By Margaret Melloy Guziak

My father, John Patrick Melloy, never had an identity crisis. He knew exactly who and what he was. He was the first-born son of an Irish emigrant pipefitter who worked at Cramp Shipyard in Philadelphia on the Delaware River when he came over from the Old Country.

Dad called his father "Pop," telling us how Pop had saved his wages. When he had enough, returned to Co. Roscommon to bring back a wife: Catherine Devery, 10 years younger than himself. They bought a two-story, brick row house on Thompson Street. Thus, it was to these two emigrants, John and Catherine, that my Dad was born in 1904.

All the red brick houses on Thompson Street were built in block-long rows, each with its own railinged porch and front wooden steps, described by some writers "as alike as piano keys on a keyboard." Identical homes with identical cement sidewalks mirrored them across the street. 

Each house had its own fenced-in backyard where vegetables and flowers grew in long, narrow, beds lining the insides of high wooden fences, with a scrap of green grass in the middle. A wooden gate led to the block-long, back alley where you could take a short cut carrying a mixing bowl to the store on the next corner.

Making sure you had enough money, the storekeeper would weigh and sell you delicious, homemade, vanilla ice cream. In my grandfather's basement hung a punching bag where he taught his sons how to box, learning the self-defense skills needed when one was brave enough to walk through other ethnic neighborhoods.. 

Dad grew up in Philadelphia's 1920s; a time F. Scott Fitzgerald described as "the greatest, gaudiest spree in history." My mother, like other young women, wore short skirts with rouged knees and bobbed hair and drove a Model T. They worked in the same office. She was a secretary and he, an accountant there.

Her father, Joseph Waldron, was also an emigrant from Co. Roscommon. Her mother, Maggie Leonard, was born in the America to parents who had come over from Ireland a generation earlier.

My folks danced the Charleston and listened to the sensual jazz music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Sheiks and Shebas romanced on the screens in darkened movie theaters. They went to stage shows put on by touring companies who tested out their performances on Philadelphia stages before hitting Broadway's big time. On their lunch hour, they dawdled in Woolworth's five & dime store, listening to the piano player huckster the latest sheet music.

Dad loved to tell us stories, especially about his younger brother, Charlie, who got a job playing piano in the silent movie theater and how the manager tossed him out after he realized, when he heard it for the 10th time, that the only song he knew was "Oh Where, Oh Where, Oh Where, Has My Little Dog Gone?"

George and Ira Gershwin, together with Al Jolson, were the darlings of New York. Boxer Jack Dempsey was the hero of every Irishman and "Lucky Lindy" triumphantly landed in Paris 33.5 hours after taking off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island. My father had a lot of real heroes in his day, living in a simpler time in America. He was a self-taught artist and loved books and Joyce Kilmer poems. A trip to the library downtown or the Art Center was a special treat for us kids.

Mom played the piano by ear after enduring piano lessons from grade-school nuns who cracked her knuckles with a ruler when she hit a wrong note. As such, there was always music and art in our house. My folks convinced us early on that "when you're Irish, you have a special gift for music, art and words, both written and spoken." And we felt lucky to be Irish.

My parents were married in September, 1928, with a first son born in July, 1929. When the country entered the Great Depression of 1929, Dad sold shoes at night to support his young family. He loved the days at the Blue Rocks baseball park and watching the the Philadelphia Athletics play when the New York Yankees were in town. 

And when the Black League baseball teams played in Wilmington and my maternal grandmother's town of Norristown, my father thought they played the best baseball of all. "They were the hungriest," he explained. We were right there cheering and putting his dimes in the passed-around team donation basket.

We giggled at his shoe salesman stories, especially the ones about the women who would say, "I just love these shoes but the right one is a little tight on this side." Dad would always answer, "No problem. We have a shoe stretcher in the back. Why don't I take that one and stretch it for you?" Taking it to the backroom, he'd light up a Chesterfield and give the shoe a tug or two. When he took it back a few minutes later, with his smiling, light blue eyes, carefully and gently tried the shoe on her again, the women would always say, "My, that is much better! I'll take them." That Irish charm won out again.

And years later, when I stretched out my hand to show my father my engagement ring, he said, "I only have one problem with you marrying Ray." Alarmed, I hesitantly asked, "What is it?"

"Guziak. Guziak. I'll never be able to pronounce your name," he joked. My father grew up and lived in a world of Leonards, Cannons, Kerrigans, Hennesseys, McGurks, Waldrons and O'Briens. Yet, somehow he learned to pronounce my new name. And because of my folk's influence, I still know I am lucky to be born Irish.

How do I know? No matter.... I just do.