A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting the owner of the building where our home had been and where I was born. In spite of his old age, he still remembered my father.
"Do you know, my boy, your father was a fine man? The same as any man, who lets nice apartments to tenants, I had to see that rents were regularly paid, and I always did that without being any too hard on them. But it was all different with your father. There were a few times when his rent was either short a few dollars or not there at all, but before I had the chance to get angry he'd tell me a story or sing me a ditty, and instead o' being mad I'd leave and forget all about my rent. Ah, indeed, Owney, boy, a fine man was your father."
Not much of an eulogy, but much, very much, to me, the son. I have nothing, no likeness, no photograph, to help my mind's eye see my parents; and, therefore, any tribute, no matter how trifling, paid to the memory of my father and mother goes toward perfecting the picture of them, fashioning in my soul.
My mother was a French woman, who married my father shortly before departing for this country from France, where he had gone to study art. They knew very little of her in the district. All her life seemed to be centered in her husband, and she was rarely seen out of her own rooms. The only breathing spells she ever enjoyed were had on the roof—quite convenient to the top floor, where the home was—and there she would get a whiff of fresh air, to the accompaniment of one of my dad's songs.
Why could I not know them?
Not being amply provided with funds, my parents, shortly after their arrival in this country, were compelled to take apartments on the top floor of the tenement house in Catharine street, where I was born.
My mother died at my birth; my father had preceded her by three months.
Sad is the fate of a baby orphaned in a tenement house. Each family has little, and many to subsist on it.
But I, the orphaned babe, was singularly fortunate.
Even the lives of the poor are not devoid of romance, and, owing to one, I found a home.