thedrifter
04-22-07, 07:50 AM
A token of love and sorrow
Mary Dignam's beau was killed in WWII, but he left behind a ring.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
http://media.philly.com/images/20070422_inq_pring22-b.JPG
GERALD S. WILLIAMS / Inquirer Staff Photographer
The class ring given her by Robert J. Reilly lies atop a 1945 photograph of Mary Dignam. Her family is seeking Reilly's family in order to return the ring to them.
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
It's a high school ring that Ed McLaughlin holds up - Northeast Catholic, Class of 1940 - and it's notable because of its almost pristine condition.
Sort of fitting for one of the last relics of a life ended too soon, an engagement unfulfilled. To McLaughlin, 58, and brother Kevin, 51, it's also an emblem of their existence, the reason they are sitting around a table in Ed's Delanco home talking about life's what-ifs.
Now, the McLaughlins want to give the ring away and are looking for the one family for whom they think it might hold equal significance.
The ring belonged to Robert J. Reilly. When the young Kensington man joined the Marines in August 1942, he gave the ring to his fiancee, Mary Dignam, of Tacony, before going overseas.
He never returned.
On Aug. 11, 1944, Reilly, 22 - by then a sergeant with Co. L of the Third Battalion, 21st Marines - died after being wounded by a sniper as U.S. forces knocked out the last pockets of Japanese resistance on Guam.
Mary Dignam mourned. But, as it did for thousands of bereaved widows and girlfriends, life continued. Reilly's ring - engraved inside with the initials RJR - and her memories were tucked away. She eventually resumed dating and married a young, persistent sailor whom she'd once rejected: Edward J. McLaughlin - Northeast Catholic Class of 1941 - Ed and Kevin's father.
For decades, the ring was McLaughlin family lore. Last year, after the elder McLaughlin died at age 83, the brothers were sorting through their parents' effects and found it.
Ed said his reaction was immediate: "I want to give it back to Robert Reilly's family."
Not much has changed
There's much Robert Reilly would recognize if he returned today to Kensington. His family's modest two-story brick rowhouse is there: 646 E. Cornwall St., tucked between E and F Streets a block north of Westmoreland. So is his parish church across F Street, the massive stone Ascension of Our Lord.
Reilly, judging by the 1940 Falcons yearbook, was active and involved: on a scientific studies track, a seminary collector, absentee reporter, member of the art club and club for propagation of the faith, varsity football and sectional sports.
He may have been the first high school grad in his family; two brothers, George F. and Thomas L., do not appear among Northeast Catholic's alumni.
Kensington's hardscrabble world today was also something Reilly knew. His parents, George F. and Lena Reilly, bought the Cornwall Street house in August 1922, six months after Robert's birth. It appears that his two brothers were older; but even with his sister, Mary M., yet to come, the tiny rowhouse must have been packed.
Reilly's father died a few weeks before Christmas 1936, leaving Lena to raise four children in the midst of the Depression.
It's not known how or when Reilly met Mary Dignam. She lived about four miles away, on Knorr Street near the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.
Mary's younger brother Jim Dignam - Kevin and Ed McLaughlin's uncle - said it must have been around the start of the war.
She was pretty and popular, Dignam said, pointing to a photo of Mary at 18 as "May Queen" at St. Leo's parish.
Now 73, a retired accountant and Navy veteran of Korea, Dignam was 10 in 1944. He recalls Mary and his two other sisters being active in the USO and often dating servicemen.
Dignam said he does not recall meeting Reilly although, coincidentally, his sister Mary was "best friends" with Reilly's younger sister Mary.
Robert Reilly was two years out of Northeast Catholic, working for Brown Instrument, when he joined the Marine Corps. Six months later he was heading for the South Pacific.
In October 1944, a one-paragraph item appeared in Philadelphia newspapers announcing that Sgt. Robert J. Reilly was killed Aug. 11 on Guam.
Marine Corps records say Reilly was buried on Guam and in 1949 was reburied in the National Cemetery of the Pacific on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
Recovering from the shock
Jim Dignam said he does not remember his sister Mary's reaction when she learned of Reilly's death but it was profound.
Kevin McLaughlin said his mother once told his wife about her engagement and how hard it was to get over Reilly's death.
