One young nun was among those in my class, Sister Margaret Klein. She was from South Dakota. I never knew anyone from there, but she was very talkative. Everyplace I went, she was there, as I noticed her more often. Suddenly, I would miss her when she was not there. There were plenty of young nuns. However, she was special in a way that I had never known anyone. She was delightful and friendly. I guess that I hardly noticed her until near the end of my six weeks at Ladysmith. Suddenly, she was everywhere I went. I seemed to intimidate her, but I was fascinated by her. I had never met anyone like her. She offered to show me around St. Paul and Minneapolis. I did not know what to make of her. The beauty of Margaret and upper Wisconsin blended into one. I was heading back to Chicago and then Germany. She was going to teach grade school in St. Paul. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses. In Chicago, she sounded wonderful on the phone. I wrote to her. What was happening to me? Why was this young lady so attractive to me? Or was she? Was it allusion that I had? Why did I feel this way? Who could I talk to about this sudden new obsession of mine? I tried to keep focused on my work. Every free moment I thought about her. This is not what I expected. I planned for my trip home to New Jersey and my trip to Germany. After the summer was over, it was back to CTU and then to Austria, and Germany. I wanted to visit with my parents in New Jersey, but I barely stayed a couple of days. I was to get my doctorate and then speak at an Austrian theological conference on Confirmation because Professor Fischer had invited me to talk about the close relationship between Baptism and Confirmation. Then I had my classes to prepare for in the second and third trimesters at CTU. I had a full life, but there in the background was that Margaret Klein. What to do about her? Have you ever met someone that you were madly in love with?
The summer of 1970 teaching at Mount Senario College, Ladysmith, Wisconsin
The big decision of 1970 was where to go for the summer. My mother wanted me to come back to Carteret, NJ, and be a priest at our home parish. I was looking for some place to spend my summer teaching. It was already Easter time, and I was trying to adjust to life at CTU. I was not going to stay there that summer. I finally got in contact with Mike Doyle, who had been a year ahead of me at Granville and Benburb. The only other Servite that I knew pretty well was John Pawlikoski, who was a year younger than me, but he had gone to the University of Chicago Divinity Theology school to get his doctorate in ethics. Mike Doyle was the acting President of Mount Senario College at Ladysmith, Wisconsin, where the Servite nuns, who had taught me in grade school, had their headquarters. He wanted me to come to Ladysmith to teach a daily weekday course in the summer of 1970, so that a lot of the Servite nuns could take this course. He also lined up a conference with the priests of Superior, Wisconsin, to give a talk on Confirmation. I liked both ideas. On top of that, Father Conrad Borntrager, who had been with me in Louvain, was going to be the spiritual director for the Servite nuns that summer. It all sounded like a great idea. When I got there, I was surprised to find a couple of the nuns who had taught me in Carteret, NJ. However, there were a lot of other younger nuns who were going to be taking my class every morning. The rest of my day was free, so I got invited to any number of activities. Some were discussions about the changes in the Church. Others were about the role of women and their role in the Church. I also got to see a lot of the Wisconsin scenery in northern Wisconsin. There were always a number of these young sisters, who never wore their habits. I guess I had in mind the Servite nuns who had taught me back in the early 1950s, almost twenty years earlier. I had not considered the feminine side of things, since I had no sisters, and had been studying with all male-religious people for the past twelve years. It was a new experience for me, all this femininity. Mike and Conrad were nice, but I seemed to be spending more time with these enthusiastic young sisters. The whole experience was for only six weeks. Thus, I enjoyed the change of pace. They were very interested in the role of worship and liturgy in this class. They seemed interested in finding out what was behind these changes. It all went very fast. Then it was back to Chicago, as I had to get ready to go back to Germany and Austria in the fall. Do you know much about upper Wisconsin?
