Dragonholder (3 page)

Her third story,
The Ship Who Sang
, was written almost as an elegy for her father. Anne was in good company, John Hersey had won a Pulitzer Prize for his fictionalized account of Colonel George Herbert McCaffrey, a.k.a. Major Santini, in A
Bell for Adano
.

Built upon her Milford experience and poignant memories of her father, this story was Anne's first special story. It is still special to her today.

“Someone screamed when the dirt was shoveled back in. I'm told it was me but I don't
remember,” that is how Anne describes her father's funeral. They played taps, the soldier's
song of evening — and Anne could never again hear taps without dissolving in tears. In
the story, Helva sings that song as the last song the ship sang — her tribute to the
fallen Jennan — and Anne's tribute for her fallen father.

It takes the sternest of wills or great acting to read
The Ship Who Sang
aloud from beginning to end without weeping. It was the first story of Anne's that has ever been credited with saving lives — many people coming to grips with lost limbs have found solace and the courage to persevere in the stories of Helva, the ship who sang.

Not everyone found
The Ship Who Sang
to his or her taste. When Anne's husband — Wright — caught her crying one night, he asked, “What's wrong?”

“I've just killed my hero,” she replied through her tears.

“Well, you're the writer, you don't have to do that,” he said.

“No, I
had
to,” Anne replied, “that's the way the story goes.”

Wright left, shaking his head. It was a portent of things to come.

After
The Ship Who Sang
, Anne's writing career went on hold. First, the family went to Germany for six months, following Wright's job. They rented an apartment in Düsseldorf while Wright worked with DuPont's Public Relations department to launch Teflon as a new fabric. Anne decided wisely to put the two school-age boys into the public local school rather than try to locate some private English-speaking school. It worked out well — by summer the two blonde-haired boys were wearing
lederhosen
and acting like natives.

Anne's daughter Georgeanne was going on three at the time and stayed with her mother. Anne made up for it in the evenings — she had met a woman at the supermarket, Gisela Quante, who was willing to baby-sit and brush up on her English.

Somewhere in the six months, little “Gigi” — she got her nickname from an uncle who
said of her, “Such a gorgeous George.” — learned enough German that one day when
separated from her mother at the local supermarket she could tell the clerks, “
Ich habe
meine Mutti geforloren.
” — I've lost my mother.

Gisela allowed Anne and Wright time to attend the very inexpensive German opera available. They had a marvelous time. Anne met a Canadian opera singer — a tenor — who took her on as a voice student.

Voice? Well now we'll have to go back more in time. In fact, to understand Anne you have to know something of her ancestors.

A
quick tour:

Anne's father, George Herbert McCaffrey — we've already met him — was the only
son of George Hugh McCaffrey. George Hugh was a Boston cop at a time when the Irish were
just getting out of the ghettoes and the Jews were just entering. But George had integrity
— he once arrested John F. Kennedy's grandfather, “Honey” Fitzpatrick for
electioneering — and the Jewish merchants on the beat appreciated the way that he
would allow no shenanigans. They were so impressed that they took a collection to send his
son, George Herbert, to Roxbury Latin School. George Herbert excelled and got a scholarship
to Harvard. He graduated
magna cum laude
— with greatest praise. He was
granted a scholarship for postgraduate work and the merchants added enough to it that he
could work towards a Doctorate in Government — until World War One intervened.

GH entered the war as a lieutenant and fought in the infantry of the 78th “Lightning”
Division in France. After the war, he went to Poland to helped set up their government. On
his return to Boston, he met Anne Dorothy McElroy.

Anne Dorothy McElroy was the daughter of a New York printer/engraver who had fled to the
States from Ireland via Scotland. While in those days there was only enough money to send
her elder brother, John — who later married our favorite “Aunt Gladdie” —
through college, Anne was educated well enough to be fluent in French and more than capable
to add languages at will.

While Mrs. McElroy always felt that her daughter married beneath her — after all, GH was the son of a policeman — Mr. McElroy did not share her views. And so, Anne Dorothy McElroy became Mrs. Anne McCaffrey.

GH kept a reserve commission in the Army, attending drills monthly and drilling his own kids on the weekend. He was employed by the Commerce and Industry Association of New York, working on city and business planning. His doctorate, received in 1938, was on
The integration and disintegration of Metropolitan Boston
and is, we're told, still being referenced in courses on government taught at Harvard.

Before the Depression, his job moved him down to New York city and so the family bought a house in Montclair, New Jersey.

Anne was the middle child with an elder brother, Hugh (“Mac”) and a little brother Kevin
(“Kevie”). As children and long after, Mac and Anne detested the sight of each other.
Fortunately, I'm happy to say that they reconciled one night when Anne was about
thirty-five.

It's hard to say why they disliked each other so much, and Mac was certainly very contrite about the whole thing whenever I mentioned it to him, but it might have something to do with Anne's description of herself, “I was a brat.”

Anne says that she grew up with no friends and was rebellious at school and that her mother despaired of her ever finding a place in this world. Anne remembers that, as a youngster, she had few friends and took to dressing up the cat. Now this particular cat was Thomas cat who was a Maine Coon cat that the family had rescued. If you've read
Decision at Doona
you will probably realize that the tail-pulling Todd has more than a passing relationship to the cat-dressing Anne. And I think that the
Hrrubans
owe their existence in no small part to Thomas cat.

Thomas was special. When the family first found him, he was in sad shape and wouldn't eat. Anne's mother tried tempting the cat with everything, finally going to the extent of a rare cut of beef. When the cat still wouldn't eat, Anne's grandmother McElroy scolded it, “You go right back over there and eat every bit.” And to everyone's surprise but hers, Thomas did just that.

Thomas would put up with young Anne's dressing him in doll clothes and wheeling him around in a stroller until he would get fed up, jump out and shed all the clothes on the ground.

Thomas was also friends with the next door neighbor dog. When they first met, Thomas showed Rookie his house and kitchen and the dog showed Thomas his house and kitchen — and they were inseparable. Thomas went so far as to convince Rookie to escort gruff old grandmother McElroy when she went out for her walks, because she was terrified of dogs — the Terhune collie would follow discreetly behind her keeping any of the neighbor dogs away.

When the dog caught a chill and died, Thomas knew before the vet called Rookie's owner. He rushed over to their house and was already comforting the lady of the house when the phone rang.

At the end of his life, Thomas had a stroke. He went blind and his back legs were paralyzed. He tried to cope for a while but finally it was too much. One day he pulled himself in front of Mrs. McCaffrey and rolled over, feet in the air — making it plain that he could endure no more.

Thomas had a lasting impact on Anne — we grew up with cats as well as dogs all around us. Recently, Anne acquired a breeding Maine Coon cat in Ireland and now Dragonhold-Underhill is the home of many.