My mother, Fran, August 31, 1978 – her 75th birthday
Frequently when I hear Kamala Harris referred to as a powerful woman – district attorney, attorney general , vice president, and now candidate for president of these United States, my thoughts turn to the powerful women in my own life. My mother Frances McAllister McCloskey leads the parade.
Fran, and her identical twin sister Marg, were born August 31, 1903 in Ithica, New York. Their brother Don was born a year earlier. These were happy/sad years because when the children were very young their mother died. With the passsge of time grandfather remarried. From my childhood I remember their stepmother Nana as caring but intimidating.
The twins were very good students and actually graduated from high school at fifteen. Because of their age they waited a year before starting college. During that period they wrote a weekly column for the Ithica newspaper. They chose to attend Cornell and ( a touching fact )- the dorm room they were assigned had been their mother’s when she was a student at Cornell in 1893.
When World War 1 broke out, grandfather, who was a lawyer, lost his biggest client , the Leigh Valley Railroad when it was taken over by the federal government. That coincided with a partnership offer from a New York City law firm which grandfather accepted. He and Nana moved to New York city.
The twins wanted to be with their parents in New York and so after two years they switched to Barnard College of Columbia University. Talking to me about that decision in later years, mom felt it was a good deciasion -they were very happy at Barnard and made good friends.
It has always surprised me that my kind, caring grandfather did not support the twins decision to go on to law school after graduation from Barnard. He certainly knew that they had the ability to do well in law school but he could not bring himself to support their decision. The twins got jobs and paid for their own law school. Mom was a trust officer for Guarantee Trust. They attended Fordham Law School at night where mom met my father, a fellow student. Fordham had a day law school in addition to the night school. My mother graduated first in their class. Her grades were so good that they even surpassed those of the day students so that she was first for both the day and night law schools. My father liked to say that while mom may have won the prize for first in the class he won the real prize because he won my mother.
Google has many definations of a strong woman. The Google defination that most resonates with me in referencing my mother has nothing to do with her physical size – she was little more than five feet tall – but rather her strong sense of self, her compassaion and her concern for others. My brothers and I always had a positive cheerleader in our mother. She felt we could achieve any goals we set our hearts on.
In reflection I think the early years of my parent’s marriage must have been very tough. They lost their first and fifth babies soon after birth to health conditions that today would not have had such dire consequences.
In the late 1930’s once they were settled in Laurelton, Long Island and they strove to develop their own law practice, my father never gave up his teaching job. He liked teaching and as the country was recovering from a major depression, he liked the financial security of his teaching. That meant that any needs of their incipient law practice that arose during the hours my father was teaching had to be handled by my mother. As we got older my brothers and I were entrusted with answering the phone, ” Mc Closkey and McCloskey Attorneys and Counselors of Law”.
I am amazed by my mother’s abiliity to balance motherhood and with my father, develop a legal practice. Because the 1930’s post depression era led to such tight financial times for the country, it really was not until I was starting high school that my parents were on sound financial footing. I knew that landmark had been reached when Great Aunt Mary who had paid for my brothers to attend a private high school offered to do the same for me and my father said “no thank you” he would pay my expenses at the private girls’ high school. At that time the local public high school did not have a good academic record.
I believe that my mother would have been a strong Kamila Harris fan. I felt that way about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and I feel even more strongly mom’s probable positive reaction to Kamila Harris.
Checking Google for the definition of a powerful woman I find many quotes that I feel reference my mother, a woman of strong faith in God and in herself. I like the words of Oprah Winfrey “life is about finding yourself, embracing your strengths and weaknesses, and in being true to who you are.”
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