A Happy Family Gets Some Unhappy News
On Monday, April 11, 1977 I got a call from my mother. Something was wrong with my brother Joe. He had a dizzy spell and called the office to ask where he was supposed to be going. Betty, his secretary, was concerned and made him go see a doctor. They did a CT scan, but found nothing. But we were all worried. Mother was understandably very worried, and began to dose him with potassium (bananas) and vitamins. Then, in July, she called again. Joe had been at home when suddenly he felt an excruciating pain in his head. The pain was so great he went out of the house screaming. Keith Kennard, his neighbor and a doctor, was summoned and got Joe to the hospital, where they did an immediate CT scan which showed a brain tumor, which had burst. They surgically removed the bloody mass and discovered that the tumor was malignant and dendritic, too deep and entangled in his brain now to be operable. It was a glioma, a highly aggressive, inoperable, terminal cancer. Those were the key words from what my mother told me. The doctors gave him only five months. Joe was only 43, with three children. Overnight our lives had changed forever.
Suddenly my outward life matched my inward. The sense of loss that I had felt for the last few years had not been reflected outwardly in my life. I was leading a rich, full life, yet feeling empty inside. Suddenly life was no longer gay; my inward emptiness was was matched by a real outward loss. I turned to my family for support. We all did.
Up till this point, my family had never had any real sadness, so this was a test for us. We had all been very fortunate, and let me tell you how, before going any further. For me, growing up in a large family has been one of the chief joys and supports of my life. In the convent, I wasn't able to attend the marriages of Kathleen or Carol or Joe, but I got to know their spouses—Dick Connor, Bob Miller and Pat Graney-- well and felt they all made excellent marriages. After final profession, I was allowed one home visit a year , and during those visits, I could follow the progress of the families. The older ones may remember me visiting in my habit and playing the guitar--the Singing Nun. Therese just showed me pictures of me in my habit with her children, back in the early 60s. After I left the convent in 1966 and settled in Chicago, I continued to visit Kansas City frequently and watched the families grow. The three youngest--Malachy, David, and Mary Kate (my godchild), were born after I left the convent.
Kathleen's Family
After attending Fontbonne in St. Louis and then KU, where she was in sorority, Kathleen taught grade school for a few years, then met and married Dick Connor. Dick had grown up in St. Francis Parish, with a brother Bernard (Bunky), and two sisters Marjorie (a sister of St. Joseph) and Pat. As a student at Rockhurst High, he told me, he had been invited on dates to balls, e.g., the Jewel Ball at the Nelson Gallery by girls from the Country Club area, and he had dreams of someday living that life. His dreams were further enhanced by seeing the gracious Southern lifestyle while he was in sollege at Spring Hill in Mobile. He met Kathleen and they were married a few years after he graduated. He worked with Altman-Singleton as an insurance agent until he retired. Kathleen and Dick had six children—Keith (b.1958), Brian (b. 1960) , Kevin (b. 1962), Brennan (b. 1965), Malachy (b. 1968) and Mary Kate (b. 1971). While their children were young, Kathleen and Dick moved to the large Italianate home just west of Ward Parkway at 61st near the Plaza, in the Country Club District, in Visitation Parish, the Spanish style church/school on Main St. where they became active participants. Their children grew up going to Visitation School. They joined the Carriage Club where their children could play tennis, swim, and meet other young people their own age. . Their friends were mainly from that area. Their lives were centered around family, parish/school and country club (The Carriage Club). Dick has achieved his life's dream many times over. He and Kathleen bought real estate properties over the years, which he enjoys working on. He loves making improvements--When he and Kathleen visit me in Chicago, he always finds something to work on. When he visits Mary Kate, he repairs everything. He likes to garden too. Kathleen says his favorite store was the hardware store. Kathleen was blessed to find a husband like Dick--a good provider, a good father, and a loving husband.