A faculty member of Catholic Theological Union 1969-1971
My Servite provincial wanted me back in Chicago for the start of classes in September of 1968. However, I had just started writing my doctoral thesis, so that the following school year 1969-1970, was more reasonable. They had a trimester system, so that I could teach in 1970 for sure. This new Catholic Theological Union, at the University of Chicago, was a Catholic graduate school of theology formed originally from three Catholic religious orders, the Franciscans, the Passionists, and the Servites, but has since been sponsored by over 24 institutes and Catholic faith communities. Now, it is one of the largest Catholic graduate schools of theology in the English-speaking world, training both men and women for lay and ordained ministry. However, in 2025, it gained renewed attention when alumnus Augustinian Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who earned a Master of Divinity degree in 1982, was elected Pope Leo XIV, over ten years after I had left. However, I made it back to Chicago, in early 1970 to teach my classes on sacraments and the liturgy. I was a little disappointed at the students and the general set up. There was very little structure to the religious life there, compared to my early days, ten years earlier at Granville, Wisconsin. Secondly, I assumed that the students would be more interested in their studies than they were. These new students were big into action, protests and marching, with very little emphasis in serious study. I thought that they would be more interested in what I had to say, but they wanted me to march with them. Finally, once I went on one of their marches, I was disappointed again. Nobody showed up except for a few seminarians. What was the point of that? I tried to fit in, but I had been dealing with American military people for the last few years, and these seminarians, who were exempt from the draft, kept calling for the end of the war in Vietnam. Then the Kent State Massacre took place, and they wanted to close the school down. We finally decided on a seminar on peace and war, since it was better than some kind of crazy march, but no students showed up, only faculty. The second year was not as bad. The war seemed to be dying down. We worked closer on a faculty level with the other theology schools in Hyde Park. I had to go to Austria and Germany to a meeting on Adult Baptism, where I presented my ideas about Confirmation, and finally got my doctoral degree in the fall of 1970. They asked me to renew for a third year, but by then, I was having other problems. Thus, I only spent two years as an Assistant Professor of Theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Have you ever spent a short time teaching at one place?
Auxiliary Military Chaplain in Trier, Germany (1967-1969)
I soon learned that Bitburg, an American Air Force Base, was about twenty miles north of Trier. The American Vincentian priest, John McKenna, would have an USA Airforce car come to pick him up to bring him to work at Bitburg. There were a lot of American priests studying in Europe who helped on Sundays without being in the military, since they were civilian auxiliary military chaplains. I helped that Christmas of 1966 with confessions and Mass the first year I was there. The weekend stipend for a priest was equivalent to my room and board for a month. Then one of the military chaplains asked me if I would help at the American Housing Unit of 100 military families that were in Trier, on the outskirts of town. They had no chaplains there but wanted me to have confessions and Mass there at the Housing Unit on Saturdays and Sundays. I was to see a USA AF Master Sargeant there who would give me all the details. They thought that they had an American priest, but he went back to the USA, so that they needed someone else. That seemed fine with me. I did not have a car, since I walked to school and back. That was no problem. I took a bus to a certain stop and then walked up the hill to the Housing area on Saturday afternoons. However, I would get a ride home from someone at the unit on Sunday afternoon or evening. People invited me to dinner on Saturday night and Sunday afternoons and evenings. I got to know a lot of people there. 80 of the units were for enlisted men, while the other building was only for officers. The officers made a habit of making sure I got home. These units were for military people with big families, so that all had some children, some with three or four. Originally, I stayed at one of these apartments, but then I switched to the MP quarters, that made more sense, if someone wanted to contact me, during the week. Some families were more insistent that I have meals with them. I heard confessions on Saturday night and had a 10:00 AM Sunday Mass in a basement next to a laundry room. I had about 25-40 people for most Masses. I got to know about three or four families very well. But then, they would move. Eventually, I was chaplain of the day on the base also, as time went by, especially when I was working on my thesis on Confirmation. They all knew what I was working on, since I called it my great work. One of the officer’s wives typed my thesis, that took longer than I expected. Thus, it was a nice little parish. Everybody knew who I was and why I was there. The most unusual case was a fourteen-year-old girl who was experiencing her second pregnancy, since she was raped the first time. This time, she wanted to kept her baby instead of giving it to her grandmother. Thus, every Saturday, I would prepare my sermon, and head out to the hill. I still remember my thirtieth birthday, since they give a little birthday party. I was mad at myself that I had not finished my thesis. I knew that the time was coming when I would have to say goodbye, like many of the original families that had already returned to the USA. It was a great pastoral experience of a small community. If I needed some help, I could call the Bitburg Catholic chaplains. I began to appreciate the importance of a good Catholic family life. Have you ever lived in a small community of less than 100 families?
