The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

The Callans and McClarys
Chapter 13
John F. Callan and
Margery Byrd
In Rochester in the 1950s,
most Catholic children went to allgirl
or all-boy Catholic schools.
Margery Helene Byrd and John F.
“ Jack” Callan, Al Callan’s parents,
were no different.
Margery, born July 21, 1934,
attended Mercy High School, and
Jack, born April 23, 1933, went to
Aquinas Institute. Jack was 17 and
Margery 16 when they met at a
surprise party thrown in 1950.
“I had just broken up with
the guy I was going with,” says
Margery. “Mary Ann and Johnny
DiGenaro, my next door neighbors,
said that they wanted me to
go. They said the guy throwing the
party, named Bernie, wanted me
to go. So they convinced me. So
we got there, and unbeknownst to
me, Bernie had invited another
girl as his date. I met Jack and we
danced. He asked to take me
home.” Neither had a car, which
meant they had to take a series of
city buses.
“Every one in the city then
walked or rode buses,” Jack says.
“Nobody had cars after World
War II.”
Margery continues: “We got
out in Webster and that area, waiting
for a bus, and just then Jack’s uncle
Carl was driving by. Jack said, “Well,
Carl can drive us home. Well, I
wasn’t allowed in cars, so I had to go
find a phone and call and ask my
dad. He said, Yes.”
That night Jack asked
Margery out for a date two weeks
later, but for some reason, he went
to Cayuga Lake with his cousin Pat
instead. He never called Margery
back either.
“About a month later, in
July,” Margery says, “Aunt Kay
and all of us went to a street dance,
and Jack was there. He came over
and asked me to dance. I said
‘What happened?’ and he said ‘It
was just a mixup,’ so we danced,
and started going out from that day
forward.
“We’d go dancing three
nights a week. Wednesdays in lots
of places, then Friday night we
would go to the collegiate club at
the auditorium at Corpus Christi,
and Saturday we would go to the
~ 54 ~
A photo booth picture from one of the first dates of Margery
Byrd, 16, and John F. (Jack) Callan, 17. ca. 1950.
Stardust Arena.
“We always went on the bus,
and my dad said I had to be in by
twelve o’clock and sometimes we
would just barely make it. He
worked late as a chef, so some
nights he would be sitting there in
the chair, watching the door when
I came in. And God help me if I
was late.”
That first Christmas after
Margery met Jack, her dad invited
Jack and his parents George and
Gert over for Christmas eve. That
is when she met them for the first
time. At that time the Byrds were
living in a house on a corner
across from St. John’s Convent.
That Christmas Eddie and
Cecilia had given Margery a set of
Jack’s nickname in Korea was
“The knife thrower.”
lamps for her bedroom.
“They were like
hurricane lamps with
red globes,” says
Margery. “In those
days if you had a red
light in the window, it
meant something else.
One night her parent’s
friends gave them “the
business” about the
red light shining in
their daughter’s
window. I didn’t
understand until years
later why they took my
lamps away.”
The two dated for
just a year before Jack
enlisted in the U.S. Air
Force at age 18, in July
1951. He was immediately
shipped off to the 5th Air
Force in South Korea as a radio
specialist in the Korean War,
leaving Margery behind to spend
her formerly wild weekends