Mysteries of My Father

Thomas Fleming

Description

A son comes of age in a fiercely political world

"Thomas Fleming gives us an unforgettable story about an immigrant family—his family—as it struggles to find a place in the American century. He shares with us the dreams and heartaches of his parents, and, in the end, he reminds us of the mysterious and forgiving power of love."
—Terry Golway, author of The Irish in America

"A truly moving story of a lifelong duel between father and son, Mysteries of My Father also vibrates with the great good humor that grows out of ward politics, and pulses with the heartfelt drama of a family just getting by. There were some bad times in the Fleming family story, but Tom Fleming prevails to the good times, and the best time is left to the reader. What a wonderful time I had reading this book."
—Dennis Smith, author of the Report from Engine Co. 82 and Report from Ground Zero

"A well-written, fascinating political history."
—Margaret Truman, author of Murder at Union Station

"With a historian's fidelity and a poet's empathy, Tom Fleming has created a textured study of three generations of Irish-Americans, whose clashing spiritual values inform their integration into New Jersey's social and political hierarchy. Mysteries of My Father is an American classic achieved by a master storyteller's talents for exploring the tensions and bonds between a father and his sons. Among the literary wonders of this brisk and moving memoir is the father's emergence as a seminal American character—brusque and pragmatic, yet capable of expected tenderness to his sons."
—Sidney Offit, author of Memoir of the Bookie's Son

"If you care about what it means to be an Irish-American, or about New Jersey political history, or about the relationships between fathers and sons, or about wonderful writing, run—don't walk—out to buy Tom Fleming's Mysteries of My Father."
—Nick Acocella, publisher of Politifax
Author’s Note.

Acknowledgments.

1. A Message from the Past.

2. The Bad Old Days.

3. An Uptown World.

4. Three Beauties.

5. My Rosary.

6. The Sporting Life.

7. The Escape Artist.

8. Salesman’s Blues.

9. To Europe with Love.

10. You’re in the Army Now.

11. The Limits of Love.

12. Over There.

13. Argonne.

14. Home Is the Hero.

15. The Man in Charge.

16. The Big Win.

17. Sweethearts.

18. The Birth of the Blues.

19. Leader.

20. Two Circles of Love.

21. Street Angel, House Devil.

22. One True Faith.

23. I Can’t Live with That Man.

24. All I’ve Got.

25. The Guy in the Glass.

26. You’re in the Navy Now.

27. Swabbie.

28. What’s Philosophy?

29. Decline and Fall.

30. Heartbreak House.

31. The Last Lesson.

32. Hail and Farewell.

Index.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Nueva Jersey
• Thomas Fleming
• Irish diaspora
• History
• New Jersey

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 21 avril 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470323274
• Langue: English

Extrait

Mysteries of My Father
Mysteries of My Father
Thomas Fleming
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2005 by Thomas Fleming. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Excerpt from A Dialogue of Self and Soul, reprinted with the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1933 by the Macmillan Company; copyright renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Excerpt from The Circus Animals Desertion, reprinted with the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats; copyright renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats. Excerpt from Easter, 1916, reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1924 by the Macmillan Company; copyright renewed 1952 by Bertha Georgie Yeats.
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data :
Fleming, Thomas J.
Mysteries of my father / Thomas Fleming.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-471-65515-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Fleming, Teddy, 1888-1959. 2. Fleming, Thomas J.-Family. 3. Politicians-New Jersey-Jersey City-Biography. 4. Sheriffs-New Jersey-Hudson County-Biography. 5. Jersey City (N.J.)-Biography. 6. Hague, Frank, 1876 1956. 7. Jersey City (N.J.)-Politics and government-20th century 8. World War, 1914 1918-Biography. 9. Soldiers-United States-Biography. I. Title.
F144.J553F58 2005
974.9 2704 092-dc22
2004015426
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Author s Note
Acknowledgments
1. A Message from the Past
2. The Bad Old Days
3. An Uptown World
4. Three Beauties
5. My Rosary
6. The Sporting Life
7. The Escape Artist
8. Salesman s Blues
9. To Europe with Love
10. You re in the Army Now
11. The Limits of Love
12. Over There
13. Argonne
14. Home Is the Hero
15. The Man in Charge
16. The Big Win
17. Sweethearts
18. The Birth of the Blues
19. Leader
20. Two Circles of Love
21. Street Angel, House Devil
22. One True Faith
23. I Can t Live with That Man
24. All I ve Got
25. The Guy in the Glass
26. You re in the Navy Now
27. Swabbie
28. What s Philosophy?
29. Decline and Fall
30. Heartbreak House
31. The Last Lesson
32. Hail and Farewell
Photographs
Index
Author s Note
Because it was impossible to recall after the lapse of dozens of years the exact names of many people who appear in the text, I have invented some names to give the narrative a realistic flow. In no instance does this alter the essential truth of the various accounts.
Acknowledgments
As readers will quickly discover, most of this book is based on memory. Wherever possible I have bolstered the memories with historical research. For their unstinting and enthusiastic help in this task I must thank the staff of the New Jersey Room at the Jersey City Public Library-Director Charles E. Markey and his assistants, Cynthia Harris and Joseph Donnelly. I would also like to thank the former director of the New Jersey Room, Kenneth French, who was a great help when I started work on the book several years ago. Also on my gratitude list are the staff of the Plainfield Public Library and Barbara Petrick, author of a brilliant study of Jersey City s public and parochial schools, who gave generously of her time and advice. Also helpful were Mitchell Yockelson of the Modern Military Records Branch of the National Archives and historian Robert R. Ferrell, who shared with me his files of research on the Argonne. Steven Bernstein and my son, Richard Fleming, pursued many obscurities on the Internet and in libraries on my behalf, saving me hours of travel and labor. Equally warm thanks go to Richard Snow, the editor of American Heritage , who in 1991 published an article about my father, and to Martin Tucker, the editor of Confrontation , in which I published some early drafts about my mother. My wife, Alice, was invaluable as a counselor as well as a genealogical explorer. As a catalyst whose insights gave the book its form, after many false starts, my editor, Stephen Power, was a constant resource. At least as important was the enthusiasm and support of my literary agent, Ted Chichak.
1
A Message from the Past
Through the blank impersonality of cyberspace whizzed an e-mail to the Mairie (City Hall) of Jersey City, New Jersey, a town that sprawls on the Hudson River almost within hailing distance of the Statue of Liberty and New York s shimmering skyline.

