Eva McNally of Prospect Street

Eva McNally loved a good joke, an Irish story well told, and a hot game of canasta with ice cream on the side from Mrs. Mecca's corner grocery, just a few steps from her lower flat on Prospect Street.

Mrs. Mecca was her landlord and upstairs neighbor and perhaps her dearest friend, other than extended family, some who'd lived with Eva for months or years before they married.  Men in Eva's family died young, and Eva, who never married, beame a wise and loving "aunt" to many souls.  A twitch in her left cheek added character to the twinkle in her eye as she aged.  The heavy beaver coat she'd inherited kept her 90 pounds of mischief and determination on the ground when howling winds from Lake Erie covered her front steps in deep snow.

Goulashes buckled, scarf wound tightly around fur hat, Eva never missed a day as seamstress at Sister's Hospital, though she depended on public transportation to get her cross town through horrendous Buffalo winters.  Eva forgave herself the white lie she told the good Sisters that enabled her to work many years beyond retirement age.  They pretended not to know their faithful worker and dear friend with the jolly demeanor was a decade older than shown on hospital records.

Snow or sleet, she trudged to Sunday mass at Holy Angels Church two city blocks distant and never missed a Holy Day.  Everyone loved the tiny Irish lady who lived joyfully in the midst of an Italian neighborhood.  Mrs. Mecca looked in on her every day.

The old flats on Prospect Street had been built before the turn of the 20th century when Buffalo, Queen City of the Great Lakes, became more industrialized and workers migrated from the South, joining Canadians from the far side of the mighty Niagara River that flowed from Lake Erie to the "thundering falls" 20 miles north. 

Buffalo natives like to joke they have two seasons: winter and two weeks in July.  Actually, summers on Lake Ere and the Niagara River are delightful.  Visitors gathered on Eva's front veranda to down a cool lager or shot of good Irish whiskey.  People met there to play cards, laugh and have fun.  Occasional yelling of kids on the gravel playground at the orphanage across the street reminded adults of life's inequities and perhaps, for a moment, made them a bit more grateful for their own families, especially if they had a job during the Great Depression.

Each summer, Eva eagerly awaited a visit from her beloved nephew, John Patrick Smith,, her sister Helen's only child whom she'd help raise when his father died young.  John graduated from Canisius College in Buffalo, and after a year in the Army in New York City as World War I came to a close, graduated from Fordham Law School.  His marriage to Honora McNamara of Selby, England, whom he'd met in New York, produced three sons and a daughter, Joan.  Honora died when baby James was only a year old and Helen moved in to their apartment at North Tarrytown to take care of the children.

The Smiths' annual visit to Eva's continued religiously through World War II, which was a good thing for me.  I was on hospital leave from the Army in 1945 when Joan visited relatives who'd moved next door to my parents in Kenmore.  When we started to date a year later, Eva gave me a good Irish interrogation, complaining with a smirk and a twitch about our smoching on her veranda, but warmly blessed our marriage at Holy Angels Church in July, 1948.  Joan lived with Eva for two months prior to our wedding.

For all the years that followed, Eva was our guest at Christmas, teaching our children card games and grousing when they won, telling Irish stories and keeping the little ones quiet when we entertained.  One New Year's Day she came to the breakfast table sporting a huge black eye.  One of the kids had thrown a toy as she walked into their bedroom to shush them on New Year's Eve and got hit in the face.  She said not a word to anyone.

In those days I could walk out to the plane to meet her at Washington's National Airport as she came down narrow stairs in that trusty beaver coat, seemingly tiny and frail, but tough as iron inside with a sunny spirit that could not be dimmed.  She would stay for a week or more and the kids would beg her not to go.  She became part of our family.  She'd had a head cold in December, 1970 and Joan's dad persuaded her to stay home and share the holiday with Mrs. Mecca's family.  Perhaps she could visit Washington on my birthday in February. 

Mrs. