HAPPILY EVER AFTER [M, 6-17-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man--HAPPILY EVER AFTER [M, 6-17-24]

 

Daughter Katie Kennedy was here last weekend. She brought us a copy of her latest book, Hearts on Thin Ice. She dedicated it to her parents, as those who taught her “about happily ever after.” That warms my heart. I can’t think of a better legacy.

She also reminded us of the story of Wes Greenan’s father.

Wes was the retired police chief in Mason City, Iowa, and Katie’s next-door neighbor. Mason City wasn’t just the home of Meredith Willson and the setting for The Music Man, but was also where Wes’ grandparents settled when they immigrated to the U.S., way back in the 1800s. But not his father.

He didn’t go to Iowa because he got lost at Ellis Island. He was six years old. In the hustle and bustle of the crowds of immigrants, he got separated from his family.

His family looked for him, of course. I mean, they really looked. For two months. But they had a future waiting for them in Iowa, and finally had to conclude that if they had not been able to find him in two months, that their son was lost forever. They went on to Iowa without him.

Some years later, the priest of their church was in New York. He was walking by a school yard when he heard a boy yell, “Hey, Greenan, throw me the ball.” He kept walking. But then it registered on him. That’s the name of a family in my parish. They had a lost son. Could it be… somehow…

He went back. He talked to the school principal. It was true! It was the lost boy.

Scarred and ruined forever by being separated from his family and having to fend for himself on the mean streets of New York… well, no! The exact opposite.

He was the prince of the neighborhood. No one knew how he got there, but he appeared. It was a poor area. No one could take him in, so everyone did. It was a child’s dream. No one to order him around, but everyone to take care of him. Whenever he wanted a meal, he’d just show up at a house. When bed time came, he’d go to any house he wanted; he knew they would give him a place to sleep that night. It was quite literally the reality of, “It takes a village…”

He had a good life in Iowa. He was glad to be with his family again. I knew his son, who was a good man, so I knew he had a “happily ever after.”

I wondered, though… How do you deal with it when you have been the prince of a whole neighborhood and have to give it up when you’re only nine years old?

John Robert McFarland

The photo above is Ellis Island immigrants waiting for processing.