My maternal grandfather, Tom Dempsey, died when I was a little boy, but I remember him. I knew he was known as "the silver thrush" for his singing and that he had owned a tavern in Newark where he and my grandma Dempsey lived until she was widowed and moved in with us.
But I never realized he was actually a vaudeville headliner back in the 1800s until my niece Lisa shared scrapbooks handed down to her mother, my sister Irene, and I saw these programs. What a delight to now picture my grandfather when watching classic movies with vaudeville scenes, like YANKEE DOODLE DANDY or GYPSY et al.
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