Tuesday, July 12, 2011

THE JERSEY BOUNCE

07/09/2018

THE JERSEY BOUNCE
I bounced into this world on June 8, 1927, in Hoboken, New Jersey, preceded by two siblings, a brother, James Joseph, and a sister, Helen Rita. My parents, Bridget Della Finnerty and James Joseph Finnerty, were 37 and 49 at the time of my birth. Years later, the city’s Board of Heath issued me a certificate attesting that Joseph Finnerty had been born on that date. It does not include a middle name. My birth took place at Dr. Farr’s private birthing facility. This suggests that my family had attained a prosperous state by 1927, when many children in this country were born at home, attended by midwives. From the beginning, family members showered me with love and affection, a practice that never ended.
In 2012 I obtained a copy of my official birth document which identifies me as Joseph Thomas Finnerty. Thomas? No one in my family had ever called me by that moniker. For that matter, no one ever called me Joseph Girard Finnerty, although that’s the middle name that appears on my baptismal certificate. My brother told me Gerard was the intended name, but the priest misspelled it. I chose James as my confirmation name and it is the one I used all my life.
My parents were born in Ireland, County Galway, near the town of Ballinasloe, closer still to the hamlet of Ahascragh. The area is further divided into smaller locales, each bearing its own  name. My mother’s farm region is known as Latoon, my father’s Loonerton.
My father’s parents had ten children, seven boys and three girls. My dad, born April 23, 1878, ranked ninth in this parade. When he turned 16, he moved to England where he lived for sixteen years, working as a coal miner, construction laborer, and butter‑and‑egg deliveryman, among other pursuits. While employed in the latter job, the farmer who owned the business told him to bet his life savings on a horse, a fixed race. He did, and with the resultant winnings, bought first-class passage from Liverpool to New York aboard the Carmania, landing at Ellis Island on September 4, 1907, there records show. Upon arrival, he moved in to live with an older brother who had preceded him. This was a common practice among the immigrants arriving from the old country.
          My mother’s father sired 17 children, ten by his first wife, seven more by his second. She ranked fifth in the last batch, born October 8, 1889. Her maiden name happens to be Finnerty. Many residents of Ahascragh and the surrounding area have this surname. I hasten to add that my parents did not know each other while growing up in Ireland. They met years later after each had immigrated to the United States.
She entering through Boston, sponsored by an older sister. A wealthy family employed them both as maids. Later on, she held a similar position with another wealthy family who lived on an estate in Great Neck, Long Island. While working there she met my father.
They married on November 27, 1912, in New York City. He misrepresented his age on the marriage certificate, claiming to be 30 when he was actually 34. This fib angered my mother when she learned his true age many years later.
My two siblings were born in New York City, James, on January 18, 1914, and Helen, on July 1, 1917, making them 13‑1/2 and ten years my senior. This relatively large age difference between us allowed me to play my role as the baby of the family to perfection. Their role was to spoil me. They succeeded admirably. I am indebted to them all.
My father worked in Manhattan as a milkman (horse drawn wagon) in the years leading up to WW I. During the war, he worked in Hoboken as a longshoreman. Standing five feet eight inches tall, he possessed great upper body strength and had large hands, roughened by hard work. They were skillful ones, as he could operate a sewing machine.
After the war, with the onset of Prohibition, my parents began to make home brew, or bathtub gin. By adhering to a high standard of cleanliness, their product sold well. In the early 1920s, my father took over the operation of a clandestine saloon located in the basement of a Hoboken apartment building. Affectionately called The Hole, this tavern provided considerable income for my family until the country repealed Prohibition in 1933. During those years, my mother cooked all the free lunch foods that were indispensable to maintaining a clientele, many of whom were employees of the nearby Erie Lackawanna Railroad. When the end of Prohibition my dad opened his own tavern in Hoboken called the Liberty Bar. It failed and he lost all his money, forcing him to work on the WPA and my mother to become a waitress in lower Manhattan.
She stood five foot two inches tall and weighed 135 pounds in her early years. In later life, she slimmed down considerably. She possessed a fair complexion, curly hair, and sparkling eyes, a lovely shade of blue. Her body exuded energy and strength. Before we had a washing machine, she cleaned our laundry in a huge pot of water, properly called a boiler, using Borax, a brown soap that turned her hands an ugly red color. When the clothes were clean, she lifted the boiler off the stove and carried it to the sink in order to drain the water. The first time I performed this task as a mature teen, my arms almost fell off. That day I deemed her the world's strongest mom.
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