Eulogy for Allen T. Vaughan, Sr

This is a written text related to the eulogy that I presented on September 1, 2009 for my Uncle Allen Vaughan, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Padanaram, MA and then added to at the Century House in Acushnet, MA. I give a lot of eulogies in my senior citizen organizations, and I seldom break up. I did break up while doing this one. I loved my uncle Allen.
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Last week, two of my heroes died.. one was named Kennedy; one was named Vaughan. Today, I want to talk about one of them.

Allen T. Vaughan came from a line that stretches back to eleven members of the Mayflower Pilgrims, with the straightest line directly to William Bradford, the Governor of the Plymouth Colony.

He was the 15th child of Arthur and Alice Vaughan. He was the "baby" of the family.

Sometimes he was a little bad as a kid. Once, at the age of 7, when his teacher left the room, he and another kid climbed on top of their desks and began to yell out every naughty word that they had ever heard. The other kid got down in time, but Allen got caught.. and got punished. (In the over 70 years that I knew Allen, I never once heard him curse!)

Allen grew into a tough city kid. In fact, his nickname was "Popeye." I grew up in the house with him and he wanted me to be tough too.

Years ago, one could walk through the city without fear, and kids were allowed to go around unchaperoned. When I turned 5, someone took me by the hand and escorted me the 8 blocks to the Harrington Elementary School for Kindergarten. The next day, I was on my own. Along the way, two bullies, Walter and Richard, jumped me and beat me up. I ran home crying.

I told Allen what had happened and he told me that I had better be brave and fight back next time, or he would have to beat me up too. I know now that he would not have done that, but at the time, I was more afraid of what Allen would do than I was of what the bullies would do. However, I was small and needed help, so when Allen left the house, I went into his room and looked around for a weapon of some kind. I found a ballpean hammer.

The next day, I stuck the hammer in my knickers and went to school. Sure enough, Walter and Richard showed up and started to punch and kick me. I was on the ground with Walter punching me while Richard kicked at my head, when I reached into my knickers and took the hammer and hit Walter squarely in the forehead. Walter and Richard ran away crying and never bothered me again.

That night Allen asked if I had taken care of the bullies. I said "yes" and he said he was proud of me.. but I never told him I had the help of his ballpean hammer. (Many years later, around the age of 60, Walter died, and I was told that as he lay in his coffin, one could make out the outline of a round dent in his forehead. Over the years, I had been too ashamed to tell Walter that I was the one who had "bopped" him so long ago.)

In 1945, when Allen felt that he had sowed all of his "wild oats", he met a beautiful young girl named Doris Mulcairns, and decided to settle down. They got married and started this beautiful family that you see before you. Allen and Doris were married 64 years! How many people can say that in this day and age?

Over the years, Allen became a musician. He taught himself to play the organ and the harmonica. He often serenaded his fellow "Council on Aging" members and people confined to nursing homes. Just last week, as sick as he was, he played 20 songs for the people in the nursing home where he was recuperating.

Allen became a quite a comedian. I loved his jokes. Once, he visited us in Baltimore and we went to a famous restaurant (Peabody Book Store, an old Speakeasy) and when the owner asked if anyone wanted to entertain, he got up and sang numerous verses of "Enery the 8th, I am, I am". He also told lots of jokes to the diners. They loved it. Several of my fellow workers from Social Security were there and they asked me to invite Allen back because he was so much fun.

Once I heard Henny Youngman do a standup joke routine and I wondered why he had stolen Allen's jokes.

Allen became a "fixer." I brought him a big problem to solve.

During the Korean War, I was about to be drafted into the Army. I wanted to get into the Air Force. However, the quota was filled. Allen told me not to worry. He sat down with one of his buddies, who just happened to be the Air Force recruiter. They looked at all of the lists of new recruits that came almost daily across the desk in the New Bedford office, until they found one that had someone with the name of Vaughan on it.

They took that list and typed my name under that name and sent it to Air Force headquarters with a note that there had been a mixup with names. It worked. Both of the Vaughan boys on the list were allowed to go to Basic Training for the Air Force. Thank you, Allen!

Allen became a craftsman. At my house, the basement is my domain. In a corner of the place, I have lots of New Bedford whale artifacts, crafted by Allen. I also have some of this creations in a display case. One might call this location, the Allen T. Vaughan Museum.

