The Grandfather Clause

Warren, Pennsylvania - the small city in the northwest corner of the state where my mother was born and raised. Bordered by green rolling hills, the Allegheny River and its tributary, the Conewango Creek, I’ve always considered it a magical place. Even the smokestacks from the United Refining Co. on the town’s southeast end comfort me inexplicably with their mineraly aroma of petroleum. One whiff and I’m back in Aunt Marie’s kitchen on Russell Street, watching from a stool as she peels apples for a pie. My mother’s people are from this small city: and while the many personalities of the clan vary, they all possess the common thread of practicing kindness without guile. Not so much as an ounce of shrapnel was ever fired at me on my annual visits to Warren Pennsylvania (in spite of its namesake being Revolutionary War general Joseph Warren).  

It’s an 8-hour car ride to get there from where I live, and the hotels in Warren aren’t exactly five-star, yet I visit as often as possible for a good, long soak in that kindness. To it all, the credit goes to my grandfather, Donald E. McComas. Much like the morale of a corporation being influenced from above by the CEO’s policies and moral codes, the trickle-down effect of family dynamics germinates in similar fashion. Father of eight children, many grandchildren, and a growing number of newly minted progeny, Donald E. McComas (or ‘Dads’ as the grandkids called him) was responsible for the bountiful branch of a family tree that I cherish – aunts, uncles, and a long line of cousins who have uplifted me with a sense of love and security since before I took my first steps.

Dads - Our Loving Leader

All of my visits to Warren begin cinematically when we roll into town from the north end after the hourlong drive required when exiting I-90 an hour west of Buffalo. I feel the peace wash over me as the towering maple trees and stately homes of Market Street come into focus. Even in middle age, I’m as excited as if I were arriving in the Emerald City. I look to the left to see the church where my family worshipped for generations. It’s where my parents and extended family were married, and where I was baptized 60 years ago. Some of Warren’s side streets are still paved with red bricks - buckled and uneven, the brick streets delighted me as a child because it reminded me of the illustrations from Grimm’s Fairytales.

After a few turns off Market, we reach Hickory Street and the headquarters of Blair Corporation, the well-known clothing company where my grandfather worked as an advertising copywriter.  He was born Dec. 31, 1897 in Germantown, Pa. near Philadelphia. The day after his 20^th birthday, Dads was on a transport ship to France to serve as an ambulance driver during World War I. I’m willing to bet Dads celebrated his 21^st birthday with abandon in Germany, six weeks following the Nov. 11^th armistice that ended the war. Returning to southern Pennsylvania, he worked as a stringer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and married fellow Germantown native Esther Johnstone on Dec. 27, 1922.

An employment opportunity drew the newlyweds to Warren, where they began raising a family, starting with twins in 1923, whom they named Patricia and Donald Jr., followed by the arrivals of Charlotte and then Andy. Everything changed on a dime in 1933 when Esther died giving birth to their fifth child, a baby girl named Dorothy Drew, who was plagued with serious health problems and died nearly four years later.

Recently, Uncle Jeff (Dads’ youngest son and our family archivist) sent me a clipping of their 1922 wedding announcement. My eyes filled with tears as I read every intricate detail of the ceremony (as newspapers were wont to do in those days). Because it was Christmas season, Esther’s bridesmaids carried bouquets of white roses and poinsettias and “the bride wore white satin covered with old family lace and a tulle veil held in place with a band of orange blossoms.” Such a promising and beautiful beginning…I can’t imagine what my grandfather must have gone through when he lost his wife 11 years later without warning.  He could have easily collapsed into despair and bitterness, but didn’t.

A prolific journal-keeper, Dads kept stacks of them, recording the outline of his life from his time during the war to his life as a widower left to care for his small children. He had no choice but to employ housekeepers to help out while he was at work. From his written accounts, they sounded at best, like inadequate substitutes for a mother figure, especially one whom he 86’d because “she was too strict with the children.” My grandfather’s prayers were answered when someone introduced him to my grandmother, a 20-something home economics teacher in town named Edith, and they went on to have three children: Murray, Margy (my mother), and Jeff.

As my mother loves to remember, theirs was a crowded three-story house on Central Avenue filled with love. Christmasses were celebrated en masse as the family grew and their second-favorite holiday was the Fourth of July. The entire town seemed to turn out for the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and it was capped off by a community lunch at the V.F.W.

