Honoring An Honorable Man

With Easter fast approaching and falling this year on the 16th of April, it reminds me of another Easter one hundred years ago. It was on April 15th, 1906 when my grandfather William Joseph Gallagher II was born to William and Mary (Keller) Gallagher on an Easter Sunday.

It has been nearly twenty six years since my grandfather died but his life lives on in the memories of those who loved and adored and knew him as I was lucky enough to have done. When I think of my grandfather, I remember his twinkling laughing brown eyes that lit up his entire face. I remember a man so strong in bodily presence that when he entered a room, he surrounded it with strength of character. He was quiet but powerful and listened intently to those around him. This is his story.

Born on an Easter Sunday one hundred years ago, William Joseph Gallagher was the son of an Irish Catholic father and a German Lutheran born mother. Baptized on April 29th, 1906 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, his godparents were George and Mary Cannon. (Mary Cannon was his paternal aunt) William was joined eighteen months later by a sister Anna Marie Gallagher born November 5th, 1907. William did have another sibling Patrick John Gallagher who died shortly after birth.

William had two nicknames as child. He was called Will by his family but was known as Bill by his friends. William attended St. John the Baptist Church and its parish grade school up to the 8th grade before leaving his education behind and entering the workforce to make a living. (most children from the working class left school at young ages to work in local factories in the early 20th century)

William worked in Pencoyd Iron Works located in what was once known as West Manayunk. (today it is called Lower Merion Township) He could perform a variety of duties at the works from melting iron to creating steel. Also employed at Pencoyd was his father William and before his death in 1890 his maternal grandfather John Keller. William married Anna Marie McCaffery in 1928 and in 1931 had his first child and son William Joseph Gallagher III. In the early 1930’s, Pencoyd Iron Works wanted to send William to its South Africa plant but family pressure lead him to decline the opportunity which he later regretted because as the Great Depression descended on the country, William lost his job at Pencoyd. (it should be noted that while at Pencoyd, William made the steel for the construction of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge that expands from Center City Philadelphia over the Delaware River and into Camden New Jersey) The next ten years turned out to be a great struggle for him and his family as he looked for work and made ends meat by doing a variety of odd jobs. He was known to walk each morning from his Manayunk home to Germantown just to wait outside the Salvation Army building to get called for a day’s worth of work to feed his family. During these Depression years he had three more children John Patrick born in 1933, Collum Eugene born in 1935 and Mary Louise born in 1938. He had one more child in 1942 Ann Marie. Before the birth of his fifth and last child Ann Marie, William was hired at Midvale Steel in the Nicetown Section of Philadelphia. The country entered World War II and the once idle factories of the Depression prospered once again with orders from the government for military supplies. Midvale Steel was a viable plant until the late 1960’s when once again economic outsourcing caused the failure then subsequencial closures of steel mills and factories.

But during his days at Midvale Steel, William was deeply respected for his work ethics. He was not afraid of heights and ran what was known at the time ‘the highest crane in the country in the tallest one story building in the world” This crane and its operator took large pieces of steel and placed them in large processors to make the Navy’s Battleship gun turrets. This job at the mill was considered “very dangerous” and only those “highly experienced operators” could do this type of work. It was not until my grandfather’s death November 27th, 1980 we his family really understood the respect others had for him.

My grandfather’s viewing was held on the evening of November 30th, 1980 at the funeral home. I remember the weather as being very cold. I remember walking into the funeral home with my parents and grandmother and remember how my grandmother walked up to my grandfather’s casket, knelt down and touched his face and cried out “Oh Daddy” as the tears rolled down her face and fell down onto the front of her black dress. After a private “family only” visit, the doors were opened and those who wanted to pay their respects came in. The usual family members and friends came through the doors but in addition to them were the former coworkers who twenty to thirty years before worked with my grandfather but who had not seen him in years. One after another entered through the double doors, knelt at his casket then went over to my grandmother and expressed their condolences. They told my grandmother that when one coworker saw the obituary in the local newspaper and learned of my grandfather’s death, the word was spread and everyone who had worked with my grandfather at Midvale and who was still living made the trip up to the Northeast section of Philadelphia to pay their respects to the family of a man who touched their lives in many different ways.

