Cancer – It's All About Family

Engram Girls Part 1

I published the beginning and the continuation of the Engram Family lives after their mother Katherine Duy died in 1916. I’m going to carry on the story, starting with the sisters.

Theresa

Theresa, George and their two daughters Irene and Rita continued to live at 59 Earley Street on City Island in the Bronx according to the 1940 federal census. They appeared to live a happy life from the family pictures I’ve seen.

Sadly in 1948, Theresa passed away at 58 years old from breast cancer like her mother. Her daughter Irene was 21 years old and Rita was 17.

That same year on November 25th, Irene married James Callahan.

They would continue to live on City Island and raise their daughter and three sons, where she was a physical education teacher for many years. She passed away on January 2, 2000. James passed away in 2021 in Stamford, Connecticut. Her grandson Brian provided the pictures you see in this section.

*Irene and James Callahan, date unknown*

Rita lived with her father, George, until her marriage to Grattan Kyle in 1951. He was also a City Island kid involved in his family’s real estate company. They moved to Florida, and although they got divorced in 1974, she remained in Florida until he died in 1983. Rita returned to City Island, where she lived until her death on December 28, 2006. She left behind three daughters, one son, and five grandchildren.

A few years ago, Irene’s son, Brian, was in contact with my Aunt Joanne, and shared over 150 photos with us. Most were Theresa and George and their friends, but there were also significant photos of the Engram family. We have since reconnected, and he has shared additional Engram family pictures.

Katherine and Louise

I wrote in my previous post about Katherine and Louise playing basketball but not finding much information after January 1923. Cousin Brian sent this wonderful picture via text. It’s from January 1924 and the caption talks about the team being the champions of New York meeting the London Shamrocks in the opening international game. From the surrounding snippets of articles it appears this is taking place in Canada. I searched again for information on the team but came away with nothing.

Katherine

Katherine, born Catherine Elisabeth Juliana, never married. She is one of the children with no first name listed on her birth certificate and in one of her letters you’ll read below, said he had to go to the church for the record. I don’t think she knew she had that many names and was surprised to find the Engram spelling as she was told their school principal changed it! I do know it was originally Ingram.

Through her career as a secretary, she worked for Engelhart Chemical Company in New Jersey as well as for the former Belcano Cosmetic Company and supposedly for Charles Lindbergh that I mentioned previously. I can’t locate her or Louise past the 1930 Federal Census, but as the informant for Louise’s death in 1961 they were living in Jersey City, New Jersey.

She provided the most detailed family information in her letters to her niece Irene in two letters in 1980 when she was 82 years old. The letters were transcribed and emailed to me by my Aunt Joanne.

Katherine’s Letters 1 and Katherine’s Letters 2

The picture above was taken when Jacob and his family moved to Scarsdale, New York. Katherine and Jacob had a rocky relationship and parted ways in 1950 or 1951. Like his father, he was an alcoholic and alienated some relatives with his behavior.

Katherine outlived all of her siblings, living until 98 years old at her death in September of 1996. Prior to her death, she lived in Hopewell Junction, New York, with Adeline Klein Rinaldi, her sister Elizabeth’s daughter.

Louise

Louise also spent her life in the secretarial field. Like Katherine, she never married and at the time of her death in 1961, she was the office manager for Penn-Boeck and Co. in Jersey City.

I’ve talked about mental health in my Posluszny side of the family and I found it in the Engram family as well.

*Elizabeth, Hannah/Joan, and Louise – Miami in the 1940s*

Louise committed suicide in July of 1961 while at her and Katherine’s summer place. She ingested Hammond Weed Killer (arsenic). She was brought to Monroe County General Hospital in East Stroudsburg Pennsylvania but was dead on arrival. She was 59 years old. That makes me sad.

This post was getting pretty long and I still have Elizabeth and Hannah to go so I’m going to end this here. Part 2 of the Engram Sisters coming soon!

More Cousin Memories

I started my memories of my cousin Mal here and I’m going to continue the story now.