Once when I had taken my family on a visit back to New Bedford in our small Volkswagen Rabbit, Allen told me he had a gift for us. I expected a small box of New Bedford memoribilia. Instead, he handed me a 6 foot long exact replica of a whaling harpoon. I loved it, but it did pose a problem. How would I get a 6 foot long harpoon home in a 4 foot wide car which was already filled with a wife, luggage and children?

We solved it somewhat by letting my two daughters ride home on the train. My wife and son and luggage and harpoon all squeezed into the car. The tip of the harpoon stuck out about three feet into the traffic, which was alright until we got to New York City. NYC is full of wiseguys, and every car that passed us would yell at us: "Hey.. Captain Ahab!" or "I love your spear!" or other "choice" phrases. But we made it through.

We decided to make it a 2-day trip, so we stopped at a motel. It was a 2-story place with stairs leading up to a balcony surounding a swimming pool on 4 sides. I did not want to have the harpoon stolen, so I carried it up to our room which was on the second floor. As I topped the stairs and turned, I bumped into a maid who had her arms full of sheets and towels. She screamed when she saw this man holding a long spear and everything went over the railing and into the swimming pool.

We finally made it home and decided to make a place of honor in our house for Allen's harpoon. We hooked it up to a brass chain and hung it on the wall of our paneled den. Underneath the harpoon, we placed shelving and on the top put our prized possession, the last goblet of a set of finely etched glassware we had received years earlier as a wedding gift. The etching was of a (New Bedford style) sperm whale and was beautifully executed.

A few weeks later, at 3 am, we heard a loud crash. When I investigated, I found that Allen's harpoon had broken loose from the chain and had fallen down and harpooned the sperm whale in the goblet! When I called Allen and told him about it he was sympathetic, and a week later, the mailman brought me a package from Allen. In it was another hand-crafted harpoon, but this time it was only 10 inches long!

In Allen's later years, he felt something lacking in his life and began the studies that led him to join the Catholic religion. I'm sure that his faith helped him weather this final illness.

There are not many people in this world who everybody likes... Allen Vaughan was one of those people, a likeable, humorous, giving person. There is a word in German and Yiddish to describe those rare individuals like Allen. The word is "mensch" and Allen was a "mensch." Our lives are so much richer for having known him.

Farewell, my uncle, my brother, my friend, and my hero!
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Life is tough.

I'm worried about my uncle Allen. He is currently in the St. Luke's Hospital emergency room in New Bedford, Massachusetts with chest pains.

Also, a couple of days ago, my family was once again subjected to the tornado's wrath. This makes four times in about 15 years. How do those odds stack up?

Tornado #1: It hit Westminster and went up my son-in-law Bob Clark's driveway, twisting metal into circular knots.

Tornado #2: As we drove up Interstate 795 from Baltimore, we were passed by numerous emergency vehicles. We tuned into the news and found out that a tornado was right now tearing up Reisterstown. We were worried, because son, Christopher, and his two young daughters were supposed to move into a townhouse today. They had rented a very expensive truck and were obligated to return it early in the evening.

As we dreaded, the tornado did, indeed, affect Chris' move-in plans. It hit the townhouses and apartments in the area. Damage to Chris' townhouse was restricted to broken glass.. but the glass was from every window and door in the house. Glass shards were all over the floors.

When we arrived on the scene, I went to the management office and said that two little girls could not move into a house that had floors filled with sharp pieces of glass. The manager told me to "get lost". I did not "get lost", but stayed there in the office, making a pest of myself.

Finally, at the shift change, a different manager came on duty and immediately arranged for a married couple to come up and clean up the glass and install new glass. They did so in a short period of time and Chris and his little girls were able to move in late that night.

Tornado #3: A tornado hit Gamber and destroyed lots of homes. At one of the homes, the wind moved children from the second floor out into the yard. The children, miraculously, were not hurt.

Our Gamber house was at the tail end of the tornado and an apple tree at the end of our property was knocked completely over. In addition, everyone whose house was destroyed had their personal possessions lifted into the air and deposited in our back yard. My son gathered up as much as possible and took it to the Gamber fire hall for pick up by the owners.

Tornado #4: Another tornado tore through Gamber the other day and destroyed a few houses. Our house, which had now been bought by my daughter, did not escape this wind. A massive limb was broken off one of the maple trees and is spread across all of the front lawn. Luckily, the limb missed the house.

So.. there it is.. four tornados for our family.. what are the odds of that happening? How come I can't hit the lottery?

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