Category Archives: family

A Fantastic Wedding

First, a story: when my brother was married, he avoided the wedding planning like the plague.  I was totally with him on this – I can’t imagine fretting about the details. He did offer one suggestion, the entrance music for the newly married couple at the reception.  His wife-to-be, whom I love dearly, was happy to agree to the music. It sounded nice.  What she didn’t realize was that it was the Imperial March.  Absolutely hysterical in retrospect.

How is that related to this video?  Only tangentially.  I just liked the video, and my brother’s story. Five minute video, sound required, and hopefully you’ll smile like I did.

Remembering Grandma

My father’s father was the first of my grandparents to die.  I remember snippets and images of him, but nothing of his personality.  He died when I was young.  I remember his funeral, but didn’t really understand what it meant.

My father’s mother was next.  She died while I was in college, a few months after my father died.  I remember her quite clearly.  We were never particularly close, though.  We’d talk about things that were new in my life, she’d smile and say how nice that was.  I was sad when she died, but it was really just a small aftershock following my father.

My mother’s father died two years ago.  I still miss him.  He wasn’t a close friend, but we had real conversations about things that we both cared about.  I learned from him, and he learned from me.  I never understood his religious views, but they didn’t keep us from talking.  We shared attachments to Town Meeting, the Red Sox, and Massachusetts politics, and talked about them for hours over the years.

My mother’s mother died yesterday.  She’s been frail for a while and quite ill for the last two weeks, so it wasn’t a shock.  But it hurts like a bitch.  She’s my grandmother.  I’ve talked and joked and laughed and chatted with her for as long as I can remember.  And now she’s gone.  Some things that I remember:

I remember going on “Grandma-cations” when I was a kid, where my brothers and I would stay for a night or two with her in Dedham.

I remember, as a child, getting her very angry.  She said she was “very cross” with me, and I had no idea what that meant.

I remember her cajoling me into piano drills and conversations in French – all a waste of her time, I’m afraid.

I remember getting hand-written, 4-page letters from her while I was at college – and the first three pages were about the Red Sox.

I remember giving a presentation to the exec team at Abuzz in 1999 – and having to apologize because my 80+ year old grandmother was IM’ing me on AOL about whether or not Pedro Martinez was going to win the Cy Young.

I remember how she could press a button and make my mother and her siblings react like they’d been electrified.  But somehow grandchildren got a pass, and we never got that level of disapproval.

I remember when I was unemployed and rather than buy gifts for Christmas, I used my mother’s kitchen and made cookies as presents, and that made Grandma cry.

I remember the day of grandpa’s funeral, when she got all of her grandchildren together at a table and just talked – about us, about her, about her life, about grandpa.

Most of all I remember her stories.  I’ll never be able to reconstruct them.  Most of them died with her.  But I have snippets.

One last picture, from my Uncle John.  It’s not a picture of Grandma, but it’s a picture of what she was.  She was family, she was cake, she was Dedham, she was china, she was napkins, she was birthday, she was date keeper.  She was the last of her generation. She was family.

I miss her already.

A Toy for All Ages

After my grandfather died, my grandmother was ready to get rid of a lot of the “stuff” the family had accumulated in the 65 years they’d lived in the house on Abbott road.  I would visit my grandmother and she’d tell me to “Pick something and take.  Find something you like and take it with you.  It’s all going to go eventually, so take something you want.”  It made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what was fair.  But Grandma really wanted to take something.

ballbearingtoyI thought about it.  It didn’t take long to think of the toy.  It’s a small, clear, plastic cube, a few inches on each side, with a ton of small metal balls inside.  The inside of the cube has a bunch of interlocking “steps” of clear plastic.  You flip the cube over, and the balls loudly cascade down the steps.  

I decided I could take the toy with a clear conscience.  It was cheap – I wasn’t laying claim to anything huge.  And if someone else wanted it, it was easy enough to hand off.  The toy has been sitting on my coffee table since then.

ellen-dan-christmas-72Fast forward to present day: Aunt Mary scanned some old pictures and forwarded them to the family.  Check out Aunt Ellen’s hair from Christmas of ’72.  Spectacular, isn’t it?  It’s like an alien spaceship landed on her head for an extended visit.

 I’m the baby in the picture; I’m almost 9 months old.  Once I got over the spectacle of the beehive, my gaze drifted to the toy that so clearly has my attention back in 1972.  My jaw dropped.

There’s the cube.  I’m a few months old, and I’m playing with the cube.  Thirty-five years later, Grandma asked me to pick something, and the one thing I asked for was the cube I’d played with as a baby.

It makes me wonder about brain development and memory.  It’s just a simple plastic cube, but it’s captured my attention for decades.  Do I still like it because I have associated good memories somewhere?  Or am I hardwired to enjoy bouncing ball-bearings?

