Not long ago, I wrote here about my Great Uncle Guy Huber, his visits to Kent, Washington, and, of course, his wooden leg. I also wrote about my Grandpa Dell, last year, and how I teethed on his hook arm when I was a baby...
Grandma Vera Galvin was Uncle Guy's sister, and Grandpa Dell was my Grandma's third, and final, husband. Alas, I don't have many tales to tell of my Grandma. She died in either 1961 or 1962. My mother is not all that forthcoming about her exploits, and wouldn't answer several questions I posed (or said "please don't write about that"), sticking mainly to the bare biographical facts. This was much different than when I pumped her for information on Uncle Guy. In fact, I don't have a lot of memories of her either.
Grandma Galvin is pictured in this photograph at a bar she owned in Carnation, Washington. Carnation was a small village in 1949, when she bought the bar on the town's main street. She owned it for about ten years. Also in the picture, with his one hand on the register, is Grandpa Dell Galvin. They must have been about my age in the photo.
All my life, I've been fascinated by her owing a bar. When I was a kid, women seemed to rarely even go to bars, let alone own one. But then again, most grandmothers didn't get married three times either, or drink beer. There must have been some vein of iconoclasm in the family, since my mom ended up being a Rosie The Riveter during WW II, and eventually a U.S. Marine.
The bar is a little spooky. . .but that's mainly the taxidermy I think. . .there is definitely a stuffed owl, and I'm not sure if the other birds are pheasants or wild turkeys. . .or what? They look too small for grouse. Aanother critter at the left end of the bar could be a porcupine, a marmot, a wild baby boar?
When I knew her, Grandma drove a grey 1948 Plymouth. I remember several occasions sitting next to her driving somewhere. I also remember there was a "church key" for opening beer cans on her dashboard. I don't remember ever seeing her without a can of beer wrapped in a paper bag. She lived in a cottage (my mom calls it a shack) in Carnation.
She started the coal stove every morning--fat lumps of greasy coal kindled with tissues. The house had plumbing; I well remember the houses that didn't--and the cold treks to a fantastically rank outhouse. One of my only other memories of visiting her in Carnation was having breakfast with one of Del's daughters, who also lived in Carnation. She gave me half a grapefruit. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. I know I hadn't eaten one. They squirted. I liked it.
Dell died of a brain tumor in the late '50s, and Grandma sold her bar. Or maybe she went broke. Grandma Galvin was now retired, and was just about to move in with my family in Kent, when she went into a diabetic coma and died in about 1961. I remember my dad telling me one morning that she had passed away.
It was years before I could really tell the difference between passing away and passing out. Passing out from drink was not unheard of in my circles and yet even then, at say, the age of nine, I could smell a whiff of it--you sense the people passing out are treading an tenuous chasm between being numb and being gone.
--------o0o--------
The 50's are becoming a long time ago, aren't they? I love the photos almost as much as the reflections they accompany. This pic is a particularly great one. I am struck at how small the bar itself was. How many stools, 10 or 12, do you think? Carnation had to have been a speck of a town when your grandma owned the bar. Does your mom remember its name?
ReplyDeleteYou must have heard that Frank Colum Curran owned and operated a bar in or around Hillyard in the the 30's, I think. The story is nearly mythic in the annals of my family. As Tony told it, Frank, with garrulous charm, was building so great a following that he threatened the livlihood of a well connnected rival before he was run out of business. The rival called in some political favors and had Cheery Frank's hounded for bogus operating infractions, such as serving alcohol to a minor when it was still permissible for youngsters to accompany their guardians to the gin mill. Though WA, unlike NY, made distintions between taverns and bars and stricly speaking your grandmother's Frank's establishments were taverns and restricted to serving beer and wine.
Anyway Frank was popped so frequently by this cabal of evil Hillyardians that it put put him of business. The paranoic streak runs deep among some in our family, as you have witnessed frist hand.
