The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

playing Canasta with her future
mother-in-law Gert.
“My dad had died when I
was a junior in high school, and we
lived up stairs at Aunt Kay’s,“
Margery says. “Nancy and mom
would go out every Friday night.
So I would pack my little suitcase,
and ride the bus over to dad’s
mom’s and stay there until
Sunday night.
Newlyweds
Newlyweds
Margery and Jack got
married on August 8, 1953. Jack
had completed his tour of duty in
South Korea a week before, and
proceeded by air transport to
Alaska, ship to Seattle and bus
across the country to Rochester,
arriving the night before their
wedding. Having just hit town, and
not having seen his bride in two
years, he asked his mother what to
get Margery for a wedding present.
According to Margery, Gert said,
“Why not get her a nice cigarette
case and lighter?”
The problem, Margery says,
is “Jack didn’t know I had been
smoking. I figured as long as he
smoked, why not? When I saw
him, he said, “Do you have
something to tell me?” I was guilty,
but I didn’t know of what. Of
course, back in those days, everybody
did it. It is like sex today.
Back then people smoked before
they got married. But no one
talked about it.”
The two honeymooned at
Jack’s grandfather’s cottage on
Cayuga Lake, and took a drive
down to Newcastle to visit his
maternal grandparents.
Jack had a month furlough
before he had to report to Mitchell
Air Force Base on Long Island,
where he would complete the last
two years of military service.
Margery got a medical
checkup in September due to
pains she was having in her stomach.
The military doctor who
examined her diagnosed her with
kidney stones, and also recommended
she immediately have a
complete hysterectomy because
her womb couldn’t bear the
passage of a child. She says she ran
home crying. A neighbor woman
heard her sobs, asked what was
wrong, then recommended
Margery to a second gynecologist.
The second doctor said she didn’t
need a hysterectomy, that her
womb was just “tipped.” She didn’t
have the operation, obviously.
“For somebody who wasn’t
supposed to have any kids, I guess
I did okay,” Margery says.
Margery and Jack thus settled
in to married Catholic life in
September. The following month,
Marge was expecting her first
child, Bernard James Callan.
The couple picked up a used
car, a 1943 Black Packard, which
had an engine that didn’t idle well.
To this day, Margery drives with
two feet, one on the break and one
to keep the engine revved up.
They drove the Packard up to
Rochester for Christmas and got
caught in a snowstorm along the
way. Jack was getting paid only $30
a month in the Air Force, and so
they had tightly budgeted how
much they could afford in gas for
the trip. “Everybody said if you
can make it
home, we will
give you money
to get back,”
Margery says.
“It was a
terrible drive,”
Jack recalls.
“Just outside of
New York City,
the heater
broke. We
stopped next to
a service station
on a busy street
and asked for
some help, and
the attendant
said, ‘You get
your wife out of
that car because
there is a
90 percent
chance that a
disabled car will
get hit in the
next ten
minutes.’ That really struck me,
and I have listened to that advice
ever since.”
Margery continues, “We
took off for Rochester with about
15 dollars all together. I had Jack’s
big blue Air Force jacket, and I
had my legs stuck in the arms. I
was all curled up in the corner with
everything I could get over me. I
was having terrible stomach
cramps. We tried to find a doctor
in Syracuse and there was nothing
open.”
They pushed on through the
snow to Rochester, and had about
ten cents worth of gas left when,
Jack says, they were the first ones
~ 55 ~
The Callans and McClarys
Jack’s favorite picture of “Margie,” ca. 1952
to drive down East Avenue
following the blizzard. “There
were no tracks on the street at all.
Everything was quiet and beautiful.”
They got the Packard back to
Long Island after Christmas, but
didn’t dare make the trip in it
again. A few months later, when
Jack’s grandfather Bernard died,
Jack’s brother George, an Air
Force man stationed in Boston,
drove down to Long Island,
picked them up and drove them to
Rochester. Margery recalls that her
doctor said she could make the
trip as long as she was allowed to
stop to go to the bathroom when-