Birth
I have not yet found a birth certificate for Walter. Walter’s sister, Nellie Curran Cahill [DS.4.5.9], said that he was born 31 Aug 1888.

Walter [DS.4.5.1] was a tenor soloist for many years with the Paulist Choir. Walter’s father [DS.4.5] could never understand a boy singing. He [DS.4.5] said, "Must be a sissy." Tom’s Aunt Teresa [WM.5] rushed to the defense and said, "Don’t say that." Walter [DS.4.5.1] went to Italy as a young man to study operatic singing (probably after 1913 and before 1920). He sang with La Scala, the national Italian opera company, for an unknown period before contracting scarlet fever. He lost his voice temporarily. When he regained it, he could no longer achieve the high volume necessary for operatic singing. He had an offer to be in the Sistine Choir but he turned it down because he didn’t want to be tied down.

Walter spent the next twenty years living in Naples and working for a British shoe company. His favorite vacation spot was the island of Capri just off the Italian coast near Naples.

Walter was probably in Italy when his mother [DS.4.5S₁] died on 14 Feb 1918. He may have been in Italy throughout World War I but I have seen no records and heard no stories to confirm my guess. I hope that any reader with information about Walter’s whereabouts during the war will contact me. On 25 Jun 1919, Walter was in the United States and sang at the wedding of his sister Mae.

The census of 1920 recorded (incorrectly) that Walter’s "place of abode" was with his widowed father, six siblings, and his new brother-in-law, John FitzMaurice [DS.4.5.7S], at 2023 Racine Avenue in Chicago. His occupation was listed as "Manager" in a Shoe factory". Since the shoe factory was in Italy, I presume that Walter was also.

Sometime before the United States entered World War II, Walter returned to Chicago and got a job selling Canadian Ace beer (and possibly other products) to taverns located in the Italian neighborhoods of Chicago. He was apparently a successful salesman. This may have been partly because he spoke Italian better that any of his customers did. Walter said that he once met two old men (in a Chicago tavern) who spoke beautiful Italian but that he had never met anyone else in Chicago who had mastered the Italian language.

On one occasion that my mother [DS.4.5.7] mentioned, a Chicago judge who spoke no Italian invited Walter to sit next to him while he heard a criminal case involving a defendant who spoke only Italian. A Chicago detective acted as interpreter. As the defendant’s testimony got underway, the detective began to say things in English that had no resemblance to what the defendant said in Italian. Walter then leaned over and whispered to the judge, "That’s not what he said." I am sorry to say, however, that I cannot remember ever having heard how the story ended.

After returning to the United States, Walter sang at St. Catherine’s for many years.

By the time I met Walter, he had developed a beautiful, well-cultivated speaking voice with a cosmopolitan accent that was neither English nor Irish nor American but perhaps a little of each. Somehow, every word that he spoke seemed to hint at his singing voice.

Walter Curran’s normal expressions used in speaking to my mother [DS.4.5.7] seemed to me to be very religious.

After World War II, Walter made one last trip to Europe. The trip gave him great pleasure. He mentioned especially his visit to the Vatican City. He visited Capri but found that his favorite hotel had been rented in its totality by the recently deposed King Farouk of Egypt.

After leaving Italy for the last time, Walter stopped at Liverpool for a few days to visit a woman whom he had known many years earlier. He mentioned the woman’s name to my mother in a tone that indicated that he expected my mother to recognize the name.

According to oral family history Walter lived in England for sometime. While there he contracted the flu and was nursed back to health by an English woman. He left that woman the bulk of his estate.  Perhaps this was the woman that he visited in Liverpool.

Walter never married.

My sister Veronica [DS.4.5.7.6] remembers that Walter [DS.4.5.1] visited the FitzMaurice family every Christmas to give each child 50 cents as a Christmas present and that the children were all greatly impressed by such generosity. She said that the amount was eventually increased to one dollar.

Walter’s sister, Nellie Curran Cahill [DS.4.5.9] told me that he died in July 1954.