There I see it on my Facebook Memories—an old photo that I forgot I posted a year or so ago. There they are, 10 people, 5 couples, all smiling, all together in the “rec room” at my cousin’s home, New Year’s Eve, 1959. It is one of the rare occasions, other than a family funeral, where they will all be together, my father and four of his siblings, and the husbands and wives.
Let’s see, seated are Uncle Joe Lynch and my Aunt Maud. Her given name was Margaret, but I never heard her called that. They had moved to St. Petersburg Florida after Joe retired, but came back to NJ. The home in which this gathering occurred was that of their daughter Betty. One of their other daughters, Irene, was a nurse, and I think that being closer to their children as they got older was a comfort to them, more than the warmer climes of Florida.
Maud was the second of the Bullis children, born in Holland in 1889. The oldest sibling, Savos, known as “Foss”, died many years ago as a relatively young man. My brother takes his middle name from this uncle we never knew. Maud was about 70 years old in this photo.
Behind Joe and Maud are the rest of the surviving Bullis siblings. From the left are Henry (Hank) and his wife Helen, my mother Regina and my father Roddy (Gerard), Aunt Florence and my Uncle Paul, and then my Aunt Marie and her husband Charles Nyman.
As I mentioned, Aunt Maud and her brother Savos were born in Holland, Ouddorp to be specific. Uncle Paul was also born in Holland, as was their sister Irene, known as Ada. Aunt Ada died when I was about a year old, so I never knew her, but I remember stories about my father, Hank, and Marie, the three youngest siblings, being taken in by her and her husband , John Van Seters, after their parents died.
Uncle Hank was the nearest in age to my father. He and Aunt Helen lived in nearby Fairlawn, and had a daughter, Florence, who had the same birthday as I do, although she was 14 years older than I. She was very beautiful and had a brief career as a nightclub singer before she got married. Aunt Helen was very stylish and well-dressed, and worked at a nice women’s clothing store in Passaic, Weschler’s. Hank was about 58 years old in this photo.
And there’s my mother, Regina, and my father, Roddy. His given name was Gerard. Here he is about 54 years old, and my mother, 48. His left arm and wrist are wrapped with a bandage, peeking out from his coat sleeve. The previous year he’d been injured in an accident at the factory in Passaic where he worked. His left arm got caught in a piece of machinery and he was flipped over, leaving his work boots on the floor. His arm was broken in numerous places and it took several surgeries and, I guess, bone grafts, for his arm to heal. I remember that even after all that, his left forearm had a curve to it, but he did not lose any function in his arm or hand.
Next is Aunt Florence and my Uncle Paul. Florence had been married to the afore-mentioned Savos Bullis; after he died, she and Paul were married. By the way, Paul’s first wife, Isabelle, had died young, leaving him with two young daughters, my cousins Jessie and Etta. I remember that Aunt Flo and Uncle Paul lived in an apartment in the municipal building in Wallington and they had several tanks of tropical fish, which were fascinating to watch. They also had a little dog, a Chihuahua—the first time I’d ever seen such a tiny dog. Uncle Paul was about 68 in this photo.
Lastly, there is my Aunt Marie and her husband Charles Nyman. They lived in Garfield, near the RR tracks on Outwater Lane, not far from the elementary school where my brother and I were enrolled. Since it was such a long walk back to our house at lunchtime, we would go to Aunt Marie’s and she would give us lunch, and then we’d head back to school for the rest of the afternoon. Aunt Marie was about 57 years old in this photo.
Where was I on this particular night? Where was my brother? Well, my parents were the only ones with school-age children at the time; I was 14 and my brother was 11. We were there, but in another part of the house, where my cousin Larry and his father had a fabulous train set. I mean really fabulous, it took up most of the basement.
If there were other pictures taken of the “younger set” that night, I’m not aware of them. And at the time, I was not aware of the significance of the photo of my parents, the aunts, and the uncles. As the years passed, fewer and fewer of them would be around; the last of the Bullis siblings to go was Aunt Marie, who died in 1977; my father passed away in 1972
But my other memory of this gathering was what happened the next morning, as my brother went outside to play on New Year’s Day. No one was around, so he sat down on the curb outside of our house. And waited for his friends to show up. But who showed up? A little black puppy, who came to be known as “Louie”. But that is another story.