigger furnace and mechanically
controlled, causing losses of jobs. I think he was a
puddler.
His family came from either County Clare or Cork in
Ireland. They first migrated to Wales where several of
his brothers and sisters were born.
In 1900's, he married Ida Catherine Tintlenot from 1403
Penn Avenue. They had 8 children to live to adulthood:
Marie Elizabeth, (Auntie Rie) William John, who was my
father, Gertrude, who died at the age of 18 of an
extracted tooth, Edward James, called Jimmy(grandpa),
Dorothy Magdalene (Aunt Dot), Joseph Frederick (Uncle Joe)
who was called "Joe", Regina Clare who was
called "Jean" (Sister Ida Catherine), and
Elizabeth Margaret, who was called "Betty"(Sister
Marie Patrick).
I can remember Pop all dressed in black, with a white
dress shirt and high top black shoes, sitting on a black
leather chair in the upstairs kitchen/livingroom during
the war. He was rocking and singing an Irish lullaby to
one of my newborn cousins, probably Jeanne Marie Sullivan.
There was a mongrel dog called Cubsie, that was around at
that time and he was always under the stove.
Pop made the coffee every morning, in an austerity
measure used to use the coffee grounds over several times.
Auntie Rie (the oldest of the children) used to holler at
him for this.
In about 1910, they bough the house at 395 40th St.,
where Auntie Rie lived until her death. My father William
called "Sully", was about 2 at the time. they
were all raised in this 3 story home with the boys
sleeping up in the attic, which had a winding staircase
up to it and no heat.
During the Second World War, housing was scarce, plus the
depression of 1929 was still having an effect on America.
The downstairs was rented out to a family, and one of
these families was my Uncle Jimmy's family. Several of
the children were gone by this time and not as much space
was needed. A closet in the master bedroom was turned
into a sink and cabinets, a stove placed at the end of
the room and both the living room and dining room
furniture were placed in it. At that time, the house
still had inside shudders which were closed in the cold
weather, and during air raids.
When I was little, I can remember my father, Pop and the
other boys down in the cellar digging out the space under
the kitchen to extend the cellar.
During pop's employment at the steel mill, he worked hard
to get the Union in. He was told that he was to go to
Ohio, that a mill there needed workers. He did this and
of course , in those days, it took longer to travel, than
today. when he arrived, he was told they had never heard
of such a thing. it took him a week all toll, to make the
trip to and fro. When he returned to his job, they fired
him for not showing up for work. He thus became janitor
for St. John the Baptist Church in Lawrenceville (Built-1902).
His sons helped him in his work. He went to mass daily
and many a night to a novena at some neighboring church,
as there were probably 5 churches within walking distance
from 40th Street at that time. Pittsburgh was the most
Catholic city in the U.S. probably at that time.
After he retired, his routine was to get up, go to Holy
Mass, and then walk down to the stock exchange. This was
a basically uneducated man with little money, going into
the stock exchange every day. I bet the big business men
really loved that. Pop was always waiting for his ship to
come in. Well it never did, but it kept him busy. After
the day was over, he would walk back home from downtown,
which was probably 30 or more blocks. At his funeral,
people came up to the children and said they knew him
from walking to and from town every day. He had built up
a route of friends, just from his walking by every day.
The day of his funeral, the church was full to capacity.
probably, like most Irishmen, he had the gift of gab. He
definitely had a brogue.
Getting back to Pop being independent, and also the head
of the family, my father says he never yelled at the
kids, all he had to do was look at them and they towed
the line.
When my Aunt Dorothy was working in DC in 1940, she was
offered a job in Hawaii. She had every intention of
taking the job. When Pop got wind of it, he dashed off a
letter to her, this was quite a feat, as he didn't write
much, telling her she was not to leave this country. This
was the only letter she ever received from him. She
didn't take the job. She would have been in Hawaii in
1941, when it was bombed, quite possibly she could have
been killed.
Another such incident, was in the late 1940's, when my
Aunt Betty,(Sr. Marie Patrick), was sent out to Ajo,
Arizona, on an assignment for the Sister's of Charity.
Somehow, Pop got wind of this, he boarded a bus, and went
to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to see the Mother Superior
of the Charity nuns. He managed to get to see her, we
never could figure out how. He told her that his daughter
was not going out to Arizona. This one he lost, as my
Aunt, and later her sister Aunt Jeannie, (Sr. Ida
Catherine) both spent many years in Arizona. My Aunts
were furious with him for doing this, especially, Auntie
Rie.
Pop believed that the family should be close, and he was
always popping in for a visit. Many is the night I would
see him walking down Windbiddle Avenue, after the novena
at the Immaculate Conception Church. All of my childhood
buddies knew him, as we were always out on the street
playing. I imagine he wore out many a pair of shoes
during his lifetime. My dad, would, of course, drive him
home after the visit was over.
We took several vacations with Pop and Auntie Rie. Let me
digress here because this is important.
Pop loved to go swimming. He always went with us at North
Park for the picnics. He was probably the only senior
citizen in the pool. He wore this old wool bathing suit
that you see pictures of men in the early 1900's wearing.
It had made holes in the sides and was similar to tanktop
and pants together. Pop's was different, in that, it had
a lot of moth holes in it. Auntie Rie kept trying to get
him to get a new one, but, he would not. One of our trips
to D. C., to see Aunt Dorothy, over Memorial Day, the
suit was left at home. We were going out to the
Chesapeake Bay to go swimming, and Pop was out of luck.
Well, we stopped at a five and ten cent store in
Annapolis and got him a pair of kaiki trunks. Thus was
the end of the black wool bathing suit.
On a trip to Florida in 1950 or 51, my father noticed Pop
rubbing himself with a dry towel, and he asked him what
he was doing. Pop's reply was " I'm taking a dry
bath."Auntie Rie and Pop made 2 or 3 trips out West,
while his daughter, Sr. Marie Patrick was stationed in
Ajo, Arizona. He described the mountains out there as
" Giant Ash Piles". Having ancestors from
Ireland, I can see where he gets his logic.
by: a granddaughter, Mary Cheryl Sullivan Hess
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