I’ve spent the last weeks attending Irish festivals in Cleveland, Minnesota and Milwaukee. Amazing experiences at each one which I’ll be writing about in Irish America Magazine. But amid the fun and music there was a chorus of sadness from people who stopped to look at Galway Bay and read Frank McCourt’s quote on the cover. “Ah Frank,’ they’d say and then talk about how much his work had meant to them. Many had met Frank, heard him read – all were touched by his great spirit. We’d spend a few minutes talking about him as the bands played and families strolled by – eating roasted corn in the sunshine – a wake that Frank would have enjoyed. Perpetual light shining. May he rest in peace.
Right now someone somewhere is opening Angela's Ashes for the first time or 'Tis or Teacher Man and hearing Frank McCourt's voice. Lucky for them that initial discovery and fortunate too are the many who listened to him at a signing or lecture or best of all around a table at The Parlour Bar with his wife Ellen and a good sprinkling of McCourt's on hand.
He was very generous to my husband Martin and me. It's comforting to think I can visit Martin's website BabyNamesOfIreland.com and know Frank is there pronouncing the names and telling the stories. And I told him his quote on the cover of Galway Bay is the best writing in the book. He'd said he was going to give me two quotes because the book was so long. He also told me when I did a presentation to tell the stories rather than read. "They can buy the damn book and read it themselves." Thank God we can read his books -- and I find new levels with every reading. That gorgeous simplicity yields more and more. When I'd be up at five in the morning writing Galway Bay I'd listen to the CD of The Irish and How They Got That Way, the show he wrote and performed with The Irish Rep Theatre in New York. Great songs and great Frank. One morning I let it play on long after the end and found that there were a string of takes of Frank saying "the brother," a reference to Malachy earlier in the piece. Each take is different and full of suppressed and not so suppressed glee. For all his clear-eyed look at misery, the laugh was always there. He was our big brother who could take it and laugh and make the world less scary. We'll miss him so. Thanks for giving us the books, Frank.
And our Uncle Walter is gone too. He was another voice that told the truth. He had a strong connection to Ireland from the time he was based in Derry, Base One Europe, as a war correspondent during WWII. Because of his good memories of that time he agreed to appear in the documentary I did for PBS stations about the 300,000 American troops stationed in Northern Ireland during the War when Maebeth Fenton, a friend of the Cronkites and a great supporter of Northern Ireland, asked him. After the shoot he told me how Irish men from the Free State would wait at the Border to invite the Americans to step across to Donegal for feeds of fresh eggs, butter and poitin. "One fellow offered us raincoats to put on. He said that if our uniforms were covered and we took off our caps than weren't we civilians temporarily and able to ignore Army rules against going into neutral Ireland?" Walter Cronkite didn't tell me he went across but he didn't say he hadn't. I know through the years he sailed around the coast of Northern Ireland many times. Another journalist I knew much better left us this Sunday too. David Sutton grew up on Chicago's North Shore, the son of a Dean of Northwestern University. His path was clear yet he choose to enlist in the Army, finding another America in southern Army camps and then a surrogate Korean family when he was stationed there. They remained his life-long friends. He was an excellent reporter, editor and photographer and had the kind of long, rewarding career at The Chicago Tribune that doesn't seem possible in newspapers today and is more precious because of that. David shared journalism and everything else with his wife Barbara, a quiet trail blazer for women at the paper, and...well, we've been friends since we were 10 and I can't fit how great she is into the longest blog. Friends and family are gathering to be with her and remember David. So with Frank McCourt and Walter Cronkite. Surely the three will be at the gatherings -- three good men each who knew a good story and how to tell it. Eternal light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.
