A MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER, PART TWO

Story ID:	1932
Written by:	Frederick William Wickert
Story type:	In Memory
Location:	Gilboa New York USA
Year:	2006
Person:	Howard Reidy

A MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER
PART TWO
By Fred Wickert



Before getting to Howard’s story, I want to clarify a few things in the story for the reader so the reader will better comprehend what they are reading.

1. The term ARC is used. ARC means Association for Retarded Children. There was and continues to be a chapter in Schoharie County. The ARC provides Day Hab services for them.

2. While living in the Ely family home, the work on the “dam,” referred to was the Gilboa-Blenheim Power Authority pumped storage power project under construction at that time. The Schoharie Creek was damned to provide a reservoir for the water needed to generate the electricity.


3. Howard made mention of his friend Andrew drawing pictures in his free time. Those pictures were beautiful drawings done with great expertise and people in the business of taking care of the developmentally disabled in the county were in great admiration of those drawings.


4. Howard mentions a Christmas play he was in with the Friendship Club. Following Howard’s own story of his life, there will be an excerpt of the newspaper article that appeared in the Cobleskill Times Journal regarding that play. Permission has been granted by the Cobleskill Times Journal to use it and publish it here in this project.


5. The reference to Coby, NY is short for Cobleskill, NY.


6. The reference to ERDS means Eleanor Roosevelt Developmental Services. It was the state office that supervised care for all developmentally disabled persons in the county. The name ERDS no longer is used. It is now called the Schoharie Office of the Capital District Developmental Services.

7. He states that he went to Florida with the residents of River St. The Schoharie County ARC operates a few community residences in the county. A community residence is one where there is staff twenty-four hours a day to take care of the residents, who are Developmentally Disabled persons. There are usually around twelve or thirteen persons living in a community residence. River St. refers to a residence located on River Street in the village of Middleburgh, N.Y.

8. There are a number of references to the Friendship Club. There also is mention of a parade in Schoharie the summer following the Christmas pageant. There is an article included in this project called, A WOMAN HEAVEN SENT by myself, Fred Wickert, that was published earlier this year in Medhunters Magazine. The article will explain the origin of the Friendship Club, the Christmas Pageant and of the Parade participation the summer following the Christmas pageant.

9. Howard tells of his moving to his final residence with John and Jennifer Ward and tells of it being in N. Blenheim, N.Y. Actually, the Ward residence is located in Gilboa, N.Y. It is on a star route for mail delivery, and the mailing address is N. Blenheim, but is actually located in Gilboa and the Wards are my neighbors, only a few doors away.


Here is Howard’s story, as he wrote it. No changes or edits have been made.





AN

EXTRAORDINARY

LIFE



By: Howard Reidy



Special Thanks Page



Thanks to Melody Gathen for helping me use the computer, helping type my work and writing my work in the book.

Thanks to Tammy Armlin for helping me figure out what Justine wrote in my book.

Thanks to Jan Parks for giving me the idea to write my life history.


Chapter #1

My Family

Life


I Howard Reidy was born in Bellevue Hospital in New York on August 23, 1920. I was born into a wonderful family that I will tell you about in this chapter.

First there was my grandmother Katherine. She had 13 children. This included two sets of twins. Also Kiely Reidy, my mom had five children. There was William born 1910, Tommy born in 1912, Mary born in 1914, Patrick born in 1916, and finally me Howard born in 1920. And out of all my siblings the only one I knew was Thomas who was born in New York City on 7/23/12. I never met my two brothers William and Patrick they died before I was born. My only sister Mary also died at the age of 9 of diphtheria. Patrick, he was born 12/31/16 and died at 3 years of age from a brief illness and convulsions. My sister Mary was born 12/12/14 and passed away from the flu at the age of 5.

After all that I lived in New York and then moved to Astoria, there I lived with my mother, father John and my brother Tommy. We lived in Astoria and at the age of 9 I started public school at # PS7. Shortly after I started school my mother Agnes passed away on Oct 8, 1929. She passed at the age of 45 it was because of a heart attack. I can remember her letting me sleep with her at night. I was the one that found my mother the morning she had passed and I went to get my father. He took care of things and I went to school as usual that day. Because of my mother passing on I never met or saw my maternal grandparents. But I do know that they were Thomas Kiely and Agnes White Kiely. Thomas was from Ireland and moved to American. He worked as a laborer and died at the age of 70 from senility. My grandmother Agnes was born in American and had five children. She died at the age of 69 of known causes.

Also after the passing of my mom, my father, and Tommy and I moved in with my dad’s mom, our grandmother. We lived in Jackson heights with my grandmother and my dad’s three sisters. We lived in what was my paternal grandparent’s house. At the house I can remember my grandmother asking me how my day had gone.

My paternal grandparents were William Reidy who died at the age of 53 from diabetes and Katherine Walsh Reidy born in 1852 and in 1933 passed away from hardening of the arteries.

After that my aunt Katherine lived with our family in what used to be our grandmother house where she worked as a librarian on 42nd and 5th ave.

I was also there with my father. My father John was a good man. My father worked for Thomas Edison doing electrical work and checking meters for 23 yrs. I can remember he would come home from work and we would sit and have dinner at the kitchen table. My father would then check over the mail, read the papers and smoke a cigar or pipe. On Sunday my father would attend 11:00 am mass by himself. And on Saturday my father would go and visit he’s mother and 3 sister for the day. I also can remember on one summer evening my father used to go across the street to the drugstore he would buy ice cream and bring it back to me and Tommy.

And also my dad would take us to our landlords farm on the weekends were we rode ponies. I remember that because one weekend when we were there, is when we found out that the president John F Kennedy got shot it was Friday November 22, 1963. And after that my father passed away from bronchitis at the age of 84. It was Christmas morning on Dec 25, 1964 when he passed away.