Mother always said that the Connor children were so well-behaved. “Get the lead horse in line,” was Kathleen’s motto. Dick backed her up. Keith understood, obeyed, and the others all lined up, except maybe Brennan. At the Carriage Club, at Visitation, and later at Rockhurst, the five Connor boys were always involved in athletics and competed on team sports--on swim team or tennis teams in the summer, and soccer or football or ice hockey teams in winter. (They still can’t get together without organizing a tennis tournament, and even their children now compete with or against them in tennis.) Kevin was so good at tennis, winning all the local competitions, that with him Dick had to decide that no, he didn't want to devote his life to going to tennis tournaments all over the country.
Dad was delighted to have five growing Connor boys to work for him. He picked them up on Saturdays and took them with him to his apartments, where they did lawn and maintenance work, for a small sum. "Slave labor," they called it. Their lot improved when they began cutting lawns. Their clientele expanded; each brother passed on his clients to his younger brother as he moved on.
Keith went off to Notre Dame in fall of 1976 and became an engineer. He married Mary Beth Hudak from Pittsburgh, whom he met at St. Mary's, and with whom he had five children--all good tennis players, of course. After Mary Beth's tragic death from cancer, he remarried Julie Rohling from Omaha, another St. Mary's girl, I am happy to add.
Brian started at KU in 1977 in business, but his life was to take a dramatic turn his sophomore year, when he was stricken with some unknown virus over Thanksgiving. (see A Thanksgiving Story for the full story.) When he recovered after two weeks in a coma, he regarded himself as having been given a second chance. He changed his major to Humanities, and we were not surprised when he announced his intention of becoming a priest when he graduated. He has been a pastor, superintendent in parishes in Nebraska, first in David City, now in Lincoln at Thousand Martyrs' Parish. He continues to compete in the Connor tennis tournaments.
Kevin headed to Vanderbilt where he majored in English, then went to KU where he received his law degree. He married Anne Bolen of Salina, KS, whose mother had been Carol's college roommate. They have five children, all good tennis players. Kevin is now general counsel for AMC theatres.
Brennan also received his degree from KU where he met Kari Kleinschmidt of Kansas City. He and Kari were not in the same class, but they both spent a semester studying at Sterling University in Scotland. They married--Brennan wore kilts and a Scottish bagpiper provided some of the music. After traveling around the world for several years, they settled and are raising their three children in Seattle.
By the time Malachy came along, after so many brothers who had built up a family lawn practice, he inherited so many lawns that he had to hire a helper and buy a pick-up to carry his mowers. He had $50,000 in a brokerage account by the time he finished high school. To this day Mal makes his living managing his own lawn care business. His workers now do all the work, leaving him free to get new clients, do his art work, and of course, play tennis. He has two children with his first wife, and is now happily married to Kilmeny Waterman, who in addition to being a wonderful partner, is a professional tennis player--and if there's any quality which brings fame in the Connor family, it's being a good tennis player.
With five brothers, Mary Kate said she had to struggle to hold her own, even to be noticed. She was teased by the boys and was the only one helping Mom, so the boys would be free for their sports and lawns. "Hey, don't forget about me!" She had to learn to assert herself in the family. I enjoyed taking her out, e.g., to a movie at the Plaza when she was young. She went to Sion (grade school), then St. Teresa's (high school), and to St. Mary's (my alma mater) in South Bend for college, where her independent spirit flourished. She married Eric Rubin in 2002 and they have two children.