In Mal’s senior year of high school, he and 5 other young men in the state were selected by Senator Thomas Dodd to take the special examinations for an appointment to the Naval Academy. The senator “bypassed” the standard selection of principal and alternate and instead placed all of them chosen on a competitive basis and he was one of the two.

*Mal’s graduation from Notre Dame HS West Haven*

Mal headed off to Annapolis in 1960, the same year my twin and I were born, and our older sister was 2 years old – and he was our first cousin – a whole different generation.

Mal went to Annapolis with plans to play football. My Aunt Judy said he had to stop because of headaches but according to his obituary it was “an epic boxing match” that put an end to his football career.

Parents weekend freshman year

When Mal was in high school he started dating Margaret Donroe – Margie – from Hamden. My aunt would tell us how they would be on the phone and Mal would have the phone resting on his shoulder as Margie just chatted away on the phone and he would grunt occasionally to let her know he was listening. Margie was so vivacious and pretty and I just thought they were the most beautiful couple in the world!

*Margie at Bob’s Holy Trinity school graduation 1960*

Naval Academy graduation June 3, 1964

June was a busy time for the Bellafronto Family! Mal graduated from the Naval Academy on Wednesday, June 3 1964.

He and Marge were married three days later in Hamden Connecticut on Saturday, June 6th. My sisters and I were 6 and 4 and we were at the wedding but I’m not sure about the reception.

After their wedding and honeymoon, Mal and Marge headed off to his duty station in Yokosuka Japan where he would be aboard the guided missile light cruiser the USS Oklahoma City, the flagship of the 7th Fleet.

While they were in Japan, I would look out my bedroom window and watch the sun come up over the hill and I would think that on the other side of the hill was Japan and as the sun set there, it came up here! Their oldest son, Malcolm III, was born in Japan and their second son, Eric, was born in San Francisco after his tour was completed.

*Japan was going to sleep on the other side of this hill…*

Whenever they would come to the east coast, Aunt Judy made sure everyone got together to visit with them.

After Mal left the Navy, he got into the paper industry. I remember them living in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, maybe Illinois, California, and finally Oregon. It was too bad that by the time I moved to California, they had already moved!

As the years went by, we didn’t see them as often because Aunt Judy and Uncle Mal moved to Florida.

When my cousin Bill got married in Illinois in 1987, we were together with Mal and Marge (known as Maggie by then) for the first time in a long time. Aunt Judy and Uncle Mal were there too, and we’ve always had such a fun time being with them, this visit was no exception.

*Marge, Mal, Aunt Judy, Uncle Mal, and my twin Gail*, *his goddaughter*

I saw Marge one last time at their son Eric’s wedding in San Jose in 1993 or 94 when we were living in California. Sadly, she passed away in 2009 after a reoccurrence of breast cancer.

Fast forward….

In 2013, Mal’s brother Bob was hosting a family reunion at our cottage in Lebanon CT for his daughter Cathy and her family visiting from Morocco. Mal, young Mal, and Eric came out from the west coast for the party. Bob and his wife Teri brought Aunt Judy who was now 96 years old. We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone! It felt like one of the Posluszny Fourth of July parties I’ve written about. We shared hours of memories and a lot of laughter.

The following year, 2014, Mal and Mary, his partner of a few years, were heading east. Mal would be attending his 40th Naval Academy reunion. I met with Mal during the week and we took a walk around the home on Clifton Street that his mother and mine grew up in. It was in bad shape after water damage and (probably) foreclosure, but the walkway to the back of the house was still there and the odd little entry into the basement.

I also contacted the owner of the family home on Lincoln Avenue to arrange a visit there. Their parents bought the house from Aunt Judy and Uncle Mal and they bought it from their parents. It really is a great neighborhood! We both enjoyed walking through the house, seeing the changes, and seeing what stayed the same.

Mary came out the following week, we had dinner together, and they stayed at our cottage in Lebanon Ct. The cottage his family had for the majority of his years growing up was in the next town so he and Mary spent time driving around the area and visiting the former family cottage on Pickerel Lake.

That would be the last time I saw him, but I enjoyed an email exchange, infrequent but more frequent than that with other long-distance family (hint, hint).

I talked to Mary, his partner last week and we had a nice conversation about their time together and my memories of him.

Malcolm James Bellafronto Jr 1942-2014

How’s Your Health

The Topic for Week 23 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is HEALTH.

When I think about my parents’ and their siblings and parents health, I take into consideration the time period they all lived. Although foods would have been fresher, they also smoked unfiltered cigarettes, drank and didn’t have a fitness regime like we do today!

In looking at the lives of my mother and father and their siblings and parents, the ages they died are all over the place. It doesn’t really reflect what their health was like. For example, my mother was in decent health aside from her arthritis in her hips but then along came the unexpected brain cancer when she was 64. Or my dad, who rode his bike all over the shoreline on the weeks and golfed during the week, still ended up with congestive heart failure, a triple bypass, and vascular disease leading to a leg amputation when he was 78. Although he survived it all and died at 86, I really wish he’d gone to a doctor when he was feeling poorly!

Is it the luck of the draw? My mother’s two sisters, Tootsie and Judy, lived until ages 101 and 99! But her two brother, Connie and Lou, died at 71 from a heart attack, and 70 from lung cancer.

On my dad’s side, Helen lived until 95. Now that one makes sense because she walked everywhere! I think she also watched what she ate and stayed fit, but she had health problems in her last few years.

My dad was a great example to us growing up for staying active. On Sundays, he would take us, and other kids in the neighborhood if they wanted to, on bike rides around town or on walks. He played tag in the snow with us and took us sledding at the country club.

My generation knows so much more and we have so much available to us to stay healthy longer than our ancestors. We have to take advantage of it!

The Season of Betty – The End and The Beginning

I started this story over a year ago. I’m not sure it’s made me feel any
better but it’s an unburdening of sorts because we all just put on brave faces
during those 9 weeks. Nine weeks. They go by in the blink of an eye these days but in 1987 it felt like 9 years.

My mother died on Saturday, April 4, 1987, one day before her 65th birthday. It was between 8:30 and 9am. I was sitting on her bed with her and I noticed she’d stop breathing for a couple of beats and then start again. I called for my father to come and let him stay with her while I called my aunts to let them know it was going to be very soon. I’m sure I called my sisters too. I left to pick up my Aunt Tootsie so my parents could be together.

I have debated with myself about the amount of detail for this post. I decided to keep it brief.

We all went with my father to select her casket and plan the funeral. Father Merusi, one of our former priests, who was now in Meriden, requested to perform the mass as he knew my mother well from the Mother’s Circle club and working on and chairing the church Bazaar. The wake was on Monday night and the funeral was on Tuesday morning at Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford. It was very beautiful and for many years I kept the sign-in book and all the cards that we received. I found it comforting to read how people felt about her.

Something very frustrating at the wake was to hear her friends or acquaintances say: “Oh, you know I’d see her at the store and say Hi and she didn’t even acknowledge me”. Or people she worked with in a small office said: “She would fall asleep at her desk during work”. People, if someone is acting strange, find a way to say something to someone!

There was one notable moment for me when the limousine pulled up to the church. Just before we opened the door to exist my father said, “Now I don’t want anyone crying”. It stunned me. I thought “You can’t tell us that!”. I was dry-eyed through the ceremony until I saw my sister’s friend. I don’t know why, but I started sobbing and wasn’t able to stop until we exited the church. Knowing now about my father’s childhood, I’m fairly certain it was what he heard as a soon-to-be 11-year-old boy from his older brother when they buried their father in 1935 after a hit-and-run accident as he walked along Route 5. It must have been so traumatic for him.

After the funeral, we had a gathering at VFW in Wallingford. From there, I recall my father and I going home and some relatives came to the house. He entertained them but I immediately changed into my workout clothes and dashed out of the house to go to the fitness center where I was a member and had gone every night during these 9 weeks. I was ready to and had to, get back to “normal” life.

I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth last month and there was a short story about a mother’s death from cancer after being ill for a number of years. The young man talked of his grandparents arriving from India and breaking down when they realize their daughter is no longer alive. “….grieving freshly for my mother as neither my father nor I had done. Being with her through her illness day after day had denied us that privilege.”