"I know there was one rough time when, after she learned he had died, she received a letter he had written," McLaughlin said. "After that she said she kept to herself for about a year until her mother finally took her aside and said she needed to start living again."
In 1946, Mary married Edward J. McLaughlin, the suitor she'd once rebuffed. McLaughlin was in the Navy and himself almost a war casualty. McLaughlin was one of 74 survivors of the USS Maddox, a destroyer that sank two minutes after being hit by a German bomb off the coast of Sicily in 1943.
McLaughlin was a career Navy man, retiring in 1967. Mary Dignam McLaughlin raised Ed and Kevin and two other sons. She died in 1994 at age 70.
Robert Reilly seems to have held a place in her heart.
Ed McLaughlin said his father wore his Northeast Catholic class ring until "it literally wore away."
One day, McLaughlin said, his father saw the like-new Reilly ring and slipped it on his hand.
"Boy, was my mother upset," McLaughlin laughed. "She lit into my father, saying, 'Don't you ever put that ring on. That was Bobby's ring.' "
Seeking Reilly's family
Some of Robert Reilly's relatives - nephews, nieces or their children - probably still live in the Philadelphia area.
Jim Dignam remembered that Mary Reilly married a man, coincidentally also named McLaughlin, and that as a boy he played with their three sons. But their first names, as well as their father's, have faded from his memory.
Reilly's two brothers and sister were alive as late as 1964, when their mother, Lena, died at 78, still living in the Cornwall Street house. Her will, filed in City Hall by son George, reported that she died with $100 in personal property and the house worth $1,000.
The three siblings then seem to disappear from city records. Efforts to contact people with the same names have yet to produce a lead to Reilly's relatives.
One night recently, Ed and Kevin McLaughlin and their Uncle Jim sat around Ed's table poring over photos and scrapbooks chronicling their parents' lives, courtship, marriage and life together.
Off to one side of the table - part of the memories but also apart from them - was the ring.
"I'd really like to get this back to Reilly's family," said Ed McLaughlin. "My mother held onto this for such a long time. It obviously meant something to her. It probably would mean something to them, too."
Contact staff writer Joseph A. Slobodzian at 215-854-2985 or jslobodzian@phillynews.com.
This is the area where I grew up in Philly...;)
Ellie
Mary Dignam's beau was killed in WWII, but he left behind a ring.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
http://media.philly.com/images/20070422_inq_pring22-b.JPG
GERALD S. WILLIAMS / Inquirer Staff Photographer
The class ring given her by Robert J. Reilly lies atop a 1945 photograph of Mary Dignam. Her family is seeking Reilly's family in order to return the ring to them.
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
It's a high school ring that Ed McLaughlin holds up - Northeast Catholic, Class of 1940 - and it's notable because of its almost pristine condition.
Sort of fitting for one of the last relics of a life ended too soon, an engagement unfulfilled. To McLaughlin, 58, and brother Kevin, 51, it's also an emblem of their existence, the reason they are sitting around a table in Ed's Delanco home talking about life's what-ifs.
Now, the McLaughlins want to give the ring away and are looking for the one family for whom they think it might hold equal significance.
The ring belonged to Robert J. Reilly. When the young Kensington man joined the Marines in August 1942, he gave the ring to his fiancee, Mary Dignam, of Tacony, before going overseas.
He never returned.
On Aug. 11, 1944, Reilly, 22 - by then a sergeant with Co. L of the Third Battalion, 21st Marines - died after being wounded by a sniper as U.S. forces knocked out the last pockets of Japanese resistance on Guam.
Mary Dignam mourned. But, as it did for thousands of bereaved widows and girlfriends, life continued. Reilly's ring - engraved inside with the initials RJR - and her memories were tucked away. She eventually resumed dating and married a young, persistent sailor whom she'd once rejected: Edward J. McLaughlin - Northeast Catholic Class of 1941 - Ed and Kevin's father.
For decades, the ring was McLaughlin family lore. Last year, after the elder McLaughlin died at age 83, the brothers were sorting through their parents' effects and found it.
Ed said his reaction was immediate: "I want to give it back to Robert Reilly's family."
Not much has changed
There's much Robert Reilly would recognize if he returned today to Kensington. His family's modest two-story brick rowhouse is there: 646 E. Cornwall St., tucked between E and F Streets a block north of Westmoreland. So is his parish church across F Street, the massive stone Ascension of Our Lord.