Carol's Family
Carol went briefly to St. Mary's, until she jumped over a tennis net and hit her head, suffering a concussion which sent her home to recover for the rest of the semester. She finished up college, nearer to home, at Fontbonne in St. Louis. Back in KC, in a "supper club" (which is still going), Carol met Bob Miller. Bob also had three siblings--Mary Anne, Dick, and Martha. They had grown up in St. Francis Parish, a Jesuit parish. He had gone to the Jesuits for high school at Rockhurst High School and on to Rockhurst College, and remained very close to the Jesuits (I sometimes wondered if he hadn’t considered joining the Jesuits before he met Carol). After passing inspection with Mother and Dad, he and Carol were married. He has always gone to daily Mass--she said they even went on their honeymoon, and the Church is at the center of his and Carol's life. Bob never cared about money or clothes or even where he lived. He always reminds us that Dad was horrified when he first showed with holes in his shoes. He never cared about money, he said, but liked to have it, so he could give it away. They had four children--Sean (b. 1959), Therese (b. 1960), Matt (b. 1962), and Marie (b. 1964).After Rockhurst, Bob worked for McGee and Sons for a few years, then founded his own agency, Robert E. Miller Insurance, which his sons eventually took over when he semi-retired. He too bought real estate properties. Amidst an increasingly affluent family and lifestyle, he prides himself on being indifferent to material things. His aspirations have always been to help the church through charity and philanthropy. Their children grew up with priests around the house, and were encouraged to get into Bob’s charities--they tell stories of going off to "camp" in Colorado in the summers only to learn that it is for underprivileged Indian children. The Millers used to have foreign students at Rockhurst from Eritrea or Central America or other impoverished countries staying with them. Recently they had a young priest from Mexico living with them for a few months until he could learn enough English to take over a parish in Kansas City. They have sort of adopted him--Carol always wanted a priest son.
Bob and Carol started at 103rd in Christ the King parish, but later bought a spacious two-story home with a huge basement--now the site of annual Easter and New Years' Masses and many get togethers, across from Avila College on Wornall at 119th. Bob has always given Carol a free hand to be creative with their house and yard, which is fortunately the largest in their cul-de-sac. Whenever I visit, she is usually involved in some improvement project. Her initial makeover was followed over the years by adding a ceramic center, then a whirlpool, sauna, entertainment center and gym to the basement; then a deck, expanded family room and dining room; later, a totally new kitchen and another deck off the kitchen, overlooking her garden. Her gardens have expanded to include several fish ponds and shrines. Recently she redid the two bathrooms on the first floor. At my last visit (summer of 2009), her two level fish pond now has lilies.
The Miller children went to St. Thomas More for grade school. Bob believed in making the boys earn money too, but instead of accumulating money in bank accounts, they had to pay their own way through school. Instead of cutting lawns, the Miller boys at 10 (Sean) and 8 (Matt) were out with their dad cutting cord wood for customers. By the time they went to high school, they could pay part (Bob says “ALL”) of their tuition at Rockhurst. In high school, under their dad’s supervision, they started painting houses, beginning with their own. Carol watched Matt standing on the crossbar between two ladders, painting the second story of their house and prayed that he wouldn’t fall off. They eventually bought a compressor to do spray painting when possible. Their painting business continued full-time during the summers, even through their college years. They could pay half their college tuition (economically finishing in 3 years). Where Malachy had saved $50,000 in the bank, the Miller boys had to spend their money on college tuition, Bob bragged. He wanted them not to spend money but to make it.
Instead of joining the country club, the Millers joined the Y, and sent the boys to the JCC forr swim team started at 6 a.m. The independence that Bob instilled in them led to some hair-raising moments for Carol. When Sean and Matt were 10 or 11. Bob sent them for a week each out to Colorado to help John Gallagher, an eccentric bachelor friend of Bob, paint and do house work in Pueblo. When Carol and Bob and the children drove out to pick Sean up after the week, poor Sean looked emaciated, Carol said. John Gallagher had no food in the refrigerator, so Sean had gone down to a diner in Pueblo each night, to see what food he could get. When Matt’s turn came, he went on the bus and mistakenly got off in Wichita. Carol later learned that he had accepted an invitation to go for a drive around town with a black man. Carol said “Our children’s guardian angels worked overtime.” Sean and Matt still talk about this.
