John Delach

Saturday mornings are my favorite time for reading my newspapers. Newsday is compact with almost half the paper dedicated to sports and The New York Times includes their Sunday features in the Saturday delivery. These include, the weekend Metropolitan section, the Book Review, The Times Magazine, the Real Estate section and the weekly Arts and Leisure section.

I usually look at the Metropolitan section first. The front page of February 16^th edition featured a color photograph of a silver haired fellow wearing glasses and sporting a matching mustache standing in a cemetery covered in light snow in a tan lined overcoat, matching pants and canvas shoes inadequate for the ground conditions.

He is holding an aluminum cane / walking stick in his right hand and his coat is open reveling a navy-blue sweatshirt as he poses for the cameraman, unsmiling.  

A headline for the piece is below the fold that reads:

Respect for a Ransacked Cemetery

A Brooklyn Man honors the dead at Most Holy Trinity after grave markers are stolen.

 Ironically, the piece begins with: “Even as a small boy, Michael Hirsh loved visiting cemeteries.”

Ironic; where do I begin? First off, this piece unearthed memories, seventy-years old, and long since buried. The last time I visited Most Holy Cross Cemetery with my mother, Aunt Mildred and her daughter, my cousin Patty was just before I graduated from elementary school in 1957.

The cemetery, located in Bushwick, Brooklyn dates back to 1851 dedicated to the first Catholic German immigrants to settle in Bushwick. Stone markers or monuments were prohibited and nearly all graves were marked with wooden crosses that deteriorated with time and weather. The markers on active grave sites with living relatives would be renewed or replaced, but eventually, they all deteriorated into broken remnants of what they were.

Eventually, many of the wooden markers at Most Holy Trinity were replaced by metal markers. The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, CT began to manufacture a “white bronze” alternative to stone. It was actually zinc, far less expensive than bronze, but sturdy and resistant to rust. Sooner or later, all of these markers turned to rust and begin wasting away be they legitimate or knock-offs sold by unscrupulous suppliers.

In the late 1920s, the Public Service Commission authorized the Brooklyn, Manhattan Transit Company, (BMT) to build a new subway line from East New York through Bushwick into Manhattan. One section had to cross Most Holy Trinty Cemetery. The cemetery surrendered the unused land along its southern border, but the plot was too narrow to accommodate two tracks and a station.

The solution was to double-deck the structure. Manhattan-bound trains would remain in the subway while Canarsie-bound trains would travel on a concrete elevated structure. This became the great wall of the cemetery.

Okay, alright; so what is this unearthed memory all about?

Uncle Pete! So who in hell, is Uncle Pete?

Here’s what I remember. Uncle Pete lived one block away from my mother on Himrod Street. A visit to his railroad flat was always a test of my limited abilities as a kid. He was a retired recluse, no window was ever opened, the air was always stale. I don’t have a clue about his personal habits, but all I know is accompanying my mother’s visits to Uncle Pete attacked my senses. The smell was more than unique, it was overwhelming and extremely unpleasant.

My mom seemed oblivious to it. I figured she was faking it. My mother and Aunt Mildrid took turns taking care of this shell of an old man. I had the impression Uncle Pete was related to Mildred but, not directly to my Mom.

Much later, somehow, I figured why my mom and Aunt Mildrid sucked up to this shadow of a person. It seemed that Uncle Pete had acquired the honorary use of Von in front of his last name. How this came to be, I haven’t a clue. I looked it up, and while it can signify a royal blood connection, it can simply be a preposition used by commoners that means “of’ or ‘from.”

When Uncle Pete died, he was buried in his family plot at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery. It seems I vaguely remember that the metal marker was renewed to acknowledge his death and burial.

 We visited his grave several times before my teenage sense of right and wrong kicked in: Right: Let me do what I want. Wrong: Don’t make me do things I don’t want to do.

Adios, Uncle Pete.

But thank you for giving me this piece.