Betty Dunn for Town Clerk (Windham, NH)

My mother is running for Town Clerk in Windham.  She’s on the ballot against the long-time incumbent and the incumbent’s deputy.  She’s got a website up, Betty Dunn for Town Clerk.  On the site she articulates why she’s the right woman for the job.  Please give it a read and contact her with any questions.

So, for all you Windham readers out there, please vote for mom.  And for all you readers who know someone in Windham. . . please pass the word.  Election Day is in one week, on March 10.  Thanks.

Say Uncle

nolan1.jpg

Congratulations to Tim and Christi who made me an uncle this morning. His name is Nolan Harris Dunn. He came a little early but is doing fine, as is Christi.

Paul F. Lawler November 12, 1913 – August 27, 2007

My grandfather died on Monday. I’ve had a couple of draft posts about his illness, his care, and the way it has affected me and my family. I may publish them later, who knows.

Below is the text of the pamphlet at his wake. Read it, please, and see what an amazing life he had. The wake was today, and the funeral is tomorrow. Also, my uncle collected and scanned dozens of photos of my grandfather. The best of them are printed on three different tabblos you can see here, here, and here.

Paul F. Lawler was born on November 12, 1913, shortly before the outbreak of World War 1. He was the son of John Frederick Lawler and Anna E. Krim Lawler, who later had two more children, Richard and Anna.

Paul was brought up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, at a time when the area was full of 1st- and 2nd-generation Irish, Russians, and Germans. He loved to tell stories about happy summers at the beach at Nantasket and about camp on Sunset Lake in New Hampshire.

Paul won a place at the competitive Boston Latin School and was an enthusiastic participant in Latin School affairs for the rest of his life. Like many of his classmates, he went on to Harvard, where he majored in math and graduated cum laude in 1935. He spent two years at the Harvard Business School, earning his MBA in 1937.

Later Paul was a member of the faculty at the Harvard Business School. During World War II, he worked there on classified military research projects and on planning for the transition to a post-war economy.

Paul was a fine athlete, who treasured the trophies he won at track, gymnastics, and swimming. He kept fit all his life. During the 1950s and 1960s, long before jogging was popular; he ran the half-mile to the train station each day. He did push­ups each day, sometimes in the office, until he was in his 90s.

Paul and Mary Alberta Collins were introduced by mutual friends and married in 1941. They were a devoted couple for nearly 66 years, and their family and friends loved watching them laugh together. They had six children: Frances, Ellen, Elizabeth, Mary, Philip, and John. The children remember Paul telling stories, leading Sunday afternoon trips to the Museum of Fine Arts or the beach, helping with Latin home­work . . . and always insisting that the Christmas tree not be put up until Christmas Eve.

Paul’s business career emphasized financing commercial real estate. For many years he worked at Cardinal Realty, deploying investors’ funds in hotels, office buildings, and some of the country’s first shopping centers; and then managing these properties. Paul then started National Realty, where he was the court-appointed trustee for ITT in the landmark antitrust case of the early 1970s. His last business enterprise was Shawmut Research Company, where he continued working in real estate finance.

Paul contributed consistently to his community; he was a town meeting member for many years and a member of local boards and commissions. During the 1970s, at the time of the country’s bicentennial celebration, he became actively involved in reenactments of events from the colonial era and the American Revolution.

Always a prayerful Catholic whose faith was central to his life, over the years Paul was active in the Holy Name Society, the Legion of Mary, and the Nocturnal Adoration Society. During the 1970s he developed a great love for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and in 1982 he was ordained a deacon at the Annunciation Melkite Cathedral in Boston. After years of faithful service there, he was raised to the status of Protodeacon. He also became chancellor of the Melkite Newton Eparchy (diocese), and served in that position until the time of his death.

Paul and Mary Lawler became grandparents 37 years ago, and would eventually have 13 grandchildren: Myles and Rita Conley; Dan, Tim, and Jeremy Dunn; Carl Wickstrom; and Nicholas, Mary Rosaleen, Suzanne, Joseph, Deirdre, William, and Bridget Lawler.

Paul went to the hospital with an ear infection in July, suffered pneumonia and other complications, and died very peacefully on August 27, 2007, at the age of 93. May he live in the arms of the good God who gave him a long and vigorous life.

November 12, 1913 – August 27,2007

Jeremy’s Birthday

Afterwards, Jeremy and I went to Mom’s house. You can see that she has a very large puddle in the front yard. Water in the front yard tends to go into the basement unless it is piped into the back yard. The problem is that the drainage pipe was still frozen solid. The front yard’s pond was growing.
… Read and see more at Tabblo