Therese and Marie have their own story to tell. They were invited by Bob’s friend Fr. Gallagher to come to camp in Pueblo, Colorado. If they had known that it was the poorest diocese in the country, run by a Catholic relief agency, they wouldn’t have packed all their gorgeous play clothes. When they discovered that the other girls had no changes of clothes, Therese and Marie had to hide their extra clothes. And they stayed a second week. “They learned how the rest of the world lives,” Carol said.
Sean attended Regis College in Denver, where he met and married Karen Huss from Denver. They have four children and live adjacent to Kathleen--they're in Visitation Parish technically, but have more affinity for St. Peter's, (where we grew up). Their children have gone to St. Peters and then on to Rockhurst or St. Teresa's. Sean has taken Bob's business, along with brother Matt.
Therese went to Fontbonne in St. Louis, where she met and eventually married Richard Greene of St. Louis where they have settled and raised four surviving children, after the tragic death of their oldest son Richie. They have a lake home where they spend as much time as possible, and now their youngest has become a star at water-ski, one of Richard's favorite sports.
Matt also attended Regis College in Denver, where he met and married Sandy Ann Fuller of Florida, in 1984. They have raised six children and live very far south in Kansas City.
Marie moved to Chicago and married Joe Mayer of northwest Indiana, with whom she had a son. She divorced him and remarried Brian Thorpe. They live in Crown Point, in a lovely home, where I am fortunately invited whenever any of the Millers are in town.
"West side Irishman"
Joe followed in his father's footsteps to Notre Dame and architecure, where he earned a bachelor of architecture in 1955. After graduation he married Pat Graney, and with her had three children—Michael (b. 1958), Mary Rose (b. 1963), and David (b. 1968). Joe worked for Dad at Shaughnessy, Bower and Grimaldi. He received a special AIA citation in 1961 for his work on the East Side urban renewal project. Perhaps it was this interest in urban renewal that prompted him to get a Master's Degree in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 1962, focusing on urban design. He was an associate professor of architecture at the University of Illinois from 1963-1964. Back in Kansas City again, he received several architectural awards, including the Urban Design Award, and the AIA Medal Award in 1968. He worked at Dad's until Dad retired in 1970,and started his own firm, Shaughnessy Associates, Architects. His buildings include Savior of the World Seminary, Rockhurst High School, the Independence Plaza Housing Project, and the Missouri Division of Employment Security building at 1411 Main.
Community
Joe and Pat chose to live in an older neighborhood, Roanoke, in Westport, on 3668 Madison, and their children grew up there and went to Redemptorist or Good Counsel for grade school.
Joe and Pat lived a life focused not so much on family as on community, on neighborhood, politics, and in the Post-Vatican II 60’s, on a more liberal Church. He and Pat were among the founders of Community One, a non-territorial parish that met for Mass on Sunday at Notre Dame de Sion and attracted priests like Norm Rotert and nuns and liberal Catholics, some associated the National Catholic Reporter. Publisher Michael J. Greene and his wife Biz, Donald J. Thorman (who replaced Mike as publisher and had written The Emerging Layman) and his wife Barbara. Community One echoed Thorman’s ideas (growing out of Vatican II) that it was time for the Church to give the laity some voice:
“ The church has dedicated herself to the education of the laity and now she has a better-educated and better-trained laity than ever before. The church has likewise encouraged the lay apostolate and she now has a large group of informed and alert lay men and women eager to be of service. But what does she do with them?
“These men and women represent a new force within the church. They are not rebellious or seeking power; quite the contrary. But they represent a growing reservoir of brains and talent that deserve to be - and indeed must be--utilized in the service of the church. Yet there are no clear-cut channels through which their voice may be heard, through which they may prudently and humbly exert a beneficial pressure on the Church.” .
Don and his wife Barbara were among Joe and Pat’s best friends. Also from Community One were Tom Slaughter, Walt Bodine, Jim Rice, Charles Brenneke, and Phyllis and Marion Trozzolo. Trozzolo was a college professor who developed the River Quay in the 70’s, only to have it ruined by the Mob in the late 70’s.