So, after that it left me, Tommy, Aunt Katherine and Aunt Minnie.

My two aunts were wonderful. My aunt Helen would take me to the post graduated hospital for an evaluation on the 125th street. Also, my aunt Helen also known as LALA would let me know if I could go to the movies on Saturdays, but I had to clean up my toys and put them back where they belonged. My aunt Helen had two sisters named Katherine and Minnie. They would help out with the cooking and cleaning sometimes. Helen was a cleaning lady. I remember seeing her wash the clothes on a wash board and ring them out with the rollers and hang them on the line to dry. My aunt LALA would send me to get the Daily News and the New York Journal in the morning before school. The grocery store was across the street and I would sometimes go with a list and money to pick up needed supplies. Also, aunt LALA would wear a large straw hat and mow the lawn. She also trimmed the hedges in the front of the house. I remember being told that Aunt Katherine died in 1932 of goiter and Aunt Minnie died in 1944. Aunt LALA was one of my mother’s two sisters. Her other one was naming Lillian and she also had a brother named Tom. I remember seeing them only a couple of times. I remember about my aunt Helen is that she used to make applesauce and peaches and pears. She also made plums. Aunt Helen made pickled beets in jars; she made canned corn for winter. Her homemade jam was eaten in the winter Aunt Helen made homemade strawberry and orange jams. Aunt Helen made homemade cakes with strawberry jam and cocoa hut topping and while she did that I played stickball in the street with neighborhood boys, we also went sleigh riding in the winter and I remember while outside seeing some people go to the junk man to buy junk to sell for money. After that I stayed with my aunt LALA for three years and 8 months and 30 days. That was the years 1929-1933. After remembering my aunt I can also think back to Sept 29, 1970 when I found out that my aunt Helen passed away.

Now with all that said about my wonderful family. On to the family member I remember the most my brother Tommy. I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old I had a red peddle car that I used to ride up and down the sidewalk. I also used to play croquet in the yard when I lived at my grandmothers and my 3 aunts and my father all while my brother Tommy would watch me. I also remember that while in Astoria my brother Tommy would watch me play in the sandbox. My brother Tommy was very important to me. My brother was also a very busy man. My brother Tommy used to drive a soda delivery truck until he entered a CCC Army Camp in June of 1932. Tommy was in the army from 1932-1935. Where he was a cook stationed in Camp Dix, New jersey. While there he also played baseball for an army team. Then after leaving this army in 1936 Tommy reenlisted in another army, until 1938 when Tommy contracted yellow fever and he was sent to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC from his stationed point in Panama. Then later Tommy worked in a shipyard in Camden, New Jersey. The year was 1944. And while working at the shipyard Tommy attended a night school also in New Jersey. Then later on Tommy worked in the Campbell’s soup kitchen. He told me that they cooked the soup at 500 degrees. The factory was located in Camden New Jersey and that is where my brother Tommy met his wife Estelle. Estelle and Tommy got married on June 13, 1942. They were married for 17 yrs until an accident that I will tell you about later on. And while they were married my brother Tommy traveled to Germany where he stayed until 1949. And my sister-in-law Estelle worked for Campbell’s soup co for 42 yrs until she retired in 1969.

Then on Sept 7, 1940 to Sept28, 1940 we went home to Jackson heights with my father and two aunts. We went to the world fair, 1940 Yankees stadium and to the movies. We also went to visit my uncle Tommy on Thursday April26, 1940. Our friends in Jackson heights included Charlie Bear, Harry Jones, Ed Eddie Miller, John Finn, Ernest, William Miller, Joseph G Francis Quinn, and leftie Long. We all would play touch football, kickball and baseball. We would clean out an empty lot by cutting the grass and making a field. We used an old bed frame as a backstop for our sports. Also we played cards for money and pop tops on Sunday.

And when I got older my brother Tommy took me to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. The day was Saturday July 19, 1952 the game was between the Chicago White Sox and the Yankees. The Yankees won with a score of 5 to 4. I brought a New York Yankees yearbook. I did this because in 1940 I started collecting New York Yankee yearbooks. I have books dated 1948 to 1957. But when I went away my aunt Helen gave all my toys to my nephew including my yearbooks. I do still have my New York Yankees yearbooks 1958 to 2000 they stopped making the baseball yearbook for 1958 to 1994. I collect newspaper clippings in my room. I also collect baseball cards my collecting started in 1992 if I get doubles of a card I give them to friend’s son who collects them as well. But anyway while we were at the ball game Estelle Tommy’s wife moved to New York City I get New York Yankees magazines published monthly. This started when I picked up my first one after the ballgame. Also after the game we went to a restaurant that had different selections at set prices. I almost forgot that on Dec 7,1941 Sunday Tommy and Estelle came to visit me and we went for a car ride to the town of Thompson pole and went to a catholic church and then my brother Tommy took me to Sunday dinner and then to the movies in Flushing Queens, NY. And then my brother Tommy took me to the institution. And then the last time Tommy and Estelle came to see me was when Mr. T and Mrs. Shavers had to pick them up at the bus that day was Thursday July9, 1959. Then when they left I went with Mr. Shaver to return them to the bus station and then I went back and helped Mrs. Shaver clean the bedroom upstairs and we swept the wooden sidewalk. And then on April18, 1960 I got the horrible news that my brother Tommy was killed in an apartment house fire. They said he couldn’t escape from a kitchen window and passed away.

And then on April 29, 2000 my sister-in-law Estelle passed. And I will miss them both because we kept in touch by phone or mail. They always made sure to call me or send stuff by mail for special holidays and birthdays.

Well, there now you know about my family so now I will go on to tell you about the stuff that I did and what happened to me in my life.