2607141 1895

This is very different than anything I have ever written.

This post includes a man's entire life.

Year, 1895

Place, New York City

Person, Anna Cheronski

Event, place out of wedlock baby boy on the steps of a convent; rang the bell and left.

The good nuns of the convent took the boy in and raised him, gave him a name, John, until he was 8 years old. That was 1903.

The nuns put the boy on an orphan train and sent him west. NYC was over crowded, but out west needed people, especially farmers needed children to work the farm, other times it was just some family who wanted a child.

There were designated stops along the way. The train would stop, the children were made to exit the train and stand so people could pick the child they wanted.

As the train made their regular stops more children were released to people they did not know.

The train stopped near Saint Joseph, Missouri. The children left were becoming fewer and the further the train got away from New York the less children were left to pick from.

John was selected by the Rohlman family. The family wasted no time giving him the name William and letting him know he would not be a family member, but rather he would be a companion for their son Frank.

Years later, William would leave the Rohlmans and head south for Saint Louis. There William met Bessie McMahon and her 2 sisters Rose and Gen. William began courting Bessie (an Irish lass, fresh from Ireland and with a fierce temper.)

William and Bess had three children, Maryann, Tom and Rose (Rose despised the name Rose, so she changed her name to Regina.)

Bessie’s Irish temper kept her in battles with their neighbors and consequently kept them moving at least once every year.

The children grew up and were married. Maryann to Kenny, Tom to Irene, Regina to Bobby.

World War 2 came along. Kenny joined the marines; Tom was rejected due to a heart murmur; Bobby was drafted into the army. When a man entered the armed forces they were told to write their full names down on paper. The man could write whatever name they wanted. Bobby changed his name to Rober.

Robert wanted to marry Regina and they did enter wedlock. Robert was sent to Colorado for artillery training. Regina traveled there to be with Robert. Regina became pregnant and Robert left the USA on the Queen Mary, the fastest passenger ship in the world. Robert ended up in Patton’s 3rd. army. Regina had a baby boy, she named him William. When the war ended, Robert was on the top of the list to go home because he, like other men with children, were the first to leave Europe.

Robert came home from the war and they lived with the Rohlmans for 6 months until Robert bought a house.
The Rohlmans moved in with them, and never left. Bessie hated Robert. She lived in his house, but would never acknowledge Robert’s presence. Bessie had several heart strokes and became an invalid. She sat in a chair and drooled all day. Robert and Regina’s son would sit on the floor and watch Bessie.
Bessie died in 1957 and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Saint Louis.

At night, William would sit at his desk reading Readers Digest. Nearly every night Regina’s son would go into William’s room and sit on the hardwood floor and talk to William and ask William questions. William would answer or reply he did not know the answer. Every night before bed, William would kneel and pray the rosary, something he may have learned from the nuns in NYC. The author of this piece has said that rosary beads are missing, links have been twisted and repaired with pliers.

Wherever Robert and Regina moved to, William went with them, he was Regina’s father and she would have him with the family no matter what.

When the first son left home, one of the siblings, a female, took over where the first son had left off, learning from William.

In 1974 William passed away in a hospital bed after visiting hours. When nurses changed shifts and checked on patients, the nurse saw a huge catfish head under William’s bed. She called Regina and asked if this was some religious ritual? Regina replied it was not and the nurse could throw the catfish head away. She knew it was Kenny.

Kenny had been in a Marine raider battalion and was adept at sneaking into Japanese camps at night to cut the throats of sentries on guard to scare soldiers and let them know he could do that to any one of them on any night. So Kenny could easily sneak into a hospital after hours and sneak back out.

William had a ceremony in a Catholic Church before being taken to his burial place. It was interesting, all the non church goers filling the church. The Lord in heaven could have come down and smote them all in one fell swoop! HE declined to smote them.

Regina provided a limousine for the priest and the 2 altar boys. The priest told her that wasn’t done much anymore as they had their own cars to go to the cemetery. Regina told the priest that William had been an altar boy and he was always thrilled to ride to the cemetery and back in a limo, so Regina wanted that for the priest and altar boys.

At the cemetery there were 6 pallbearers, all grown men all experiencing crying for the first time in their lives. William was the kind of man who everyone respected and loved.

I’m sure big funerals with massive graves still happen somewhere.
This writer intends to be cremated as are his loved ones. What happens from there, only God knows.