The great work on Confirmation during the late 1960s
My new assignment was to study for a doctorate in Theology, so that I could teach at the new seminary that was opening at the University of Chicago in the next couple of years. They needed someone who knew something about the liturgy. There was a German Liturgical Institute in Trier, Germany, just starting up, led by Professor Balthasar Fischer, a priest from the University of Trier, who was working on instituting the new baptismal reforms for adults, since he was an expert on Baptism. I got a room at a Vincentian monastery there, since there were no other Servites in Trier, a beautiful old Roman-Germanic town on the Mosel River. All the classes were in German with no translators, but there were about 15 other American priests. I also knew some German. I said Mass in German and heard Confessions in German. After I had preached at one Mass, a nun came up to me, and said she was going to pray that I might learn German a little better. I spent a year at this German Liturgical Institute, where various liturgical scholars would come for a week or two. Then we would have a small test after each series of lectures. I remember the most prestigious one was Josef Jungmann from Innsbruck, Austria, who had written the definitive work on the history of the Mass over the centuries. My favorite course was on the travels of the fourth century Egeria, a continuing seminar with Balthasar Fischer, as this fourth century pilgrim explained what she saw in Jerusalem and compared it to what was going on in Rome. However, this weekly evening session had Mosel wine to sip on as we discussed her adventures. I decided to study about Confirmation, since not too much had been written about it. Professor Fischer was pleased. He wanted me to study Confirmation at the time of Charlemagne, during the Dark Ages, around the year 800. He wanted me to work on the relationship between Baptism and Confirmation. I was excited about this and I also wrote about it for my licentiate in theology the following year. The toughest test I ever took there was a class test for the STL that I had to translate from Hebrew into German, and give a German explanation of the first three chapters of Genesis. I did okay. After that, Professor Fischer said that he was too busy with leading the Commission on the new rites for the initiation of adults who wanted to join the Catholic Church, but if I found anything interesting about the relationship of Baptism to Confirmation to let him know. I decided to write on the origins of Confirmation in the Western Church Prior to the Thirteenth Century. He wanted me to work with the Dogmatic Professor, Wilhelm Bruening. However, in the middle of my work, Bruening moved to Bonn, so that I had to go to Bonn every couple of months. Professor Bruening was very helpful with the medieval stuff, while Fischer was good at the patristic sources. I also had to do the biblical indications of Confirmation, plus the material around Charlemagne that I had already done. Anyway, it took me longer than I expected, so that my short stay in Trier became a four-year span, before I finally got my STD in 1970. I became a world expert on the history of Confirmation up to the thirteenth century, something that not that many people cared about. However, Balthasar Fischer wanted me to speak to his commission setting up Adult Baptism. He wanted me to stress the close relationship and the order of the ancient practice of Confirmation after Baptism, but before the reception of the Eucharist. I did speak to this official group. To my surprise, years later, there it was in the new RCIA. Confirmation was given to new Catholics, right after their Baptism at the Easter Vigil, but before they received Communion. Thus, I had an impact on over a billion Catholics, my little contribution to the universal Roman Catholic Church at the annual Easter Vigil. Have you done anything that effected over a billion people?
My Ordination in 1966
Well, it finally arrived, the year of my ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood, 1966. I had taken my final lifetime vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in 1964. I had been ordained a deacon in 1965, the step just below priesthood. I even thought about being a permanent deacon, since that was going to be an option in the Roman Catholic Church. People convinced me to be ordained a priest, since I had spent all this time, nine years, preparing for this priesthood ordination. I spent my Christmas of 1965 as a deacon at a small Belgium French speaking Church. I had to make a retreat before I was ordained, so we went to a German Benedictine monastery, where they sang the Divine Office every day, every hour, instead of reciting it. I really felt like a medieval monk there. Meanwhile, my parents, with my uncle Tom, Aunt Elizabeth, and my cousin Tom, had all flown over to Brussels to see me get ordained. In fact, my brother Johnny from Germany was there also. We all went to see the Sound of Music in Brussels on Easter Sunday. I loved the opening scene that reminded me of my last two summers in the Austrian alps. Four of us were ordained in Brussels on April, 11, 1966, Easter Monday, I gave out my first blessings, and then had a Mass the next day with John Dowd as the server. This was the first of my many first Masses. We then flew to Ireland with my relatives and me, but not by brother Johnny, who went back to Germany. These