Flogging Molly - Irish American News

16 Irish American News “We’ve Always Been Green!” January 2012
Mary Hickey
1957-1998 – Art Through People
While teaching English at Bishop
McNamara High School in Kankakee,
IL, I met and fell madly in love
with a tall skinny red head, Mary
Elizabeth Cleary, in 1979. I was
and remain gob-smacked by this
singular human being who painted,
sculpted, sketched and arranged
magnificent and simple art. As a
girl, Mary spent a great deal of her
time with her grandparents, Oliver
and Antoinette Duval, on their farm
in Herscher, IL—about 16 miles
west of the town of Kankakee.
Mary painted the big red barns
and sketched the great house along
Route 115 on the west end of town
that overlooked the athletic fields
of Herscher High School. Mary
developed an eye that could soak
in the changing light on objects
and represent what her soul actually
experienced. Mary always saw
something more and her delicate
hands could pattern with chalks,
inks and paints the lines and angles
of God’s geometry.
In the summers, Mary would
spend weeks with her easel and
paints in the corn and bean fields of
the richest farmland in Illinois and
capture the landings and lift-offs of
the insects that somehow escaped
the insecticidal designs behind her
grandfather’s hard spent ‘hard-dollars
on sprays’ that the Koerner boys
dropped in toxic waves from the
Grumman Ag-Cat biplanes. Oliver
Duval was one tough old Frog-eater
and he would blaspheme and cast
scatologically toxic maledictions
toward the Herscher Grain Elevator
and Koerner Airport, to the south
and east of Route 115, respectively.
“God Dem lousy useless waste of
hard dollars!”
Mary absorbed the pastels and
pigments of Oliver’s Color Wheel
of Calumnies! The wiry, longshanked,
Indian cheek-boned old
sinner was a tyrant antic. Oliver
had been a farmer all of his life
in French Illinois – St. George,
Kankakee and finally Herscher, interrupted
by service in France with
the AEF of Black Jack Pershing,
and Depression Era work at Bear
Brands were he met his bride-tobe—Antoinette
Fortin. Oliver was
gob-smacked.
Antoinette—Grandma Toni—
was the antithesis of Oliver. She
was gentle, sweet, and thoughtful
of the feelings of others and
a magnificent and creative cook.
Mary absorbed equal parts Toni and
Ollie and blended them wonderfully
with the Celtic attributes of the
Clearys—Red-heads as well.
Mary painted and reflected
the marriage of souls with crafty
brush strokes and skilled sweeps
of the pastels. She painted birds,
fruits, barns and people. At Bishop
McNamara High School, Mary
came under the tutelage of three
significant influences—Suzanne
Granzow, Pruchnicki Mary’s Art
teacher; Nick Novich, the Mac
football coach; and English Teacher
and Father James Fanale, CSV, who
taught English and Religion.
Her artistic gifts absorbed in
the green and gold fields of the
Duval farm and its owners blossomed
with the guidance of Mrs.
Granzow-Pruchnicki. Suzanne is a
person who God took extra time in
crafting. Her interests and energies
are exhausting to experience—in
her studio one finds reproductions
of Oriental art, Japanese silk,
Oils and Water Colors, Sculpted
works in every medium imaginable.
Mrs. Granzow-Pruchnicki directed
Mary’s eye to everything that gives
praise to creation in the most delicate
and preservative craftsmanship.
The Bronte Press run by Suzanne,
her sister Elmira Wilkey and her
genius theologian husband Paul,
reproduces the works of great
writers in miniature. Hand carved
wooden press pieces meet the very
best quality papers and parchments
in a celebration of genius.
Genius is the apprehension of
all that is possible and no one did
a better job of pulling in Mary’s
direction all that can and should
be understood than Nick Novich.
Nick Novich is the very model of
the gentleman athlete scholar. The
son of Serbian immigrants, Novich
grew up in the De Paul area and
won an athletic scholarship to
Young musicians come together to play Irish Music...
and have a great time too!
The Academy of Irish Music students meet once a week at the Irish-American
Heritage Center in Chicago. Students are divided into beginner, intermediate, and
senior groups based on ability and experience. The children come from all over
the the Metropolitan area. Most of them participate in school bands and
orchestras; many are Suzuki trained. These kids enjoy playing Irish music and
making new friends.
GROUP LESSONS & PRIVATE CLASSES
Flute | Whistle | Bodhran |Fiddle | Viola |Cello
For more information contact: Noel Rice, Director
(847) 564-1338 • nrice@interaccess.com
www.academyofirishmusic.org
at the Irish American Heritage Center |4626 North Knox Ave., Chicago,IL
John Carroll University in order to
pursue his love of literature, music
and art. Nick Novich earned his
coaching spurs under tutelage of
Leo High School legend Jimmy
Arneberg when the two taught together
at Loyola Academy. Athletics
is an extension of pure art and an
expression of the human capacity
for achievement. Educators killed
the student–athlete by compartmentalizing
disciplines. Novich, like
Arneberg, was a throw-back to a
better time and a military Veteran.
Nick absorbed literature like
today’s college students swallow
Bud Lite and as a teacher coach
introduced his students to the
worlds to be dragged out of the
pages of Dickens, Thackeray, Heller,
Tolstoy, Proust and Pound. The
curses and maledictions of Mary’s
farmer grandfather became poetry.
Poetry was music and music was
light, shadow and color. Like the
rays fingering down from the gray
clouds over a Herscher bean field,
Mary understood the path to God.
God’s fingers tickled the hairs
on the back of your neck and made
your shoulders shudder you awake
to understanding life’s oddities.
That was Father James Fanale,
CSV. Father Fanale had the eyes
of Gerard Manly Hopkins, behind
thick horn-rimmed glasses, and St.
Thomas Aquinas with the humor of
John Cleese. God was more than
the Jovian thunder. God was the
reed instrumentalist who called
sounds out with delicate fingers and
whispers. Rules and consequences
are chirped as well as blasted from
a blow-hard. God answers all calls
and sometimes the answer is a
definite “No.”
I met Mary in 1978 while she
was a student at Southern Illinois
University. Mary told me that she
was the person who directed me
to Father Yarno’s office when I
interviewed for a teaching position
at Bishop Mac in 1975. She was
a student and was hoping to be a
baby-teacher and therefore erased
that magic moment. No, I would
not wake up to Mary’s light until
four years later. Mary blessed me
with marriage and three wonderful
children, as well as a tutorial in a
life well-lived.
From that moment in 1979, until
Mary went back up the fingers
of Christ to her Herscher farmer
grandparents in 1998, I was blessed
to live the art of love as it is meant
to be lived. Mary Elizabeth Cleary-
Hickey soaked up living from Oliver,
Toni, Suzanne, Nick, and Father
Fanale, and so many hundreds of
others. I don’t know art, but I know
what I love. Thank you, Love!