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Frank Cassidy
by
Don Cassidy
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Frank Cassidy (far left) with family at his 90th birthday
celebration in 1980. |
He
was born June 22, 1890 in County Donegal, Ireland in a place called
Leghowney, just a few miles outside Donegal Town. He was named after
his paternal grandfather, who had several sons, all of whom named
one of their sons Frank. To distinguish him from his cousins, he was
often called "Jamey’s Frank" after his father,
James Cassidy. Some of his cousins were known as "Big Frank,"
"Little Frank" and "Young Frank" or "the Young Fellow."
He was born on his
mother’s (Bridget
Murphy) family’s farm. The farm had been the Murphy’s for
generations but since Ireland was under British rule at that time
(Queen Victoria), they had to pay rent to an absentee British
landlord. Frank was one of nine children, all of whom worked on the
farm. The others were
Andy,
Paddy,
Edward,
Michael,
Anthony,
Mary,
John James and
Maggie Alice.
At that time, it was the
custom for some of the children of large families to live with
relatives who needed help on their farms. So he lived for a long
time with his aunt and uncles, the
Murphys. Michael also lived with relatives. Anthony later
remembered
Frank as a boy who was a "great worker" and, as a big brother,
who carried him down the hills when he got hurt.
According to his sister
Mary, Frank was very good with small children, and kids seemed to
take to him right away. As an Irish farm boy, he cut and gathered
hay, took care of sheep, and cut turf in the bog for the turf fire.
Ireland had compulsory education, and Frank attended the Four
Masters National
School in Copany. He walked a long distance to this two room
school house, usually barefoot, usually with other kids and
sometimes with a few sheep they might be herding to graze on a
neighboring field for the day. The children were taught to read, to
write and to do arithmetic. These basic skills combined with
knowledge of the English language helped many of them later to get jobs
in America and to help their own children get ahead in America.
Because of centuries of
British mistreatment of native Irish and the constraints they placed
on the Irish economy, there were few opportunities in Donegal
for young Irishmen at that time. So many of them left Ireland to
seek work in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States.
One
night In 1910, at the age of twenty, Frank put his things in a
bundle, snuck out a window and joined up with his first cousin, Hugh
Cassidy, who was two years younger, and they ran away from Leghowney
eventually crossing the Irish Sea to Glasgow, Scotland. Young,
strong and fearless, they got jobs on the railroad lifting heavy
sleepers (timbers under the rails) and lived in Mrs. Adams' boarding
house. They earned one pound a week and gave Mrs. Adams 12
shillings for room and board, which included an egg every other day.
After a while Frank left the railroad job for a job with the gas
company, where he received an increase in pay of one shilling a
week. He gave the shilling to Mrs. Adams and she began giving him an
egg everyday, while poor Hugh continued on the railroad and got an
egg every other day. Eventually, Frank worked in an rubber
vulcanization factory and saved his money for passage to America.
Both he and Hugh applied for papers to go to the U.S. but when they
finally got their papers Hugh decided that he didn't want to go so
far away from his brothers, who were all in Donegal. Frank, on
the other hand, had his brother Andy waiting for him Georgia.
On October 5, 1914, during the first
World War and shortly after the Lusitania was sunk, he boarded the
SS Pannonia. The ship crossed the Atlantic in nine days,
arriving in New York
Harbor and passing the Statue of Liberty on October 14, 1914. After being processed through
the Ellis Island immigration center, Frank was met by his brother Andy,
who took him into New York City. To celebrate his entrance to
America, they stopped in a tavern for a beer. As was the custom at
the time, they were offered free sandwiches to go with their beer
and, when asked what he thought about America Frank said, "It's
a great country." He
then headed for Macon, Georgia where he worked in a bar and in the coal
mines.
In
1917, the United States entered World War I. Both Frank and Andy got
drafted into the Army. Andy went first and was sent to the front
line in France, where he was gassed and wounded with shrapnel. After
basic training in Fort Dix, New Jersey, Frank boarded a ship bound
for England, America’s ally. 
While Andy and Frank were
fighting alongside British troops in France, their brothers, cousins
and neighbors had
enlisted in the Irish Republican Army to free Ireland from Britain
after the Easter Uprising of 1916. Brother Paddy was captured after
a gunfight in County Cavan and was sent to Derry prison by the British around
1920. He was saved from execution and was
released after the Treaty was signed in 1921. Anthony
participated in the raid on the Barnesmore police barracks, where he
sustained a permanent wound to a finger, which later precluded his
selection into Garda Siochana (Irish national police). There were other Irish patriots in the family
on both sides of the Atlantic. To support the cause Frank
responded to President Eamon De Valera's appeal by purchasing a $10
bond in the newly declared Republic of Ireland in 1920. Since the Irish government was
still an unrecognized entity at the time, the bond purchase
constituted a gift to the liberation effort. (Not to to
mention that $10 was half a weeks pay at the time.)
Little
was ever said later about the activities during the "time of the
troubles". These activities were top secret and dangerous;
they led to freedom for Ireland, the end of absentee
ownership of the Cassidy-Murphy farm and the beginning of Ireland's
long journey to prosperity and leadership in the European Union.
In the summer of 1918,
Frank’s battalion, serving under General Pershing, boarded open
boats and crossed the English Channel with packs on their backs.
When they landed in France, they marched for days at a time, camped
in the woods and prepared to meet the Germans. This was part of a
huge offensive of American troops which helped the Germans realize
they were about to be overrun. Fortunately, they surrendered before
Frank’s battalion got to the front.
World War I and the Irish
Uprising of 1916-1921 were the most significant events that the Cassidys
of Frank’s generation participated in. By virtue of their
circumstances, the Cassidy brothers indirectly served on opposing
sides--some with the British and some against. But none were really
warriors at heart and hastened to forget these troubled times and
move on with their lives.