were the glory days. I was a celebrity star, a newly ordained priest. I had the power to say Mass and hear Confessions. We met many of my Irish relatives in Carrickmacross. That Sunday, I said another first Mass at the Corduff chapel, where my father’s family, including my grandparents, was buried in the Church cemetery. It was 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the Irish rebellion of 1916. My father got to meet all his living local combatants from the old IRA days back then. All the old recriminations were gone. He had a great time, drinking, smoking, and telling stories. Then I went back to Louvain to finish my classes to get a master’s degree in theology. We were ordained before we finished the classes, which I thought was strange. Then when I finished my classes, I flew back to Carteret, NJ, from Luxembourg to New York. There I had another First Mass in Carteret with a large reception. The Servite pastor of St. Joseph’s was surprised that I could not sing better. Anyway, I had a summer assignment in Chicago, at St. Domitilla’s, Hillside, IL, where the priest who got me to be a Servite was the pastor. I taught a religious class at St. Philips HS in the morning and was in the parish during the afternoon and evening. I led daily Mass, had confessions on Saturday, and presided and preached at a Sunday Mass, and helped during Communion at the other Masses. I also stayed a month at another Servite parish, St. Dominic, an old Italian parish that took care of the Cabrini-Green projects. My job at both parishes was to take a census to see if there were any Catholics. Thus, I walked around with my priestly collar in the Chicago western suburbs and the Cabrini-Green projects, knocking on doors. Some of the Servite priests in Chicago thought that I was wasting my time, since I had enough education. Can you ever get too much education?
Studying Theology at the University of Louvain, Belgium, in the mid-1960s
I spent the next four years of my life in Louvain, Belgium, studying theology during the mid-1960s, 1962-1966. I was the only American Servite student, until John Dowd came in my third year. However, there were plenty of diocesan American seminarians at the American College in Louvain, where we had some classes. I had to personally enroll in the University, since it cost $100.00 a year. We had to walk to our classes at a couple of different locations in Louvain, a medieval university, as we wore our Servite habits, like in Rome. We had our regular prayer life without the noon prayers. Thursday was a day off from classes, as we played sports. I either played basketball, rugby, or soccer as a goalie. My biggest problem was learning French, since I went to a special class for that my first year. Our American Servite superior, who had gone to college at Seton Hall, left after two years and was replaced by another American Servite priest. I liked the idea that we had no papers to do, just an oral exam at the end of the year for each class subject. A few of the Americans were from Rhode Island and Louisiana, who grew up speaking French. They took notes and translated them into English and had the professors read them. Then they copied them to hand out to us. It was a great system. Even some of the professors conducted the exams in English. However, you had to know a lot of information. All the classes were lectures in a big hall of about 100 students. All the teachers used the French La Sainte Bible, The Jerusalem Bible, so that we always brought it to class. The New Testament classes used the Greek edition of Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, with a Latin translation. The most famous incident was in the fall of 1963, when Professor Louis Janssens published an article about the contraceptive pill, so that a reporter from Time magazine came to our class to ask us questions about it. We took road trips to see various Catholic architectural churches. We even had a small English-speaking seminar on John Robinson’s Honest to God, with our patrology teacher, Albert Van Roey. I had an interesting fellow Servite student, Clodovis Boff, who became a famous Brazilian Liberation theologian. A Scots’ classmate, Danny McQuian, and myself spent two summers at the Servite house in Innsbruck and Bavaria, studying German. We all spent two weeks at a house at Ostend along the North Sea, eating fresh French baguets every morning. My theology studies took place at Louvain, while the Second Vatican Council was taking place in Rome each autumn from 1962-1965. Some of my teachers were the periti or specialists at Vatican II, as they explained some of the things that were going on at the Vatican Council. Cardinal Suenens of Belgium was one of the leading men at this council. He used many of the ideas from our teachers. Although one was quick to remark that Cardinal Suenens loved collegiality for the bishops, but not in his own diocese. Thus, you might say that we were the first of the Vatican II theologians, since it was taking place as we were learning about the back stories of how things came to be. These were not radical scholars, but those who wanted to return to the roots of the church in the early first centuries. My brother Johnny was stationed in Ramstein AFB in Germany and made a couple of trips to see me. We had a good time, catching up with each other. It was a touch of home for me. The four years seemed to go so fast. Have you ever studied at a foreign university?
