McLaughlin Family

My sister Michele’s third birthday is one to remember. My parents bought a cake and had it decorated with an elaborate carousel because she loved riding the merry-go round at what would become known as the John F. Kennedy Park in Hayward, California on Hesperian Boulevard.

We invited my father’s immediate family to the party, which meant his parents, sister, brother-in-law, and niece. We met at Spenger’s Fish Grotto in Berkeley, California. My father knew the original owner of the restaurant (Mr. Spenger), and had reserved the banquet room for Michele’s birthday party.

Before the party, my father insisted on taking a couple photographs to record the event. He took the first one, which is shown to the left. My sister Lisa is almost a year and being held by my grandfather, Michael Joseph McLaughlin. From left to right, the other adults are Margaret Mary McLaughlin (my grandmother), Margaret Therese Fedele (my father’s sister), James Fedele (my father’s brother-in-law), and my mom Elsa (Elsie) Florence Carlson. Again from left to right, the other kids in the front are Michael Jimmy (that’s me), Maryanne Fedele (my first cousin), and the party girl, Michele Ann McLaughlin. She’s holding her new doll that she received for her birthday from my parents before going out to eat.

My mother took the other picture, which lets us see that special cake with it’s merry-go round peaking out above the top of the box. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to adjust for the change in light, so when she backed up to capture the cake she over exposed the picture (just a bit). The only difference in the photo is that my dad’s in it and my mother isn’t. He’s the one in the middle of the adults in the back row with his arm around his mother.

I did get in trouble for tasting the cake’s frosting but that’s actually great in hindsight because I’m the only one who tasted any of it. When my father lit the fourth candle (the one to grow on) inside the banquet room, the carousel caught fire. It was a whoosh and then flames and smoke. By the time they doused the fire the cake was gone. While it struck me as a great time, it certainly tied Mr. Spenger and my father’s stomachs in knots.

Mr. Spenger saved the day after dinner because he had coconut covered cakes and ice cream for the kids. It brought a smile back to Michele’s face because the destruction of the cake was a proper tragedy for her party. The other presents also helped.

This is a wonderful photo of my grandparents shortly after they were married in September 1920. It unknown where they took the photo but it appears likely that it was taken in Cleveland, Ohio. My grandfather Michael Joseph McLaughlin fell in love with my grandmother Margaret Mary Atckison in 1915 at a country fair. Nobody is sure which county fair but it is thought that it was most likely the Stearns County, Minnesota fair. He was 19 and she was 16 when they met. My Atckison great grandparents insisted that they wait until Margaret was 21 before they marry.

It worked out fine in the end, as my grandfather was busy working as a cowboy in Wyoming, and then serving in the US Army during WWI. He first served against Pancho Villa in the Signal Corps, and then supporting the 10th Cavalry in College Station, Texas. Support units at that time where composed of white soldiers, while the 9th and 10th Cavalries were composed of black soldiers. The black soldiers were known as Buffalo Soldiers.

My grandparents were married in Saint Stephen’s Catholic Church in Saint Cloud, Minnesota on 1 Sep 1920. They lived in Cleveland, Ohio and New York, New York. Specifically, they lived in Manhattan for a short time and then settled in the borough of Queens. My father told me they lived on the last street of Little Ireland in Manhattan. Apparently, it abutted Little Italy in Manhattan.

They returned to Cleveland, Ohio when my great grandfather Anthony John McLaughlin died in 1931. There they lived for a time in my great grandfather’s old home on Waverly Court. That’s near the intersection of Detroit and West 58th Street. My grandfather volunteered to serve in the Seabees because he was too old for any other service during WWII, and the Seabees needed his electrician skills in the Pacific.

The picture above shows the adoration and pride my grandmother felt for her husband. That love and adoration never died, as we can see in the last photograph they took as a couple. At least the last photo that I know about. It was taken on Easter Sunday 1963 in Saint Joseph’s Cemetery in Fremont, California right after Mass. My grandfather would become more disabled from a disease he contracted in the Pacific during WWII. He would die from it in July 1965. My grandmother survived him by almost 8 years and missed him very much.

The picture brings me found memories because we would get to light candles at Saint Joseph’s statue with my grandmother after Mass. Then, we would stroll as a family in the graveyard. My mother would wait in the car while we attended Mass. Likewise, my father waited early every Sunday when we went to the Episcopalian Church with my mother. In the graveyard, the religious denominations were set aside and the family was together. Sometimes my Aunt Margaret (my dad’s sister), Uncle Jim, and cousin Maryanne would come with us to Mass at Saint Joseph’s after they’d attended Mass at Saint Felicitous in San Leandro, California.

We’d light those candels in the old wooden church before they restored Mission San Jose. They moved the wooden church because they finally got the money to restore the old mission. An effort championed by Lila Bringhurst, one of the descendant from early Mormon colonists to California (via the ship Brooklyn). The wooden church had been built on the site of the original mission. The original mission was destroyed by the 1868 earthquake along the Hayward fault.