Mom exploring Warren on her bike…

My mother’s marriage in 1962 took her far from Warren in more ways than one. Living nearly 500 miles to the east in upstate New York meant infrequent visits, and an immersion into family dynamics that were starkly different from her own. By contrast, my father’s family was a somewhat bitter, judgmental lot, generous with the rolling of eyes, conversations leaning toward the snide side, and sarcastic humor that barely disguised lurking vitriol and restless resentment (too long a story for this essay).

Thank God for the U.S. Mail. Dads’ love of writing ensured the connection with family transcended distance. After retirement, his second favorite place to be after ‘knee-deep in a river fly-fishing’ was at the typewriter. He wrote regularly to his out-of-state kids and grandkids, and was a champion at sending out typewritten letters, a weekly practice Dads perfected when his own children were away at college. He may have been a prolific writer, but Dads remained an eternal novice as a typist, doggedly pecking out sentences a few letters at a time until he completed his newsy missive on a sheet of unlined stationery, which usually bore the aromatic scent of the pipe he smoked during typing sessions. It was all very Rockwellian and I thank God I was prescient enough to save many of his neatly folded typewritten love notes.

Four of Dads’ children (L-R) Aunt Patty, mom, Uncle Jeff and Uncle Murray at one of Warren’s Fourth of July celebrations.

Our annual get-togethers in Warren were manna from heaven for us. The gatherings were large and punctuated with light-heartedness, laughter, and an overall sense of contentment that, well, just wasn’t present with my other branch of the family. Dads’ seven children shared a bond he helped solidify just by being who he was: a kind, unifying force without a judgmental word for anyone.  When my mother and her siblings grew up and went their separate geographic ways, they employed a wonderful tradition called the Round Robin. It involved the ancient practice of handwriting letters to one another, and began with one of them mailing a ‘here’s what’s new’ update to another sibling, who in turn would add on with their own missive and include the previous one, and so on down the line, until all seven we're caught up with recent events. A few months later, the Round Robin would start anew. It was hard on my mother being so far removed from the affection she was accustomed to and it was evident that the Round Robin and its bulging contents sustained her during some very emotionally barren times.

I ache for what she lost all those decades away from Warren – what we all missed out on from not living closer. As a wise Rabbi declared recently at a lecture I attended, “what’s done is done…accept what you lost and move on,” noting that Job was the ultimate example of this challenging moral task.  I realized, after years of intermittent mourning, how imperative this is to my peace. My other family tree branch suddenly embracing the lighter, brighter qualities of the Warren clan is about as likely to happen as Joan Collins calling a square dance, and that simply is what it is: another example of life’s uneven terrain. It’s a far better option to focus on the gratitude I have for the man who generated such abundant goodwill – even as he arose from unspeakable pain.

I miss Dads a great deal, and comfort myself with memories. One of my favorite photos is a black and white of him taking his afternoon nap on the living room couch. He’s draped in an Afghan my grandmother crocheted, and I’m at his side placing an ear near his chest, fascinated by the mechanical purr of his snoring. I know I speak for all his grandkids when I say we how deeply we were drawn to Dad’s soft-spoken voice, gentle nature, and a fondness for winking - his understated form of PDA.

And all these years later, the trickle-down effect lives on. Warren is down to just two family members: Uncle Murray and cousin Anne. Reunions are smaller these days, but no less enriching. Last weekend, Bill, my mom and I made another pilgrimage, passing the church and Blair Corporation headquarters before settling into a table for seven at The Plaza Restaurant in the heart of downtown. Cousin Andy regaled us with news from his home in Dallas; Anne filled us in on her granddaughter’s 11^th birthday celebration; I let everyone know how my three siblings back east were doing; and my mom recalled the long-gone ice cream parlor across town where she worked her first job. Another infusion of togetherness punctuated with laughter and lots of unhurried eye contact.

After dinner, we reconvened on Anne’s front porch near the Conewango Creek, relaxing on rockers and wicker couches, not wanting our time together to end. Cousin Claire and her husband John arrived from Michigan and joined us on the porch just in time for the sunset (which is always blessedly a half-hour later that far west).

Cousin Claire with Mom on our most recent visit

The next day, cousin Andy drove mom to her favorite place on earth – the nearby Chautauqua Institution - for their famous Sunday morning services in the amphitheater. Later that day, we had an impromptu meeting at General Joseph Warren Park overlooking the Allegheny with Claire and John before they left for Rochester. She called my cell spur of the moment, just finishing a visit to her father’s gravesite. “We have some free time and would really love to see you one more time before we leave. We’ll meet you wherever’s best for you,” she said. Such a typical sweet-natured gesture from her…but one I was so grateful for. Five minutes later we pulled up to the park and saw her waving us over to a bench with a big smile, just one in so many examples of living testaments to Dads’ legacy.