The great trip to Rome in 1962
Out of the blue, there was a change in plans. One day, my superior at Lake Bluff came up to me in August of 1962. He wanted to know what I thought about going to Rome to study. I told him, I was excited to start classes in September at Lake Bluff. Then I asked, “Why Rome?” He responded that the American Servites wanted to send me to Rome to study theology at the international Italian Servite theology school, the Marianum. I asked was it just me? No, he said that Dave Gallegos and Bob Vogel were going with me. I told him that I did not speak any Italian. He said that it would be easy, since it was a lot like Latin. I assumed that we would fly over to Rome. No, we were going on an Italian cruise ship that was going back to Italy that had been going back and forth between New York City and the Caribbean all summer. This meant that I would not get my master’s degree in history, which I had just started. My parents were excited for me, since I would spend a week or two at home before I left. In the fall of 1962, the great Second Vatican Council was beginning in Rome. I asked Dave, who was from New Mexico, and Bob, who was from Chicago, to stay at my house before we left on our trip to Rome. They could then see the Servite parish in Carteret, NJ. We also could do some site seeing in New York City. I think we went to the UN building. Everyone in Carteret was excited for me. Then, it was “bon voyage!” again. This was my third cruise ship trip across the Atlantic in three years. However, this ship did not have the class system that the Holland-American and Cunard lines had. We also met some interesting people on this cruise ship. The fourth member at our dining table was a young lady going to Europe to get married. We also met the Lutheran Observer to the Second Vatican Council, George Lindbeck, and his family. We stopped in Lisbon, Portugal, where he had a very fast quick trip to Fatima. In Palma de Mallorca, they had over 100 straight days without rain, but it rained the day we were there. Finally, in Tangier, Morocco, we watched belly-dancers and ate some local food. Each time, we just made it back to the boat on time. Finally, we arrived in Naples, Italy, where the Servite Father Gus Kulbus met us. He took us to a wonderful Naples restaurant and a cruise out to the Isle of Capri. After all that travel, I got sick on this ferry to the island. Then I got the news that I was not going to study in Rome. Instead, I was being sent to the Servite house in Louvain, Belgium, where I would study at the University there. I met some more American Servites in Rome. Mike Doyle was a year ahead of me. Father Dan Brown took me sight-seeing in Rome. The Italian General of the Servites brought me to see Pope John XXIII ordain bishops at St. Peter’s. Then I was off to Florence where I met two Italian Servite seminarians, Carlo and Guido, who were going to study with me in Louvain. They did not speak English and I did not speak Italian. They were surprised that I did not speak French. We had a wonderful train trip from Florence to Brussels, with a stop in France to see one of their relatives. I was so happy to see Paul Cullen, who was a year ahead of me in Benburb, who meet me at the train station in Louvain. This would be my home for the next four years, the longest that I had been at any Servite house. There was about 15 Servite theology students there, Italians, Canadians, Brazilians, British, and me. There were two American priests there, one from New Jersey, and the other from Chicago. My great trip landed me in Belgium, after about three weeks of travel. Have you ever taken a trip to Rome?
My year at Loyola University in Chicago in 1961-1962
After our two-year experience abroad in Northern Ireland, it was back to the Chicago northern suburb of Lake Bluff, IL, and the Servite Stonebridge Priory, to study theology. However, before we did that, we had to spend a year at Loyola University in Chicago at their Lake Shore campus to get a bachelor’s degree. The Servites had two high schools in Chicago, St. Philips, and Hillside. However, in 1958, they opened two new high schools in Anaheim, California, and Perth, Australia, both called Servite High and Servite College. They needed priest teachers for these high schools. Ironically enough, the two Chicago high schools are now closed, while the two schools started in 1958 are still open. During our summers while studying theology, we would then be able to take classes towards a master’s degree. It all seemed logical, except that Lake Bluff and Loyola’s Lakeshore campus were not that close. We took one large school bus to get there. One or two of my classmates volunteered as drivers. Also, we had an outdoor swimming pool at Lake Bluff that was great after coming from the hot summer classes at the Loyola’s downtown campus in our black suits. I took a couple of political science classes, but then decided that studying history with a master’s degree was a better idea. Thus, I ended up with a double major in philosophy and history when we graduated in 1962. I enjoyed a couple of great teachers of European and American history. I was surprised that my classmates seemed more interested in school, compared to some of the other regular students. I got mostly A’s and B’s, depending on how much