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This page has the potential to be the longest and most popular page for the entire web site. Lately I've made a decision to tackle the task of creating a Family Tree. I don't think anyone has done it so far. If I'm wrong, and I hope I am, please let me know if one of you has Family Tree information. I will happily share and merge what I have with what anyone else has. I expect each of you will contribute information, at least your own, to fill in the gaps. This is a special note to the younger people: I wanted to start this Family Tree project more than fifteen years ago. In the time since then my Father died and my Mother's health has changed such that she can not help me. A wealth of knowledge has been lost. Even before the Internet was available I wanted to do video interviews with my Uncle Mike and Uncle Dave back in my late twenties (the late seventies) because they were born in England. Of course they wouldn't remember England but I bet they remembered Forge Village Massachusetts. I never did either of those projects. That brings us to now. I have gathered some really useful information and will find the best way to distribute it, either here or in another way. So why a special note to younger people? Don't let history fade. Talk to your older brothers and sisters, talk to your parents, talk to your grandparents, track down your history, our history and document it. After me there are dozens of Flatleys. Some of you have phenomenal talents and should have a huge interest in this project. If there are some of you with technical skills that wouldn't mind doing research I'd appreciate any help. Don't let another 30 years go by. Contact me. My sister Jackie spent more time with my Dad than I did in his later years. For a period of time they met weekly for lunch. Through Jackie I have learned that my Dad wrote a short autobiography. Although short, it is a snapshot of the last century and a half. The Irish Potato Famine, the influenza epidemic of 1918, the depression, the prohibition era, and World War Two are all touched upon in a few pages. I want to share this with you. The following are my Father's own words. My Father's Own Words My grandparents on my father’s side, Flatleys (O’Flaithfhileadh – O’Flaitiel) came from County Mayo, the town of Ballyhaunus, in the neighborhood of Knock. On my mother’s side the surname was Molloy, from County Clare, and that is as informative as I can be on that subject. I have one clear memory of my grandpa Flatley, as I saw him one day where we lived on Franklin Avenue. I guess I was about nine years old. He was walking down Hamilton Street with grandma. He was impeccably dressed – blue topcoat with a dark velvet collar, derby hat, white shirt and blue tie under a blue suit, with black high top shoes. They were walking to Davis Avenue to catch a bus to down neck Newark. She was nagging at him about something and he was just kind of listening without saying anything in a gentlemanly way. And, oh yeah, he had a luxuriant mustache. I also remember my mother taking me to visit my grandparents down neck Newark. I figure I had to be about 6 or 7 years old. Grandma was a Burke. This was during prohibition, you know, when liquor was a no-no. So everyone made their own. Grandma made whiskey in a still in the bathtub from potato peels and whatever. I remember sitting in that bathroom watching the liquor drip from the copper tube into a small glass. I guess I was the brew-master. Anyhow, as soon as a glass was full I ran it into the kitchen where they diluted it with water, colored it with burnt sugar and distributed it around. I don’t recall my mom drinking any. After all, she had to get us home on the buses. Mom had a beautiful voice and I remember her starting the old Irish songs and all the company joining in. Then they’d send me in for another glass! I remember quite clearly waiting for the bus to go home, the streets dark, deserted and bare, and quiet. We lived down neck for some time, though I don’t recall much of my younger years there. I do recall the Morris Canal van alongside the river, and there was a white sandy beach on the river. My real acquaintance with the river came at a later date.
Those that could afford it joined the stream of emigration to America. Many died on the “coffin ships.” Others got as far as England. I have no clue as to when our families left, but they got as far as England. I will recite for you names and locations I have heard as a youngster, names and locations I heard between my uncles, aunts and parents. There was Leeds, Yorkshire and Keithley. I think Keithley was a (Lancashire?) town. There was also mention of a Shipping Street and the Bank Side, which leads me to think there was a river nearby. It seems to me that there was a sort of Irish enclave there. My father told me that he worked 12-hour days in a coal mine when he was 12 years old. He didn’t see daylight for six months. He said he had to lead donkeys pulling coal carts, who had gone blind from living below ground. I don’t know where this was because my father intimated at one time that he lived apart from his immediate family for a while. He told me one time about the pigeon racing. Boys like him would be sent out a certain distance with a couple of pigeons, and then release the birds at a certain time. Well, one time he went out and dawdled somehow, picking berries. He miscalculated and sent the birds off too soon. When the birds arrived in an impossible record time, you can imagine he suffered the consequences. My father, as far as I know, must have emigrated prior to 1914 because mom spoke of being on a ship with Mike and Dave, my two older brothers. There was also something about not being able to land in Boston because of submarines. They had to go to Canada. Their port of call was Forge Village, Massachusetts, a part of Westford, the county seat. It was a “textile town.” The mill owned all the houses and the company store, theater, etc. The population was Irish, English and French. I guess you had to work in the mill to live there. The homes were also owned by the mill and the workers were the tenants. My brother Jim was born there in 1915, and I was born there in 1917. Times couldn’t have been so good because my father had to take a contract to re-cross the ocean and work in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a machinist and always spoke of how he had “stole” his vocation. I was told by my mom that I weighed 16 pounds when I was born. When I was nine months old, I weighed about 8 pounds, as I caught the influenza, which was a worldwide epidemic at the time. I guess I survived. We were living at 9 Davis Street in Harrison at the time. My father was working in Clark’s Thread Mill. My earliest memories are of Harrison, when we lived on Second Street, south of Harrison Avenue, which was wiped out by the Stickel Bridge (No. 13). This is part two of my Father's autobiography.