Perhaps it was Marion’s interest in and success in creating a vibrant neighborhood at River Quay that gave Joe his desire to promote and make the Westport/Roanoke neighborhood vital. In that neighborhood of Victorian homes Joe and Pat made some lifelong friends: Lois and Bernard Ernst, Bob and Patty Reagan, lawyer Ned and Joyce Holland; doctor Keith and Patty Kennard; lawyer Marshall Miller; lawyer Barton and Anne Blond; Jack and Jenny Cane; Ann and John Embry; lawyer Dean Williams (who owned the house that Pat later bought); architect Carey Goodman, who lived in house near the Canes (who bought Pat’s house and modernized it) Gordon and Sue Scholes; Chuck and ____ Schmidt; the Schroegers; and Roger Freeman. Some neighbors, like the Di Simones, came from Community One, which flourished post Vatican II. It became so large that it had to be divided in two and then it fell apart. At holidays, all the neighbors seemed to visit each other or have open house for the neighborhood. At Christmas, Mother complained that Joe and Pat and their children were always late for the family dinner because they had to attend all the neighborhood parties first.
Politics
Joe and Pat were drawn into politics because of their interest in the neighborhood. Jjust across the Southwest Trafficway from Roanoke lay Valentine, a neighborhood of small homes. Kansas City Life was systematically buying these houses up, renting them, neglecting them until they were condemned, then tearing them down, so they could develop the area for office properties. Roanoke fought Kansas City Life to keep the neighborhood and prevent it from deteriorating. Joe and Ned Holland and Joe Gillespie even bought a house there, vowing never to sell. Joe rolled the house over to Joe Gillespie, with the understanding that he could never sell “the little house on the prairie.”
This interest in neighborhoods would lead Joe into a political career. A lifelong Democrat, he ran for and won by a landslide a seat on the City Council. He was Councilman-at-large, 2 nd District, in 1971 for Roanoke. He spent his years in office trying to make the city aware of the needs of neighborhoods. This was the time of white flight and neighborhoods were changing very rapidly. He gained such prominence that he even ran for mayor in 1975, but lost in the primary.
Mother had been thrilled when Joe was a councilman and always in the news, but she wasn’t thrilled when he and our rascal cousin Ray (Bud) Johnson—who made us all laugh--opened Plaza Spirits together on the Plaza. What was Joe thinking? Didn’t he have enough to do as an architect and councilman without getting involved with a liquor store? She also didn’t know what to make of Half Inc. Development and Construction Co., his partnership with a black contractor. Nor did she know why he wanted to be a member of the NAACP. And there was talk of buying a farm with another of his friends. Didn’t he have a finger in too many pies? And when Pat announced that she was opening an architectural salvage business in the Olde Theater on Westport, Mother just shook her head. What about their children? The children were raised by the neighbors, Mother said. Indeed, whenever I was there, the kids were usually at the neighbors houses and the neighbors were at the Shaughnessys’. Mother complained that she was never invited to visit, but in the Roanoke neighborhood, no one was invited; they just dropped in.
The Olde Theatre Salvage store proved a boon for the Shaughnessy children and the neighbors’ children, who worked there when they were older. There was plenty for everyone to do. Barb Thorman became a kind of full-time assistant to Pat, when the business expanded. Joe moved his architectural office to a space adjoining Pat's. Dad set up a drafting table and used the office for his own work. Pat would eventually (in the 80's) have to move to a larger space near Union Station, where she had rooms and rooms overflowing with architectural salvage items. It was a time when old homes and buildings were being torn down to make room for new, and Pat had suppliers who scavenged buildings to be demolished and brought her tiles, bath tubs, toilets, doors, windows, paneling, external ornaments, elevators. She had a whole floor of great old furniture and stained glass and chandeliers. What a unique atmosphere. Pat felt she was rescuing history. She filled their house on Madison with a lot of those treasures.