I liked the class. Also, we were gone all day, so that we missed the midday prayers and no one seemed upset. We had a dollar a day for lunch, so I found someplace that had a hamburger and milk shake for 90 cents. Some guys would skip lunch and save up for a big meal. However, it was bitterly cold in the winter with the wind whipping off Lake Michigan and Sheridan Road on the Loyola Lake Shore campus. I used the library to study, so that once I found one of my teachers sleeping in the library. In June of 1962, I graduated at the Arie Crown Theater on Lake Michigan. That day, I walked the streets of Chicago. I had no big celebration, since nobody was there for me. I looked into people’s faces, as I thought how lucky I was. I was an Irish-American Catholic seminarian where the mayor of the city of Chicago was the same, Richard Daley, and the President of the USA, John Kennedy, was also an Irish-American Catholic. I was in the right place. I was the privileged one. If I wanted to quit, I had a college degree and could probably teach in a Catholic High School in Chicago. However, I wanted to finish up these next four years of theology and get my master’s degree in history. I took two graduate courses that summer of 1962 on the Civil War and England in the nineteenth century. Then in the fall, I was going to start my theology courses. All that I had done so far was leading up to this. My year at the Loyola campus was over. We were going to go to Wisconsin as a group to go on a two-week vacation. Everything was working out according to plan. I guess I was surprised how well it went during that year of commuting to classes by bus and train, instead of just walking down the hall to a classroom in the same building. What do you remember about your college days and graduation?
The early 1960s in Northern Ireland, 1959-1961
I got my first passport at age 20. My Irish parents were delighted that I was going to Ireland. They would try and come to visit me the next summer, since neither of them had been to Ireland since they left Ireland in the 1920s. My father told me to never mention his name, because of his 1920s IRA connections. One of the British customs agents noticed that I had an Irish name and was headed to Northern Ireland. He wanted to know why I did not stay in the USA to study philosophy. He told me that I should not cause any trouble while I was in Ireland. We had a day’s layover in London, where we did some quick sightseeing. We headed to Northern Ireland at Benburb Priory, on the border between County Armagh and County Tyrone on the Blackwater River, in the province of Ulster, that was part of the United Kingdom, not Ireland. Our superiors there were both American and Irish Servites. I was delighted that I would get to see my uncles, aunts, and cousins that I had never seen in my life. I expected it to be rainy, but it was a wonderful sunny Irish day when we arrived in Belfast. It was the same routine as in Milwaukee, except we had more classes with the same prayer life. We also played Gaelic football and Irish hurling in the afternoons, instead of baseball and basketball. However, my classmate Gene Mellican wanted to play outdoor basketball. Thus, in 1960 and 1961, we, the Servite seminarians at Benburb, went to Belfast to win the Irish National Basketball Championships. We beat an American military unit from Londonderry, and then some Americans from Trinity College in Dublin, each year. Thus, I was on the Irish National Basketball Champions of 1960 and 1961. Visting Sunday was once a month, the same as at Milwaukee. However, I never had any visitors there in Chicago, but in Ireland, I was one of the few Americans to get visitors. My cousin Patsy Finnegan, with my uncle Martin, my father’s brother, and my aunts Lizzie and Annie, my mother’s sisters, came by car to visit me from Carrickmacross, Monaghan, from across the border in Ireland. We also got to visit Dublin once a year by bus. In the summer time, we spent a couple of weeks in Donegal, where the eastern shore line of the Atlantic Ocean beaches was beautiful, but no one went swimming because the water was so cold. I thought of New Jersey on the other side of the Atlantic where I had often gone to the Jersey shore. We studied scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. I loved our library and spent a lot of time reading philosophy journals about Aquinas and the Greek philosopher Aristotle. My parents came to Ireland in the summer of 1960, so I got to go to Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, and meet all my uncles, aunts, and cousins. My mother was a little upset that her sisters were not as well off as my father’s brothers. Anyway, I discovered my Irish roots. I gradually realized that I was an Irish-American, because of my parents. Everyone was excited that an American Irish Catholic, John Kennedy, won the presidential election in the fall of 1962. We also went to various Irish Catholic shrines. The time went by fast, as we took a Cunard cruise ship back to the USA. We stayed up all night as we sailed into New York harbor to see that great Statue of Liberty that I had seen so many times as a kid on the Staten Island Ferry. Have you ever been to the place where your mother and father grew up?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 