The rosary

The family rosary was part of each evening at Lionel and Mary's home. Lyle would keep Mary on her toes, however. Each decade has ten Hail Marys but when Lyle led, sometimes he would stop at five and Mary would say "Lyle"! Then the next time he might continue on with fifteen or so until Mary would again say "Lyle"!

For a class Mom took one time, she had Grandpa make tapes of his memories, then she transcribed them. They're pretty much his wording, but "I" is changed to "James" and such to avoid confusion. This is one of many, so I'll post more as possible.

Lionel Francis McCarty

Little Lionel died of a burst appendix. James remembers the teacher holding him on her lap in school all day as he didn’t feel good.

From Grandpa's tapes. Upbeat posts tonight, huh?

Therese Colette McCarty

With Lyle dying things were in an uproar around the house. Therese was supposed to babysit for John and Seraphine who lived NE of the farm in Hartley. Her boyfriend came and offered to take her over. With Lyle so sick no one noticed he had been drinking. He drove too fast on choppy gravel roads, the car zig-zagged over the road and turned over several times. Therese was thrown out of the car and it rolled over her. She lived long enough to go to the hospital. Her parents, John and Seraphine and the priest got there in time. She was conscious at the time, but died shortly of massive internal injuries.

From Grandpa's tapes

Lionel (Lyle) Patrick McCarty

In 1926 Lyle’s health got progressively worse. He spent most of the year in bed. The twins did the farming themselves. They took turns taking a year off of school to be full time farmers. Lyle and his father had had every doctor in northwest Iowa. Finally his father called the Mayo Clinic and got ahold of Dr. Runyan. They had to pay him $750 but he came down. Bernadette remembers he flew down and landed in a pasture or hay field at the farm. James remembers his grandpa bringing him to the house in the car. The doctor spent a half hour with Lyle and completely changed his medicine. He started to get better almost immediately but he was never too good. Kidney disease was almost hopeless then.
About 3 weeks before his death he went back to the Mayo Clinic. They told him he would probably live anywhere from two to four weeks. He did get over to Sheldon soon after for a visit, but soon was so sick that he had to stay in bed. Therese was the apple of Lyle’s eye and her death was very hard on him. She was killed on July 23rd and he died August 2nd.

From memories on tapes from Grandpa.

Uncle Joe's gifts

Margy was saying that the worst gift she ever got was a jar of tartar sauce from Uncle Joe. She said one year, all the girls got one, and another time, the boys got tubes of tooth paste. He always celebrated the holidays with Cecelia and her family, and always brought his gifts in a pillow case. Apparently, no one looked forward to them.

I remember when we were little, Uncle Joe used to eat at Hardee's a lot, and he would collect all the toys that came with the meals, and give them to us. It was a treat for us, because we were never allowed to get those meals (let alone the toys). Once we got a bunch of stuffed dalmation puppies from 101 Dalmations, once a bunch of Pound Puppies, and once Gremlins records (the story had been serialized into book and record set, and I think we got the whole series, with a number of duplicates - I can't remember because Mom wouldn't let us listen to them anyway - too scary).

Family Trees

For those of us who need a picture to see who is who. I know there are some dates missing, so if you let me know what they are, I'll update to include them.

Social Literary Club & CC

I hear that Grandma Cel (as the Rosenfeld kids called her) participated in some weekly social clubs. Can anyone tell us about the Social Literary Club or the CC?

My mom can't remember what CC stands for, only that Grandpa James (again, what my sibs and I called him) used to lovingly tease Grandma about these "Catholic Cuties" meetings.

Generally, I'm interested in Grandma Cel's life as a wife and mother.

I look forward to reading your stories!
-Deirdre