The Long Goodbye
When I got that call from home in July that Joe had cancer and only five months to live, I was in the midst of teaching a summer session. I couldn't get away until August. As soon as I could, I drove to Kansas City on August 9, and immediately went to the hospital, where Joe was taking his radiation treatment. How changed he was from when I had last seen him. He had lost a lot of weight, wore hats because they had shaved his head to do the surgery and radiation. He was having to relearn how to live on new terms. Because of the location of the tumor on the left side, all the left brain skills were impaired --he couldn't really read, couldn't organize. He had to give up his architectural practice and took occupational therapy to relearn simple things that everyone took for granted. I spent time with him out on the deck by the pool, going over sentences with him, in a workbook he had been given. He couldn't really read, couldn't recognize words or understand their sequence or grammar. He was like a pre-schooler. He continued to be gregarious and to recognize everyone, although he couldn't put names to people because of the aphasia. He went out, taking the bus because he could no longer drive, but had to have Mary Rose along to pay the fare. It was terrible to see him, who had been a public figure, so humiliated. Fortunately, his many right brain skills were undiminished, among them painting. He began painting every day, going to the office--pictures of the houses of his friends or of wonderful places he had traveled. I gave him a book "The Love of Britain" and he painted from several pictures there. His large circle of friends came and visited him. We were all feeling bereft of our center.
Mother and Dad were especially devastated. Their only son, he had long enjoyed the spotlight within the family. He had once been their “Baby Jesus”; he had gone to all-hallowed Notre Dame; he had become an architect and worked in Dad’s office until Dad's retirement, when Joe set up his own firm, Shaughnessy & Associates, Architects. He had become a councilman, known city-wide. He had run for mayor. They were so proud of his accomplishments. Both of them turned to their faith for consolation. Mother read Newman’s Dream of Gerontius, which allowed her to work through all the stages of the dying soul, as it passed on to the judgment, accompanied by the guardian angel. She would quote passages to me.
SOFTLY and gently, dearly-ransomed soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
Angels, to whom the willing task is given,
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the earth and prayers in heaven,
Shall aid thee at the Throne of the most Highest.
Farewell, but not forever! Brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.
I remember having to leave class one day after I returned to Chicago to resume teaching that fall. All I could think of was Joe as we read Emily Dickinson's poem:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
Many things were written about Joe, among them this article.
"Living Is Not for Sissies" by Mary Ellen Lobb from the Westport Community Paper, in August, 1978.
This is a story of hope - and despair, of talent and grit and determination and inspiration and of a whole range of problems involved with plain, simple human survival. This story is about Joseph B. Shaughnessy. Jr. Architect, city councilman (1971-1975), candidate for mayor of Kansas City (1975), tireless worker for the cause of neighborhood conservation and preservation, Westport booster, extraordinaire husband, father, artist, and giant spirit.
On
The prognosis was poor. Joe had perhaps six months left.
The surgery left him with one side paralyzed and his memory impaired. As soon as possible be began intensive physical therapy and speech therapy. He had to learn about things like a "cup," what it was and how or if he could lift it.
Joe attacked the problem with the same courage with which he had attacked many other problems in the past - problems that found him fighting to exchange the position of underdog for something better. Many Westporters can remember when Joe Shaughnessy, as a city councilman, came to their aid in their troubles with the city government or with other neighborhood problems. Sometimes, they won and sometimes they came out even.
They lost some, too, but they won more than they lost, and Joe was always helping.
Following his surgery Joe underwent massive cobalt treatments until he had completed the maximum number allowed. On September 1 the cobalt series was over. On September 13 the flood roared through the
Pat Shaughnessy was running her architectural salvage business on Westport Road, trying to take care of mountains of business details while, with the aid of family and friends, giving Joe all the encouragement she could muster.
