Thomas Curran and Mary Finan
GIRLS
The three girls in the family (Laura, Nellie, and Mae) were very close. They all had great love and respect for both parents. In particular, their mother was obviously their most influential role model even though I never heard any of them say so.
The girls in the picture are, from left to right, Laura (b. 21 May 1899), Nellie (b. 28 Feb 1902), and Mae (b. 25 Aug 1896). Mae looks like a Curran. Laura and Nellie look more like their mother, Mollie Finan. My guess is that this picture was taken circa 1904.
Because of Mollie’s poor health since about the time her last child was born, Mae’s parents insisted that she drop out of school (after finishing the eighth grade circa 1909) and help her mother keep house. That was a great disappointment to Mae. When Laura finished the eighth grade circa 1912, she eagerly took over the job of "mother’s helper" from Mae, who then continued her education. In fact, Laura told her niece (and godchild), Sister Mary Healey, that she had sat on the school steps and cried after being told that she would be sent to high school. After her mother died, Laura continued to keep house for her father [DS.4.5] until he remarried circa 1923. When Laura married John FitzMaurice [DS.4.5.7S] in 1919, her new husband joined the Curran household. Laura had her first two children, Mary (b. 1920) and Loretta (b. 1922) while still living with her father and younger siblings.
BOYS
The boys in the family of Tom Curran [DS.4.5] and Mollie Finan grew up in a blue collar environment. Everybody in the families of both of their parents had been employed in manual labor since childhood. I have found no evidence that anybody in the preceding two generations of the family had even finished the eighth grade. They had an uncle and two generations of cousins who were organizers for the Boxmakers Union in an era when some judges would close their eyes to crimes committed against union organizers. Although their father [DS.4.5] was solidly supported by the residents of his blue collar district, he was sometimes subjected to violence in his election campaigns. The police and the courts were of little help. Tom [DS.4.5] survived the early elections only because he had five brothers and many union supporters who were ready to resist violent attacks. Prohibition made the environment even worse. In Irish and Italian neighborhoods, the new law was widely regarded as just one more unreasonable hardship imposed by Protestant politicians. For young, uneducated men, it was a small step from ignoring the liquor laws to violating other laws.
Mollie [DS.4.5S1] had a tough job teaching her sons morality and respect for the law under such conditions. Nevertheless, she was successful with the sons who got an education and reached maturity before she died on 14 Feb 1918. The three youngest sons were respectively 13, 11, and 8 years old when their mother died.
Ed Healey [DS.4.5.6S] had a favorite story that he liked to tell about the Curran family:
Sometime after Molly Finan (Curran) [DS.4.5S1] died, Ed got a weekend pass (from the Army) and went, of course, to meet Mae Curran [DS.4.5.6] (who was in nurse’s training) when she got off duty. Mae was still living in student nurses quarters. Her sister Laura [DS.4.5.7] was keeping house for the Curran family and invited them for dinner. After dinner, Tom Curran [DS.4.5] took Ed and Mae aside and told them he had arranged to send two of the boys to a boarding school conducted by the Viatorian Fathers in Bourbonnais near Kankakee. (That school has long since been sold to some fundamentalist group as a Bible College.) Tom [DS.4.5] said the boys were getting out of hand and needed discipline. One of the boys was Charley [DS.4.5.11]. The other was either Tom [DS.4.5.12] or Harry [DS.4.5.10]. Charley [Ds.4.5.11] was definitely one of the pair because Ed [DS.4.5.6S] sometimes expostulated on what a dickens Charley [DS.4.5.11] was. Otherwise, he just called them "the two kids" without ascribing names. Anyway, their father said something to this effect: "Why don’t the two of you take them down there on Mae’s day off? You can get them settled and then go into Kankakee for the rest of the day. I’ll pay your way." Ergo, they took the two boys down there on the train (Illinois Central probably), finalized registration, established them in the dormitories, toured the school, and left. In Kankakee, they saw the sights, such as they were, had dinner at the best restaurant, and took an evening train back. When they arrived to report to "old" Tom Curran [DS.4.5] (age about 51), they found the two boys there ahead of them. They had decided they didn’t like the school, sneaked away, and spent their spending money on tickets back to Chicago. Their father let them stay.
The school in Bourbonnais had a good reputation. Fulton J. Sheen and John Tracey Ellis both went there. Tom Curran would have had the additional comfort that the school was in Harper country.
Ed [DS.4.5.6S] felt the younger Currans got away with too much after their mother died. Their sister Laura [DS.4.5.7] didn’t have a lot of control over them, and their father was in Springfield or away for other reasons much of the time. Ed [DS.4.5.6S] thought it regrettable that they were spoiled because they weren’t dumb kids and could have profited from the advantages their father could afford to give them by the time they were growing up.