James Conniff

From James C.G. Conniff, grandson:

[Note from Richard Conniff, great grandson: Below is JCGC's cryptic reference to a story he often told, that because of ice on winter mornings, the trolley wouldn't always stop to pick up the after Mass crowd at St. Aloysius in Jersey City. James Conniff, in his cups despite the hour, would lie down on the tracks to make the trolley stop.]

Thought I had incorporated in my original recall of the trolley outside St. Al's after Mass in winter and the pre-liturgical visit to Dahoney's at the foot of Fairview, still there even when we were back in JC, the to my mind important point that before he'd go out boozing he'd first shop for groceries, far as I know on his own, and bring back bags of footstuffs. Catherine could hardly have gone shopping with him, or at least not that I ever heard, having all those kids to take care of. But I liked he idea Jim would provide for his family before taking care of his ultimately fatal failing, which I also recall hearing son Tommy tried to bring about earlier when his old man was napping on the soft and Tommy came at him with a butcher knife. Jim must have awakened in time, or Tommy had poor aim, or at the last minute changed his mind, or one of his siblings stopped him. And as you know Tommy wound up in the booby hatch at Snake Hill, the sequencing here not me at my best because I have to assume Tommy went nuts from those 5 a.m. bridge-building practice runs in the dead of Wisconsin winters with the army engineers, and so after the patricide attempt he went really off his nut and wound up in the booby hatch at Snake Hill, just in off the Meadows on a western outcopping, almsot freestanding, of the Palisades somewhere near Secaucus -- where for the long years of his confinement George would visit him regularly, although nobody ever talked about it, another strange characteristic of the family.

From Kathleen (Conniff) Capalongo, granddaughter:

I never heard the trolley story, nor did I know that Gramps liked the sauce. I knew that his son, Charlie [Kathleen's father] did, but my father never mentioned that his father did too.

He also never mentioned that he had a brother named Tom. Never, that is, until he had a heart attack in 1966 and I was his nurse in CCU. There were two of us trained for each shift so I had to be my father's nurse. I was standing at his bedside as the Chief of Cardiology took a family history and when asking him about siblings, whether they were alive and if not their cause of death good old Charlie said, "Well there was my brother Tom". I was pole axed and gasped, "You had a brother named Tom?" In a very matter of fact tone he said yes. Then when asked about Tom's cause of death he said he wasn't sure but he thought that "His head just kept getting bigger and then he died". There really wasn't anything I could think of to say after that. The last thing I wanted was an explanation of the ever growing head since hydrocephalus is rare in an adult. Talk about not talking about things. I don't think the Conniffs had a corner on that. I have many Irish friends who as adults found out stunning things about their families that had never been spoken of earlier.

Someone, and I can't remember who it was, not my father, told me that Tom came back from the war, I'm assuming WWI, shell shocked. Do you know anything about that?

The part about George continuing to visit him says a lot about George. He had a real sense of duty and fulfilled it without any fanfare. Now that I think of it, he did the same with his sisters. Once my father married he stayed away from them as much as he could but George hung in there and took care of them. He got Elizabeth a job on Wall Street and probably got Marie out of more trouble than any of us know about. I know of her frequent trips to the police station on Montgomery/Bolan Street to report that the people in the apartment above them had drilled a hole in the upstairs floor and the girl's ceiling so they could spy on them in their bedroom. And to report that the priests in the rectory at St. Aedan's had telescopes trained on their apartment, which was across the street on Bergen Avenue, to spy on them and see them in various stages of undress. She of course did not go to report the time she stood up at the altar rail where s he had positioned herself for Communion and instead cold cocked the priest and accused him of the aforementioned spying. Someone else must have reported that. George had his hands full because when the police called my father, and they did, he would get George involved since he alone seemed able to talk to Marie and exert some kind of control. Now that I think of it, he bore a terrible burden.

Did you know that my father never told anyone in the family that he was getting married? My mother also told me that they never knew about her and that when she went to our grandmother's wake she was introduced as someone who worked for my father. They had been dating for almost 10 years! She also told me that they had to wait until His mother died before he could marry her. He secretly moved all of his clothes and belongings out of the family house in bits and pieces over the week before their wedding and put them in the apartment they had rented at 305 Fairmount Avenue. He stayed in that apartment alone the night before the wedding and late that night told George he was getting married the next day. He swore George to secrecy. He was afraid that Marie would come to the church and make some kind of a scene. George kept his word and quietly showed up at the church. Vincent Murphy was my father's best man. He wanted George b ut couldn't ask him, It would have been too much of a secret to keep.

The only thing my father told me about my grandfather was that he had a soft heart and that when my grandmother, who my father said was called Kate, sent him to bed without supper, not a rare occurrence since Charlie was not as good as a child as he became as an adult, his father would always sneak some food to him before he turned in. He was very emphatic about the sneaking part. I asked why and he said that his mother would have raised the roof if she found her husband going behind her back. He told me he once fell through the ice while ice skating and, obviously, survived freezing and soaking wet. When he got home his mother lit into him for ruining his clothes and sent him immediately to bed with no hope of supper. On that occasion his father intervened and brought him something hot to drink and eat when he came home. He also made sure that his boy was adequately warmed up.

My father was a father very much like his own in some regards. He was always loving and kind and never raised his voice. He made a child feel very loved. And although my mother was certainly not a shrew, she was a strong personality and he would walk a mile around any confrontation with her. On their fortieth wedding anniversary Sal asked my father what the secret was to being happily married for 40 years. He said, "You learn to keep your mouth shut" and went on sipping his Manhattan. My mother's head snapped around so fast it created a breeze. She went on for about 10 minutes with all kinds of sputtering and, "What do you mean by that?" kind of questions. It really was hilarious and it really was very descriptive of their relationship, at least in part. He may have learned some husband behaviors at his father's knee. Just as he may have learned that some time spent with friends at the local pub is time well spent.