There is a more prosaic story to explain Frank's failure in the bar trade; Grandma Helen didn't approve of the comapany nor the hours he kept while barman and threatened to leave him. For sure, Tony's story doesn't square with the curmudgeon Frank became but Hillyard must have been home to many malcontents whose only explanation for their choice in domicile was the sprocket of Great Northern rail track that concluded their in a jumble of hardship. They couldn't have found a more sympathetic ear for their disappointments than the flinty Donegal orphan and runaway from the PA coal mines. Irish Cheer, indeed!
Keep up the Betty and Jack Chronicles, there's a gold mine there, Jackie.
Hey Kev - Yeah, it had to be pretty small, just judging by the size of the backbar...my mom couldn't remember the name for sure, but thought it was "Pete's Place."
ReplyDeleteI indeed know about FC Curran's bar. I've been there. In fact, I think Pete and I shot some video footage there, on the same day we shot the house in Morgan Acres, and some other sites of Curran interest.
I have heard a little of the powers that be harrassing Frank out of the business. I have also heard it was, as you alluded to, Helen...
I have heard of the dark side and the light side. I met him numerous times over the years, and he was always in a mood ranging from bemusement to outright hilarity. I remember him introducing himself--and he had to be at least 85-90 at the time, as the family homosexual. I remember him dancing at our wedding when he had to be 90. I have read his fabulous blarney-filled letters to Keelin and others. And I have heard hints from Uncle John, Aunt Maureen and others of the darker, angrier Frank.
On the whole, though they keep the legacy petty upbear and chipper. Just as my mom would not discuss certain episodes and aspects of her mom...
There is no doubt more to the Frank Curran story than we know.
I had forgotten, but howled, at your reminder of Frank's boast about his sexual orientation. I believe he made this comment at your wedding, too.
ReplyDeleteI have a vivid memory of him ca 1974 or 1975, summertime. Sean, Tony and I went on a drive in Tony's pickup to see Grandpa. We spotted Grandpa Frank striding, I mean really charging, along a gritty commercial street on the southeastern edge of Hillyard. We persuaded him to hop in and he then insisted on heading to the bar.
It was early, probably around noon, when we started drinking. He drank straight shots, Tony had whiskey on the rocks and I was swilling Millers. Our approximate ages were 83, 46 & 21. We left Sean in the truck outside. Frank grew more and more ornery with each shot and had begun to smart off to Tony and this 30ish bar hound who seemed to genuinely hate him. When Grandpa dropped his tam and asked the young guy to pick it up, the fellow shot back "pick it up yourself, old man".
Anyway Sean had an American Legion ballgame to play and he went off in Tony's truck after we arranged to borrow Frank's 53 Chevy so that we could attend Sean's game later. I ran to Grandpa' and got the car and returned to the bar. We told Grandpa it was time to go and balked. He insisted on staying but Tony wouldn't let him because Grandpa was already pretty lit up. We carried him to the car and boy did that piss him off. You know, even stoop shouldered at 80, Frank was well over 6' though rail thin. As we carried him up the steps to his house he was hopped up like a wet cat. We left him at home and went to Sean's ballgame.
The next morning I got a call from Grandpa. He asked, "when you return my car will you stop at the bar to pick up my glasses?" I thought he had lost it. I said "Grandpa you had your glasses when we dropped you off at home, they couldn't be at the bar". He insisted, so I stopped by that Sunday afternoon and the bartender reported that he had found the glasses in the alley. Apparently Grandpa had returned to the bar and continued his harnangue and had gotten into a a scrape with somebody in the alley behind the bar. When I saw there was no mistaking that. He was pretty battered up around the ears and and the side of his face. He didn't make much of it but did acknowledge that someone was making trouble for him and he went to settle the disagreement outside.
That is such a great story! At 83, he was still putting up his dukes.
ReplyDeleteOf course this story should end
"You should have seen the other guy!"
Johnnie I'm pretty sure that is how the story did end. My recall is that the next day Grampa Frank did say "you should have seen the other guy" I remember because it's a classic line but that was the first time I heard it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad! It really did have to end that way...
ReplyDeleteThis is really no fair. Why do you get all the great relative stories? I couldn't come up with anything about my family like this.
ReplyDelete