I was born on August 5, 1917, the year of the disastrous Influenza (flu) Epidemic, which killed 20 million people worldwide. American soldiers returning from World War One in Europe, where the flu was raging, brought the disease home with them. Being a new born I guess I was more susceptible and I caught it. My family had moved from Forge Village, Massachusetts to Harrison, New Jersey. My birth weight was a reputed fourteen to sixteen pounds. At the age of one year, I weighed just eight pounds and was so wasted they were afraid to change the sheets under me. My mom and dad somehow pulled me through, thank God! Now you know why I am a “small person.” To get on with the story, I was the fourth born of a family of eleven boys and three girls, of whom four boys and three girls are still alive. I am the oldest at 83 years old. I guess you have heard of the Great Depression. We all had to work to keep food on the table. We were poor, as was most everybody else, so we took it as a normal thing. If you had a record player that was great, so we always had music. My mom had a voice like an angel. My brother Bill was two years younger than me and we did everything together – sports, camping or just “garbage shopping” on Saturday mornings. He was in the army during World War II (Anti-tanks) and was killed in Belgium just three weeks before the war ended. I still miss him. He is buried in Margratem Cemetery in Holland and I still hope to visit his grave. My three older brothers had to get a job as soon as they graduated eighth grade, the girls also. I was fortunate as I won a scholarship to St. Benedicts Prep in Newark, and I was allowed to go, although I still did help with the work. I got very good marks in St. Benedicts and was offered a scholarship to Dartmouth College, but couldn’t go because of the financial situation. I wasn’t informed of this offer by my dad until many years later. Jobs were still scarce when I graduated. I remember walking miles to places that were said to be hiring, only to find about 300 men my father’s age lining up for the jobs. So I took what was available – grocery store-laundry, Civilian Conservation Coop (CCC), which I loved. It was up in the Chenango Valley in New York State. It was army-like, with regular army barracks and clothes. No drilling or marching, but reveille at 6:00 a.m. and retreat and “lights out” at 10:00 p.m. It was all outdoor work – chopping trees, stringing barbed wire, digging water holes, planting trees and fighting forest fires. We planted over one million pine, birch and oak trees. Then at about the age of 22 years in 1939 I got a job in R.C.A. Electronics in Harrison. The world was gearing up for World War II and there were jobs to be had. Man!!! I was getting forty-five cents an hour, and I was happy as a king. I turned my check over to my mom and she gave me an allowance. I put 37 years in R.C.A. before they closed down in 1976. A great place to work. In March of 1942 I was drafted into the Army. I had tried to enlist in the Navy but they told me that my “bite” wasn’t even. I told them that I wasn’t going to “bite” them, I was going to “shoot” them! I was put in the 77th Infantry Division where we were subjected to seeming endless training. We went through Louisiana Maneuvers, Desert Maneuvers in Arizona Desert, Mountain Maneuvers in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, Amphibious Maneuvers in Norfork, Virginia and jungle training. We crossed the country about six times, finally embarking from San Francisco for lovely Hawaii, sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge, landing at Honolulu for more amphibious and jungle training. It was the first of many sea voyages for us, on all sorts of military craft. Incidentally, our division’s average age per man was over 35 years, and I was one of the younger ones at about 25 years. But I loved our time there. Our camp was right on the beach, the temperature was an average 72º, and you’d go to sleep at night to the pounding of the surf. The island of Oahu was overloaded with marines, sailors and army soldiers. We had passes to Honolulu and Waikiki and we went to see the ships that were sunk at Pearl Harbor. I ran into my cousin Jimmy Molloy on the docks and spent the night in his Port Battalion Camp on Ford Island. What a feeling to run into someone you know so far away from home! Our “holiday” was soon over and on July 21, 1944 we landed on Guam to join the marines in retaking of this American possession. The landing boats could not cross the reef, so we were dumped about 500 yards from shore and we had to wade and swim in under heavy machine gun, rifle and mortar fire, carrying about one hundred pounds of gear. Some were hit and some drowned. On shore we killed about 2,700 Japs. We had about 265 killed and 876 wounded. I think it rained for about thirty days and you were always wet, muddy and hungry. After our first baptism of fire, we continued on to fight in the Philippines in Leyte, Luzon and Cebin. Then on to Kerama Retto, Il Shima, Okinawa, and finally to Japan for the Occupation. Our rifle company consisted of 206 men when we left the United States. When the war was declared over on August 15, 1945, we had only 24 men of our original company. The others were killed, wounded severely or fell victim to tropical diseases. We were in over 200 days of actual combat. There are a lot of stories not included in this monologue. Some day I’ll write some of them. Our Division has a Christmas party every year in Fort Hamilton, New York just under the Verrazano Bridge. Every year there are fewer people that I know!! My brother Joe and I, and sometimes my daughter Colleen, usually make the party.
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Contact the Webmaster - Tom Flatley Last Updated July 20, 2009 |