By mid-October Joe was feeling better and set out to help Pat at the store. However, there was not enough of the kind of work he was able to do to satisfy his drive to do something useful. So his son, Michael, a student at the Kansas City Art lnstitute, brought him a set of brushes and oil paints and, as Joe's dad, Joseph Shaughnessy, Sr. put it, "dared him to start painting.”
Only once had Joe taken a course in oil painting, and he had not had time for it in years. He was in the service during the Korean War and returned to
To get a picture of the adverse circumstances under which Joe's artistic endeavor began, one must realize that his vision is impaired. He has voids in his visual spectrum, holes where there is nothing. For example, he does not watch television because he is unable to keep track of the activity on the entire screen. Therefore, when he paints he must move his head to get the complete picture of what he is painting.
In addition to his visual problem, he had to relearn the color spectrum. When he began to paint he would spend much time deciding what color to put in a certain place, but then, after searching his palette for the right color, he would forget what color he was looking for and have to go back to the canvas to find it. He sometimes had to repeat this procedure several times until he finally got the right color.
The first three or four paintings were so primitive (to him) that Joe was too discouraged to continue, and he went back to trying to help run the architectural salvage store.
Friends who heard about his painting brought beautiful books and pictures to encourage him to continue. He also had the inspiration of many pictures of his extensive travel in
By the time the Christmas season came, the Shaughnessy’s had a small party for close friends, and Joe presented some of the guests with exquisite oil paintings of their homes. Pat Shaughnessy says, "These were people that were more than friends. They had done things for us that no one can imagine even a friend doing. I can't possibly tell you all the things they did."
Some people who were good friends had homes with architecture that Joe didn’t like and so he painted other things for them. "He's very explicit," says Pat. "If he thinks your house is ugly, he'll tell you it's ugly and he won’t paint it."
The number of paintings has grown to almost a hundred and continues to grow. When I asked Joe if he had a favorite, he was undecided. Pat's favorite is a large painting of
A friend brought Joe a picture of a small castle in
There are pictures of
When I questioned, Joe about why he had painted such an outlandish combination of Irish wit and Irish melancholy, he chuckled. Even to the most casual observer the drive, the determination, the inner "stuff” of a champion human being is all there in the paintings.
July 16 was a big day for Joe Shaughnessy. It was one year past his surgery and six months past his projected survival of that surgery. He takes the days one at a time.
When I spoke to Joe, I told him that at every evening meal since we heard about his surgery, our family has prayed for the Shaughnessy’s (our children have been classmates). He smiled, put his arm around me and said, "That's the name of the game, isn't it?"
By August 1978, when I visited for summer break he was in bed on the sun porch. He was already skin and bones and could barely talk. There was not much you could do to minister to him. I gave him a manicure. Mike put classical music on the stereo. Mike Greene came by and fed him soup. When I left for Chicago after Dad’s birthday August 21, I said goodbye to Joe in my heart. I knew that I would never see him again.
He died October 29. Mother said he just stopped eating. I drove to Kansas City, and listening to the radio, heard Jeremiah Clark's Trumpet Voluntary. A noble fanfare, it struck me as expressing Joe's life--celebratory, bursting with courage and creativity. There was a meeting to discuss the liturgy, and yes, someone (Roger Freeman?), an amateur trumpeter, could play the Voluntary--at the end. A pine coffin had been brought from Conception Abbey for him; he was dressed in his favorite work shirt and jeans, and Michael put three bricks into the coffin.
Norm Rotert’s Homily
"Almost a year ago, I was over at Pat's shop one day, and Joe was there, and he showed me his paintings that he was beginning to work on, and he asked me if I would be the celebrant of his funeral and preach the homily. . . . How do you capture the spirit of Joe Shaughnessy in words? I finally gave up about half an hour ago and decided that you don't capture the spirit of Joe Shaughnessy in words. . . .And I felt that same tension that I've been experiencing in the group of friends and relatives that came together last night at Joe's house to plan this memorial service this evening. There were those of the group who wanted it to be a very tasteful, well-done, thoughtful service. Then there were those who felt, ‘No, that isn’t Joe Shaughnessy. No, it should be a free celebration, a thing of the people, with much responsiveness from the people who are present. That’s Joe Shaughnessy.’ . . .
