After Mary Cooney Coffey’s death, my Aunt Alice Flynn Burns reached out to her first cousin Evelyn. As a result, Evelyn traveled to New Hampshire to meet her Flynn relatives, with whom she fell hopelessly in love. She was too late to meet my grandmother, her Aunt Maggie, but others in the family told her wonderful stories. Jack and Julia, who raised three handsome sons, treated her as the daughter they never had, and bachelor Jim adored her, taking her to her first dog races and being astounded at tiny elfin Evelyn's enthusiasm for each "poor little doggie."
As mentioned earlier, I really did not know Evelyn. My brother says we met her in 1938, but I was too young to retain that memory. We had moved from Texas to Massachusetts for a year, and I was meeting all of my father’s family for the first time. So Evelyn, who would have been visiting there only a week, was not then a remarkable memory. (I am astonished as I write those words!)
Henry remembers going to the dog races with Evelyn, our father, and Uncle Jim. Henry was too young to be admitted, so Jim engaged the nearby Irish cop in lively conversation while Dad furtively tucked his little son under his top coat and sneaked him into the arena. (‘Tis no wonder Henry remembers this!)
Jim gave Evelyn a $2 bill to bet. She chose a dog with 30/1 odds and won! Jim said, “How on earth did you do that?” Her reply was, “He was so pathetic looking, and no one else was betting on him, so I did.”
Evelyn had learned from her mother how to shop sales and she applied this skill both at Filene’s Basement when she visited relatives in Boston and in local Cleveland stores. She was so tiny that her size clothing did not sell quickly, so she would wait as the price dropped each week and grab a true bargain at the last minute. In those days display shoes were in her size, too, and she made wonderful buys getting them on mark-down.
A devout Catholic, Evelyn sent beautiful religious Christmas cards to my parents, and in my child's mind she became a reclusive little nun-like figure. However, when the Texas Flynns met her in New England in 1949, I learned otherwise. I was totally enchanted by her. She loved to hit those sales at Filene's, had a charm and wit that was positively beguiling. My mother adored her, and Evelyn always spoke of how she loved Lettie.
In the 1960’s when he lived in Illinois, my brother went to Detroit to visit Evelyn on Warrington Street. He remembers an upstairs apartment in which every available surface was covered: a table filled with St. Christopher medals, a collection of seemingly valuable cylindrical wind-up music boxes tucked beneath another.
Many in our family are collectors, or maybe even hoarders, and we’ve always considered it a “Flynn affliction.” But now, one wonders if it came with our Coffey genes!
The poem below has nothing to do with the story above, but it does speak of Evelyn’s love of those whom others did not.
Ballad of a Dog
The bleakness of November sun
Speared scanty light across
A barren ranch, and shaggy winds
Distorted its pale gloss.
Trees crackled in sharp shadows and
The aged farm house flung
Its battered face into the void
That fallen leaves had hung.
An old, decrepit garden wept
For flowers that were gone,
And shrilled its pallid lonesomeness
Into the quiet dawn.
A path led to the river-bank,
And through its mud I sped
In search of a brave mother-dog
Whose litter’s grassy bed
Was loud with hungry cries. A thin,
Starved shape sprawled stiffly out
Upon the sand. The winter flu
Had put its life to rout.
I took the smallest puppy home
With me, and called her “Squeaks”
Because she made fond, squeaky sounds
For loving. All the weeks
Of puppyhood went by swift as
A day, and courage grew,
And loyalty, in Squeaks’ young heart.
Our love for her grew, too.
Grief visited our home and left
An aching memory,
And Squeaks, in puppies’ laughing way,
Made sorrowed hours flee
With bitten shoes and tattered hose
And curtains. I confess
It tried my mother’s patience much
To find things in a mess.
Soon, neighbors in a heartless kind
Of way decided Squeaks
Must leave. Her merry bark, they said,
Resounded like the creaks
Of rusty doors to one whose work
Made night of day, and day
Of night. I was not strong enough
To combat them, and they
Applauded their mean measure of
Success. I didn’t mind
Too much because Squeaks loved her new
Range home. Sleek forests lined
Its walls, and wood-life played with her.
I heard her laugh ring out
When birds chirruped – it was a life
More worthy of my scout.
Months passed in happiness until
A year had rolled around.
She brought nine sturdy sons into
The world. I watched them bound
In joy upon the floor of their
Small cabin – a handsome set
That soon were claimed by eager youth
Pursuing a new pet.
I saw Squeaks only twice since then,
And now they have told me
She wandered from the woods she loved
So well. How can it be?
Again a bleak November sun
Spears scanty light across
A barren ranch, with shaggy winds
Distorting its pale gloss.
The burlap of the kennel door
Is beating lonely taps
Upon its roof. A naked bone
Yawns lazily and naps.
Evelyn Coffey
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