Reilly, judging by the 1940 Falcons yearbook, was active and involved: on a scientific studies track, a seminary collector, absentee reporter, member of the art club and club for propagation of the faith, varsity football and sectional sports.
He may have been the first high school grad in his family; two brothers, George F. and Thomas L., do not appear among Northeast Catholic's alumni.
Kensington's hardscrabble world today was also something Reilly knew. His parents, George F. and Lena Reilly, bought the Cornwall Street house in August 1922, six months after Robert's birth. It appears that his two brothers were older; but even with his sister, Mary M., yet to come, the tiny rowhouse must have been packed.
Reilly's father died a few weeks before Christmas 1936, leaving Lena to raise four children in the midst of the Depression.
It's not known how or when Reilly met Mary Dignam. She lived about four miles away, on Knorr Street near the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.
Mary's younger brother Jim Dignam - Kevin and Ed McLaughlin's uncle - said it must have been around the start of the war.
She was pretty and popular, Dignam said, pointing to a photo of Mary at 18 as "May Queen" at St. Leo's parish.
Now 73, a retired accountant and Navy veteran of Korea, Dignam was 10 in 1944. He recalls Mary and his two other sisters being active in the USO and often dating servicemen.
Dignam said he does not recall meeting Reilly although, coincidentally, his sister Mary was "best friends" with Reilly's younger sister Mary.
Robert Reilly was two years out of Northeast Catholic, working for Brown Instrument, when he joined the Marine Corps. Six months later he was heading for the South Pacific.
In October 1944, a one-paragraph item appeared in Philadelphia newspapers announcing that Sgt. Robert J. Reilly was killed Aug. 11 on Guam.
Marine Corps records say Reilly was buried on Guam and in 1949 was reburied in the National Cemetery of the Pacific on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
Recovering from the shock
Jim Dignam said he does not remember his sister Mary's reaction when she learned of Reilly's death but it was profound.
Kevin McLaughlin said his mother once told his wife about her engagement and how hard it was to get over Reilly's death.
"I know there was one rough time when, after she learned he had died, she received a letter he had written," McLaughlin said. "After that she said she kept to herself for about a year until her mother finally took her aside and said she needed to start living again."
In 1946, Mary married Edward J. McLaughlin, the suitor she'd once rebuffed. McLaughlin was in the Navy and himself almost a war casualty. McLaughlin was one of 74 survivors of the USS Maddox, a destroyer that sank two minutes after being hit by a German bomb off the coast of Sicily in 1943.
McLaughlin was a career Navy man, retiring in 1967. Mary Dignam McLaughlin raised Ed and Kevin and two other sons. She died in 1994 at age 70.
Robert Reilly seems to have held a place in her heart.
Ed McLaughlin said his father wore his Northeast Catholic class ring until "it literally wore away."
One day, McLaughlin said, his father saw the like-new Reilly ring and slipped it on his hand.
"Boy, was my mother upset," McLaughlin laughed. "She lit into my father, saying, 'Don't you ever put that ring on. That was Bobby's ring.' "
Seeking Reilly's family
Some of Robert Reilly's relatives - nephews, nieces or their children - probably still live in the Philadelphia area.
Jim Dignam remembered that Mary Reilly married a man, coincidentally also named McLaughlin, and that as a boy he played with their three sons. But their first names, as well as their father's, have faded from his memory.
Reilly's two brothers and sister were alive as late as 1964, when their mother, Lena, died at 78, still living in the Cornwall Street house. Her will, filed in City Hall by son George, reported that she died with $100 in personal property and the house worth $1,000.
The three siblings then seem to disappear from city records. Efforts to contact people with the same names have yet to produce a lead to Reilly's relatives.
One night recently, Ed and Kevin McLaughlin and their Uncle Jim sat around Ed's table poring over photos and scrapbooks chronicling their parents' lives, courtship, marriage and life together.
Off to one side of the table - part of the memories but also apart from them - was the ring.
"I'd really like to get this back to Reilly's family," said Ed McLaughlin. "My mother held onto this for such a long time. It obviously meant something to her. It probably would mean something to them, too."
Contact staff writer Joseph A. Slobodzian at 215-854-2985 or jslobodzian@phillynews.com.
This is the area where I grew up in Philly...;)
Ellie