“I stopped by Joe’s house yesterday afternoon to be with Pat for a few moments, and with the family. And I was sitting there in the living room, looking around the living room and the house, and thinking, This house is Joe Shaughnessy, with its mixture of old and new, of family and city and neighborhood, with its mixture of the sacred and the secular. If there was one common thing, it was all beautiful. . . .
“Yesterday, when I was thinking, What can I say tonight? My thoughts wandered to a trip to Europe that I took about eight years ago, and how overwhelmed I was with the city of Florence. . . There was so much beauty there. And I thought of a small place called the Academy, that was my favorite. There are only a few pieces of art housed there, but one is David. And that day that I walked around Michelangelo’s David, it was a religious experience for me, the way that artist had so captured the beauty of a human person. And I was thinking yesterday that Joe Shaughnessy was a David. But even more he was like those other pieces of art that were in the building, the unfinished works of Michelangelo, the big blocks of marble. He had a theory that inside a block of marble, a beautiful piece of statuary was just waiting to be released, and his job as the artist was to carve away the excess of material that was hiding the beautiful work of art. You can see that in these unfinished pieces, with those powerful figures still tied into the rock, but trying to pull themselves out of the rock.
“And I was thinking yesterday that those pieces express Joe Shaughnessy for me more than anything else I can think of. I think Joe spent his life continually trying to free himself from all of those things that hold us back and keep us from becoming the beautiful, magnificent beings that God has made us to be. Joe had a short life, compared to what most of us are given; maybe we could say a half a life. But Joe lived that short life my fully than most of live in twice the time.
“So tonight I’m grateful to this city and to the neighborhood that Joe lived in for the part that you all played in helping to free Joe and make him such a beautiful person. He also thanked Mother and Dad for “the beauty that he received from you, physically, and the talents and the gifts that he inherited from you, and that you helped nurture and develop in his early days.”
When he ended with saying that there would be laughter and dancing and possibly some whooping and hollering in heaven now that Joe had “gone home,” the audience applauded and whooped and hollered a bit themselves. It was a fitting send-off. We all agreed that Joe would have approved.
Michael Shaughnessy, Joe's oldest son, is an artist, a sculptor. He received an MFA from the University of Ohio, and is now a professor of art at the University of Southern Maine. His website gives an idea of the work that he does, often using materials like hay. He married Mallory Otteson from Kansas City in 1987, and they have four sons.
After Joe's death, Pat continued with the Olde Theater Salvage store in Westport, eventually moving to the Crossroads area by the station. Michael worked there, along with some friends from the neighborhood. Saving neighborhoods and famous old buildings like Union Station became a passion of Pats, and she entered politics herself and became a Democratic committeewoman. She was successful, and the station remains, with a second life as a science museum. Pat suffered an injury in 1996, falling from a ladder while cleaning the gutter on the house (she had moved from the old house on Madison to a smaller house on the next street to the west). While in the hospital waiting for surgery, she suffered a stroke and died tragically young.
Mary Rose Shaughnessy was very close to her mom and had bought a small house near her. After Pat died, Mary was sort of adrift and she died in 1999. She was a beautiful soul.
David went to college in Kansas City, then became a photographer, setting up in a building near the Olde Theater at first. . He married Laura Sandy of Kansas City, and they have three children. His Shaughnessy Photo business is located in Westport, the neighborhood he lives in, several houses from the house where he grew up. Joe and Pat would be proud of him (and of Michael, of course).
 |
A slideshow of family pictures from the 60's and 70's. The Notre Dame Class of 1955 in Architecture has a website, including a page about Joe Back to my Memoirs |
 |