By Kathy Hughes
Tragically and unexpectedly, their father died when they were eight, six and four — leaving them not only fatherless, but destitute.
It must have been shortly after when a group of boys, including my father and uncle, while playing and running across neighboring yards, crossed over a picket fence, with Uncle Will, as the youngest, bringing up the rear. He was unable to keep up, and, in his rush to clamber over the fence, he stumbled, falling face down on one of the sharp picket spikes, injuring his left eye.
Damage to the eye was total and permanent, and he wore a glass eye for the rest of his life.
Already, as the youngest, the fair-haired boy, and fatherless, Will grew up as the object of concern and protection of his entire family and community. Additionally, my father bore extra guilt as the older one who had not looked after his little brother.
In those years, boys who grew up without a father were considered to be “at risk,” and the Gerard School for Fatherless Boys in Philadelphia was founded to provide them with a structured, fostered, educational environment and home.
Since the children’s mother was struggling to provide for all three children, it was decided to send Uncle Will away to live at Gerard. More guilt.
Unbelievably, with the advent of World War II, Uncle Will was drafted into the Army. My father and the elder males of the family pulled out all the stops to have him exempted, but all efforts were unsuccessful. Uncle Will was shipped off to Europe, where he participated in the D-Day invasion, and remained in France to finish out his service after the War had ended.
My father, chagrined at not being the one who was drafted, joined the Navy, attended officer’s school, and served out the War as an officer aboard a destroyer in the Caribbean.
Uncle Will was a doting uncle, and we all loved him. Had he not been our only uncle, he surely would have been our favorite.
The complete family relocated to the Washington, D.C. area, as that’s where the jobs were. Uncle Will and his family were frequent guests at our home, as both brothers married and had children. After dinner at Thanksgiving and Christmas, Uncle Will would join us in the basement to watch television, and promptly fall asleep in the arm chair.
For his niece and nephews, this was an occasion of great drama. When he slept, his glass eye remained open, while we watched and whispered in amazement. The eye looked completely real, and it was hard to believe that he couldn’t see us with his eye wide open. There was nothing cruel about our curiosity, and Uncle Will would wake up and engage us by taking out his eye, putting it in his mouth and putting it back in again. We were the most awestruck children in the world.
My father and Uncle Will couldn’t have been more different — physically, in their world views, as well as in their life fortunes.
Uncle Will was a devout Catholic as well as an ultra-conservative politically. Where my father could be described as ambitious and aggressive, Uncle Will was laid back and mild mannered. Even after my parents divorced, he continued to visit us for dinner and be friendly, as well as a good friend to our mother for the rest of their lives.
For all the differences between them, my father loyally supported his brother socially, emotionally and financially. They got together regularly with their mutual friends (from the old days) for beers, football and baseball. When his brother went through bankruptcy, my father helped him with maintaining a car, rent and keeping food on the table.
If Uncle Will was resentful or jealous of my father’s good fortune and success, it never came to the surface. It doesn’t seem he couldn’t have been the good person he was, had he harbored self-pity or felt sorry for himself. I can only wish I had gotten to know him better, for he certainly had many stories to tell from Gerard and his Army service.
