3827 Terrace Street Phidelphia PA 19127This is the house where Daniel and Catherine (known as Aunt Kate) lived with their daughter Helen and niece (Anna Marie McCaffery). The next paragraph is taken from "A Journey into the Past".
Life with Aunt Kate was nothing less than cruel. Discipline was swift, fierce and physical. I remember having many conversations with grandmom (Anna) about her life with Aunt Kate. Her memories were very painful. She told me about a house that to the outside world looked perfect. The house on 3827 Terrace was always neat and clean with its polished table tops and fine Irish linen. Family portraits decorated the living areas. All appeared very normal. There was the father and mother and the two girls, Anna and her younger cousin Helen. They attended Catholic school. They attended Sunday Mass. But what the outside world could not possibly know is the cruelty that went on behind closed doors. Aunt Kate had severe mood swings. She also liked to have a drink and the story goes that when prohibition went into effect, Aunt Kate was known to hide her alcohol in the backyard. Whether Aunt Kate had a problem with alcohol or whether she was manic depressive, we will never know for sure but what we do know for sure it that Aunt Kate beat Anna. Most of the time the beatings took place in the basement of the house. Sometimes Anna was tied to a chair. The beatings occurred when Anna did not perform her chores to Aunt Kate’s satisfaction such as the tables were not polished correctly or there was lint on the floor.
Anna endured these beatings for the next eight years until the day she came home from school and an angry and out of control Aunt Kate grabbed Anna as she walked in the door. She beat Anna until she was covered in blood. Anna ran out the door and to a neighbor’s house. Hurt and crying she was brought into the house. From that point on, Anna lived at 3902 Terrace in the care of the Gallagher family.
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