The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

The Callans and McClarys
Chapter 9:
The McGiverns
There is something uniquely
Irish about a story that starts with a
six-cent shot of whiskey and leads
to a three-day family brawl.
Frank McCourt, author of
the Irish saga “Angela’s Ashes,”
once wrote of a raucus Christmas
party he and his three brothers
attended in 1966. Just as the
singing Clancy Brothers arrived, all
at the height of their fame, there
was some slight, some perfectly
chosen syllables of hurt exchanged
between one McCourt brother
and another. Whatever it was, it
sent all of the McCourts tumbling
down the steps into the snow in
the front yard, in a flurry of fists
that seldom found their target.
McCourt says a passerby
stopped to ask, “Ah the Irish. Is
this a private fight, or can anyone
get in?”
By all appearances, the
McGiverns were much like these
McCourts: Loud, raucus, with a
wry humor, and tough as nails.
And that was just the McGivern
women.
The McGivern men were
cut from the same stock, steel
and coal workers by trade. They
plied their business in and
around Newcastle, Pennsylvania,
which is where Al Callan’s
paternal grandmother, Gertrude
“Gert” McGivern, was born.
James McGivern, the father
of “Gert,” as she was known to
friends and family in later life,
was a steel worker as well. Al’s
father, Jack Callan, remembers
visiting “Grandma and Grampa
McGivern” in Newcastle on
numerous occasions as a child.
James McGivern, Jack says,
was a real “Gentlemen Jim. In
fact that is what they called him.”
He was always well-dressed and
wore fresh-pressed suit. He
belonged to the Elk’s Club and
golfed, and did 18-holes of Golf
when he was 75 years old. By
the late 1940s, James and his
wife had raised three boys, all of
whom had fought in World
War II and come back leaner
and more ornery than they left.
All together, there were six
McGivern children. Eugene,
~ 40 ~
James, Herb, Gert,
Mary, and Teresa.
Eugene, Jim and
Herb were all
World War II vets.
During the War,
Teresa worked in
airplane manufacturing.
Gert moved
to Rochester when
she married George
Callan. And it
appears Mary
stayed on in
Newcastle and lived
with her parents
until at least late in
the 1950s. Here are
the known details
of these children:
James James “Jim”
“Jim”
McGivern McGivern was a
U.S. Army infantryman.
He fought
Rommel in Africa,
and was in the
Battle of the Bulge
at Christmas 1944.
After the war he
joined Martin
Marietta. He
eventually worked at NASA
Mission Control in Houston
during the Gemini and Apollo
program in the 1960s. Jim’s wife
was a woman named Mayjoy,
about whom we have no infor-
mation at this time.
Eugene Eugene Eugene McGivern McGivern was a
paratrooper in Europe. He was
air-dropped in to rescue the
American soldiers, including his
brother Jim, who were pinned
down by the Nazis in the Battle
of the Bulge in 1944. After the
James McGivern in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, ca. 1954, with 1year-old
Billy McGlynn, son of Elizabeth “Betty” (Callan)
McGlynn. James was the maternal great grandfather of Billy,
and of Billy’s first cousin, Al Callan.
war, Herb married Dorothy,
who is believed to still be alive.
Herb Herb McGivern McGivern was a
Chief Petty Office in the U.S.
Navy. He fought in the Pacific
Theater in World War II, and
was on the battleship U.S.S.
Missouri in 1945 for the signing
of the peace treaty in Tokyo
Harbor, when the Japanese
surrendered to General Douglas
McArthur.
Gertrude Gertrude McGivern McGivern was
born on Sept. 24, 1911, and later