After the armistice was
signed in 1918, Frank returned to the United States, where he
received an honorable discharge from the Army, (which included
favorable comments from Major O’Hara) a medal for foreign service,
and most important of all--citizenship in the United States by
virtue of his service to the country. Frank's training,
overseas service and discharge took less than a year.
Frank then went to work in
a shipyard in New Jersey. After that he worked in various trades in
Bayonne, Jersey City and New York including bartender and trolley
driver. He learned quickly that he was not destined for a
career in mass transit. After cracking up the trolley on his first
day on the job he decided not to return for the second day. He lived in boarding houses
sometimes or in apartments with Andy and cousins--including some
other Frank Cassidys. He was often seen around New York with
his cousin Big Frank and it was said that when someone got out of
hand at a card game Big Frank didn't have to trouble himself because
Little Frank could handle it by himself.
In 1928, Frank got a job
with Borden’s Dairy, which was around 135th Street in New York City. His
starting wage was $29.50 per week. A year later, he got a raise to
$30.00 a week, but after the Great Depression hit in 1929, his pay
was reduced to $29.00. But he didn't complain because, at the
time, jobs were extremely scarce, and everyone was poor. Around this
time, he began living on 135th Street and Amsterdam Avenue with his
brother Michael and his family. Michael was a bus driver with the
Fifth Avenue Line, and the bus garage was also in this area. Andy
had settled in Bayonne where he worked in the Standard Oil (ESSO)
refinery.
In 1943 Frank married
Eileen Cassidy, who had been born in the neighboring section of
Donegal known as Aughlim. She had left Ireland at the age of nine
and had grown up in Boston. Her older sister Marion was already married
to Frank’s brother Andy.
Frank and Eileen got an
apartment at 2834 Heath Avenue in the Kingsbridge section of the
Bronx. Their son Jimmy was born in 1945, and Don was born in 1947.
In 1952, the family took a trip to Donegal, where they spent six
weeks living with Grandmother Bridget Murphy, uncles Paddy and
Anthony and Aunts Mary and Maggie Alice. They helped gather hay with
cousins Eamon and Barney Devlin and two adopted boys living on the
family farm--John Alexander and Pat Quigley. At the time, the family
house still did not have electricity or indoor plumbing. While
there, Frank bought them their first portable radio, which they
called a "wire".
When
Frank and his young family arrived at his mother's house on that
night in 1952 there was someone else anxiously waiting for him, his
onetime traveling companion and railroad co-worker, Cousin Hugh.
With characteristic humor, Hugh's first words to Frank after
thirty-eight years apart were, "You got taller!".
Shortly before this time,
in 1951,
Andy died after a long illness caused in part by his World War I
injuries.
In 1955, Frank retired
from Bordens after twenty seven years of service as a pasteurizer.
Armed with his veterans and Teamsters Union pensions, and Social
Security, the family moved to Freewood Acres, New Jersey, to a new
house directly across the street from Michael’s summer house. A few
years later, Michael and wife Marie retired to live there year
round.
In his retirement, Frank
returned his energies and attention to the soil, turning half his
new backyard into a vegetable garden, where he raised Jersey
tomatoes, beans, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce and squash; and grew
from scratch a front hedge around the front lawn.
In 1972, shortly after
Michael died, and after seventeen years in Freewood Acres, Frank and
Eileen sold their house and moved to Framingham, Massachusetts, near
where Jimmy and Don had moved. During this time, he enjoyed reading
books and following politics and the Red Sox on television. His
greatest joy was playing with his young grandsons, Sean, Liam and
Chris. He and Eileen also made a few trips to Ireland. While in
Donegal, they stayed at his alma mater, the Four Master National School at Copany, which had been purchased and remodeled by Eileen’s brother,
Father Donal.
In 1980, the family
celebrated Frank’s ninetieth birthday in Newport, Vermont at Jimmy’s
house. In August he and Eileen made their last trip to Donegal
together. Two years later, on September 12, 1982, he died suddenly
while on a visit to Newport. He had enjoyed his many years of
retirement and had had very little illness. Of his brothers and
sisters, he was the last to die.
By this time, the family
homestead in Leghowney had passed to John Alexander. John was a
bachelor and had a little workshop for fixing bicycles. He did no
farming. But part of the family farm continued to be used by Eamon
Devlin and his family. The ancestral home is now under the
control of John Alexander.
During his long life,
Frank witnessed many dramatic changes in the way people lived, and
for the most part, adapted well to them. When he was a boy, people
did not drive cars, use telephones, listen to radios, use
electricity, or enjoy indoor plumbing--not to mention medical
insurance.
In 1890, everyone in
Donegal was a dirt poor tenant farmer. Yet, from that very humble
beginning, he and his brothers, through persistence and hard work,
were able to survive and prosper in America, to own cars and homes
and to raise children who got college degrees.
Indeed, to use the
expression of his peers, "he had had done all right in this
country." And, although he could not have foreseen it at the time,
the observation he had made on his first day in the United States in
1914 was certainly true--"It's a great country."
In the years following Frank's death Ireland's
economic growth accelerated. By 2007 the Celtic Tiger had
become the leading economy of Europe. During this time
emigrants returned to Donegal, started business, built homes, raised
families. Leghowney enjoyed a small building boom as new
Cassidy families built modern homes on the hills of the old farms.
Yet old traditions are still observed and the old generation is
still remembered. In the Town on a Sunday night in 2007
someone observed that Mickey Rooney, the actor, was in Ireland. Someone else
said that at his age (87) he was awfully old to be traveling so far
from home. "Frank Cassidy crossed the Atlantic at the age of
90 in 1980", shouted the learned voice of Big Michael Cassidy, son of Hugh Cassidy of Leghowney. |
