Circa 1923, (five years after the death of Mary Finan) Tom Curran [DS.4.5] (age about 54) married secondly Margaret Mary Vahey (Silva) [DS.4.5S₂], a widow (age about 39) with a daughter [DS.4.5.13] then about 14 years old and also named Margaret. Most of Tom’s children were already grown and had moved away. Mae had married Ed Healey on 25 Jun 1919 and moved in with Ed’s mother, Lena Mattes (Healey). Nellie had married Kyran Cahill on 8 Feb 1922 and moved out. Harry married Rosalind Schnurmacher circa 22 Apr 1922. Laura had married John Aloysius FitzMaurice [DS.4.5.7S] on 21 Jul 1919 but continued to keep house for the family of Tom Curran. When the FitzMaurice family moved into their new home in Berwyn in 1923, that left only Charley (b. Nov 1906) and Tommy (b. Aug 1909) still living with their father. Thus, the new family group consisted of five people: Tom Sr., Charles, Tom Jr., Margaret [DS.4.5S₂] (Tom’s second wife), and Margaret [DS.4.5.13] (Tom’s new stepdaughter, b. May 1909). The three children seem to have gotten along quite well. Tom, Jr. and Margaret [DS.4.5.13] were often joined by Helen Healey (b. Aug 1910), the sister of their brother-in-law Edward John Healey [DS.4.5.6S].

The five-year period of Tom’s second marriage corresponded with the earliest memories of his grandchildren in the Healey, FitzMaurice, and Cahill families. His grandchildren in the Strauser family were all born after his death.

Tom Curran and his new wife were apparently fond of their granddaughter, Loretta FitzMaurice (b. 22 Jan 1922), who had lived with Tom since her birth but who now lived in Berwyn. Loretta recalled: "He was a very gentle man, very very gentle. He had a great big green leather chair in the living room on Ashland Avenue. It was one of those Ottomans you know. Well, the minute he came in, I would be up on his lap and he was a snuggler and a hugger and all that kind of stuff. I mean he was a very warm person. Really, really."

Tom Curran also had a close attachment to his grandson, Edward William Healey, although it might not have been obvious to a stranger from a different culture. Edward said: "I have only a dim recollection of him at Wooster Lake. It seems he was threatening to cut off my ears with a pen knife."

From 1925 until Tom’s death in 1928, Loretta spent every summer (from Memorial Day until Labor Day) at the Wooster Lake cottage with her Curran grandparents. Loretta recalls that they took her everywhere that they went and that she never had a baby sitter. In particular, she recalls regular Saturday night trips to a speakeasy called Ponik’s located in Fox Lake. Tom and Loretta would sip "orange pop" while Mrs. Curran would have beer. Loretta recalls that they made the trip in a large black car with side curtains. She thought the car was a Model-T although that seems unlikely in view of Loretta’s description.

Loretta recalls that the Wooster Lake house was a typical old summer place. It was a large, white house that faced the lake and had a porch that went all the way across the front. She can not remember the number of bedrooms but she knows that they were all upstairs. She does remember that at one time both William Hale Thompson (who was then mayor of Chicago) and Len Small (then Governor of Illinois) stayed at the house over a weekend. At that time, the road in front of the house was not a paved road.

The house was on a corner and was the focus of what might be called a Curran compound. On the other corner was the house of Tommy and Bessie Curran and their family. Tommy was the son of Tom’s brother Will [DS.4.4]. His wife, Bessie, had a Bohemian maiden name. Just behind Tommy’s house was the house of Tom Curran’s brother, Will Curran.

One of Loretta’s chores was buying the daily newspaper. About a half block down the road was a little store, which Loretta remembers as more like a summer stand than a store. Her grandparents would send her down to this little store for the Tribune. The Tribune was two cents then but Loretta would get a nickel.

Behind the house of Will Curran, there was a family called Gunkel. One night after Loretta was put to bed around eight or eight thirty, Granma and Granpa Curran went across the road to the Gunkels where there was a gathering of people. Loretta decided to go over and see what was happening. So she got up out of bed, got dressed, and went over to the Gunkles’ house. She knew better than to go into the main room because she had been forbidden to. So she went into a bedroom and saw two pistols, in holsters, lying on the bed. She had no idea who they belonged to. She had no interest in touching them. She just looked at them and thought, uuuu. She didn’t have any curiosity about picking them up. And, of course, just about that time she got caught. She was whooshed back to her own little bed. In later years, Loretta attended school with a girl who would marry one of the Gunkel boys.

My sister Loretta (who was 6 years 10 months old when our grandfather died) told me that Tom played golf at the Harlem Golf Course which was on Roosevelt Road, only a five-minute drive from our home in Berwyn. I know that my father owned a set of golf clubs, which he never used during my childhood. I suspect that he had played golf only when his father-in-law came to visit.

Loretta tells the following story: "When Granpa Curran was a young boy, when he was seven years old [circa 1875], he went to work on a wood wagon where they sold wood for people to put in their wood-burning stoves. And there was a man named Heiny who operated a saloon at 16^th and Harlem [on the border between Berwyn and Forest Park]. The two of them as kids had worked on this wood wagon together. So, no matter who he was with, he would always stop at Heiny’s place after he finished playing golf."

The golf course was replaced by a torpedo factory (Amertorp) during World War II.  Amertorp was located on the south side of Roosevelt Road about three blocks west of Harlem Avenue and just west of the railroad tracks.  The factory was renovated as a Post Office Department building after the war.  The building was later replaced by a shopping center.