My name is Gil Malmasson. I m a 31 year old Frenchman who lives in a suburb of Paris. I work as a professional photographer but one of my favorite hobbies is metal detecting. A few years ago I was searching near a small American monument in memory of WWI American soldiers who fought in the Argonne Forest. Suddenly I found a gold ring with an onyx stone. Inside was engraved: FROM MAYOR FRANK HAGUE TO SHERIFF TEDDY FLEMING 1945. I went to the U.S. Embassy in Paris and to U.S. Army headquarters to ask their help in finding the owner. They were unable to assist me. Finally, on the internet I found the page you wrote about Frank Hague and the many years he served as mayor of your city. Can you help me find Sheriff Fleming or his children?
Gene Scanlon, Jersey City s director of communications, forwarded a copy of this e-mail to me in my New York apartment. Gene had graduated a year ahead of me from the local Jesuit high school, St. Peter s Prep. Without him, Gil Malmasson s message might have gone unanswered. No one else in City Hall would have been likely to connect me with the days when Mayor Frank Hague and Sheriff Teddy Fleming strode the corridors of power.
I sat there, staring at the message, not quite able to believe what I was reading. Thirty years had passed since this ring had vanished into loose dirt on a hillside in that blood-soaked French forest. I had gone there to write an article for American Heritage magazine on the fiftieth anniversary of the climactic battle of World War I. The ring had slipped off my finger on a cold March day and vanished into loose shale. Now it had come back to me in this extraordinary way. What did it mean?
I was not sure. For the moment I was only certain of one thing. I handed a printout of the e-mail to my wife, Alice, and said, I want to go back to the Argonne and have him put the ring on my finger exactly where I lost it.
Maybe then I would understand what it meant. But I somehow doubted it. Already I sensed it would take more than a journey to France to understand the many meanings of the man who had accepted that ring and the mayor who gave it to him. They represented something large and imponderable that I had tried to deal with in a half dozen novels. But I had never confronted them as history. Was it time to do that? Inwardly, I flinched from the task that I half knew was being imposed on me. All writing was a mixture of pain and pleasure. In this venture I feared pain would predominate.
Alice and I flew to Paris on Monday, November 25, 1998. A smiling Gil Malmasson met us at Charles de Gaulle Airport. With him were his father, Fran ois, a well-known architect, and his brother Marc, a gifted musician. Also on hand were a reporter and photographer from Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, who interviewed us briefly and took pictures. Gil had told the story of the ring to several friends in the media.
The next day, Fran ois Malmasson drove Gil and Alice and me to the Argonne. During the 170-mile ride, we talked about how Gil had found the ring. He had begun exploring historic sites with his metal detector when he was a teenager and now had a collection of Roman-Celtic artifacts and other discoveries that was moderately famous among fellow hobbyists.
I asked Gil why had he had gone to so much trouble to locat