That's me squished between my two grandmothers after making my First Holy Communion, as they called it in 1949. Grandma Dempsey, on my left, lived with my siblings and parents, and her cousin, my great Aunt Allie, and me in the house this was the living room of, and to my right my Irish immigrant Grandmother Lally and my cousin Kathi, who lived down the street with Kathi's sister and their parents and Grandpa Lally. The other two cousins, Marylynn and David, lived next door with their two siblings and parents.
We spent a lot of time in each other's homes growing up, so we cousins were very close. I always envied Kathi because she got to live with Grandma Lally, who we all adored, and which made her somehow closer to "the old country" I felt. Back then Kathi reminded me of the child movie star Margaret O'Brien, with a similar smile and mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Kathi was a few years younger so I did my best to watch out for her, something she thanked me for in later years.
After she married her late husband Ed Gross (a kind and good person) and switched parties we had our political differences, though she always found a way to make them seem humorous, unlike me. But no matter what the years wrought, when we saw each other or spoke on the phone we were instantly kids back on our street, known then as Lally's Alley, surrounded by family and love. Peace out cuz.
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