This passage was like a punch in the nose. I felt guilty for being relieved that I could just be again, because that meant, in my mind, I was relieved my mother had died. I didn’t see it as she was free from suffering, I saw it as I no longer had to take care of her. She’d already left me and I’d already done my mourning when she was diagnosed. When the time came to really mourn her with all her friends and relatives, it was too late. It had passed. I had moved on.

The bright spot going forward was the vacation I had to postpone when she stopped eating was coming up in three weeks! I was all set. I was going with my friend Cindy and my plan was to bring a bunch of books and spend the week lying on the beach reading! HA – little did I know my mother had other plans for me…..!

The Season of Betty – Part 3

Where were we? Oh yes, we left off on my mother’s first night home from the hospital. We moved a bed down to the dining room and set it up for her until my dad got a hospital bed for her.

The next morning, my Aunt Tootsie and Auntie Edna showed up to begin their weekday routine. They would sit working on their crafts, cleaning, making food for my mother, and making us dinner. They knew each other superficially; Aunt Tootsie was my mother’s sister and Auntie Edna was my father’s sister-in-law. My mother and Auntie Edna loved to drive around town hitting tag (garage) sales on the weekend.

Aunt Bea (by marriage), mom, Aunt Tootsie, Grammy seated

My dad and I went off to our jobs knowing my mother was in good hands. I loved my job at Channel 8 so much, it helped me put everything else out of my mind. My boss and friends were so kind about what I was going through.

My dad and I developed a routine of dinner together, then I’d head out to Spa Lady in North Haven for my workout, and when I came home, my dad would head down to the VFW. He came home before 10, and we’d get my mom ready for bed. Gail would come over to help and visit in the evenings too. She and my dad both worked at Gaylord Hospital so they would talk about people they knew.

It became apparent early on that my mother wasn’t going to be mobile for very long. I had to help her to the bathroom when I was home but not realizing how weak she was, I lost grip and bang her head into the wall a couple of times! She would laught and say “it’s ok!” while I was apologizing profusely! It wasn’t long before she was bedridden and using a commode. You don’t realize how capable you are until you have to take care of someone in this way. The first time, I might have gagged and freaked out a little. The second and beyond, no big deal.

I realized it was a small blessing that my boyfriend and I broke up in October. He lived in Hamden and I spent all my time there. If I had still been all wrapped up with him, I’m not sure what my attitude or reaction to all of this change would have been. He was still the first person I called from the hospital though when we got my mother’s diagnosis. I knew he still cared about me and I needed someone to talk to. I knew if I called him for anything during these next months, he’d be there to help me out.

Throughout the 2 months that she was sick, a visiting nurse came to the house 3 times a week. It was comforting to have her come over. A very strange thing happened one time she was there. She was checking my mother out and my mother reached out and rubbed her stomach. Come to find out she was pregnant but not showing yet! How did my mother know?

On weekends, we’d sit with her watching tv and I guess I cooked for the three of us! I definitely don’t remember. I’d go out with my friends either Friday or Saturday especially when Janice came down from Massachusetts because she’d stay overnight. I’d be out very late – I’ll leave it at that!

So diagnosis date was January 31, 1987 and we were advised by the nurse that we’d know the final stage when my mother stopped eating. Well, that happened on a Sunday in March and it must have been March 15th because I was heading to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New Haven. Oh, I tried to make her eat! It was like trying to feed an infant who didn’t want to eat but without the crying (ok, I was), and head shaking. I just could not get her to eat. How long can someone go without eating? Long enough if they are still drinking fluids, which she was.

t was quite the afternoon and evening at the parade. These were the days when you could walk out of the bar with a drink and watch the parade!

But I had a decision to make. I was scheduled to go on a vacation with five other girls to Jamaica in a couple of weeks! It was a trip planned before she got sick. There was no doubt in my mind that I would cancel the trip. It would have been foolish to go and expect every minute to get a phone call telling me she had died. I was selfish at times but not that much! Another friend was trying to join our trip so we decided to wait until after my mother passed away and go together. It was a fateful decision.

I’m going to leave off here and pick up in another post – soon, I promise.