William was an active outdoorsman who loved to hunt in the Allegheny Mountains and fish in every available body of water within his reach. In the earlier days of his life, he went hunting with his brother-in-law Coll McCaffery who happened to also be his wife’s cousin. They hunted deer, rabbit and pheasant and on occasion had a few run-ins with bear. The latter created the foundation for many childhood stories and tales to be told to his future grandchildren. As a young man he went fishing in the Wissahickon creek and continued to do so into his later fifties. More then once he took along his two eldest grandchildren, one being me. I remember getting up before dawn, grabbing a blanket and following my grandfather who had pole and bucket in hand as we walked in the woods of the Wissahickon to get to that perfect fishing spot. As he set up his pole, I found myself a comfortable spot, wrapped the blanket around me and went to sleep until the sun was high in the sky. When I awoke, grand pop usually had several catfish in that bucket. Later he fished in local ponds or other creeks but I did not go fishing with him again until the summer of 1976 when at age sixteen I flew out to California to spend the summer with my Gallagher cousins and my grandparents who had been out there in Newport Beach for just under a year. Out there off the pier over the Pacific Ocean, I did take up the rod and tried my hand at fishing though quite frankly I do not remember catching one blessed thing. It was in California that my grandfather introduced my younger cousin Eric to the art of fishing and without a doubt this younger cousin did better then me at the art.

For as long as I remember, my grandparents had a pet. Sometimes they had a dog. Sometimes they had a cat. Sometimes they even had both. However, because my grandfather had a soft spot for anything furry, that furry creature usually made its way into the family home. Oh yes, William had a soft spot for strays and those strays were usually of the canine variety and these canines (scrawny and skinny) were often found wandering around the tracks at Midvale and more often then not were taken home (to my grandmother’s horror) and placed in the backyard of the family home. Of course, this was during the days when dyers were a luxury and clothes were hung out side on clothes lines. You can probably guess what I am about to say next. In the early morning hours as grandmom crossed the yard with basket in hand to hang the clothes out, she often stepped in a pile of something the dog left behind that caused this Irish Catholic woman to scream out in horror only those words said in a bar full of drunken men during a boxing match.

Did I mention William loved the horse races? Like every other Irish blooded Gallagher, William loved the horse races so much that the radio was on each and every time there was a horse race. Nothing like sitting down at the dinner table eating a meal when a Gallagher of the male sex jumps up from the table yelling for his horse to reach the finish line first.(Like the horse could hear him). Did I mention the newspaper of choice in the Gallagher home was a Racing Form? And finally, did I mention all three of William’s sons followed in his foot steps? It seems lately that every time I call my Uncle Jack (Gallagher) in Texas, he is at a horse race. I know Uncle Gene is not much different and when my Uncle Bill was alive, he spent his fair share of time at a race track.

Fishing was not the only sport grand pop taught me. He taught me how to shoot pool. During that same summer of 1976 in California, grand pop taught me to play pool and play well. Grand pop also taught me how to protect myself in both the physical and mental way. He taught me where to hit a man if attacked outside. “Poke him in the eyes then kick him in the balls screaming at the top of your lungs”, he said. He taught me the value of a woman having a career because a woman always needs something to fall back on if her husband dies or leaves her. “Learn a trade”, he said. “You never know what the future holds”, pretty modern words and thoughts for a man born just after the turn of the 20th century.

There are some funny memories of grand pop. Like when we took walks in the Local Park and grand pop always told me to carry a big stick just in case we were attacked by wild dogs. I never recalled being attacked by anything especially wild dogs. Or when grand pop was trying to hide alcohol from grandmom by pouring the alcohol (brandy) into a 7UP bottle and drinking it at a party I was having for my oldest son’s baptism. I clearly remember grandmom telling me how proud she was of grand pop for drinking soda not alcohol like everyone else. She discovered the deception hours’ later when grand pop appeared a little tipsy then asked me to drive her home without him. Later that evening, we received a telephone call from Uncle Gene telling us grand pop was happily sitting on a neighbor’s lawn and he could not get him to move.

Devoted to family and loved everything life had to offer is how I remember grand pop. Born to an Irish born father and a German born mother, this little boy learned the value of a hard day’s work from his mother, the value of enjoying life from his father and the value of cherishing family for as long as you live. He found love with Anna Marie McCaffery which lasted fifty two years and pleasure in raising his five children. He believed in God. He believed in his country and stood with hand over his heart anytime the National Anthem was played no matter where he was or what he was doing. He was funny and serious and today on his 100th birthday, I want to honor this man as he was one of the last truly honorable men I have known and I am so proud to have called this man, my grandfather.


Post Note; at the time of William’s death in 1980, he left behind his wife Anna, his five children, fifteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren.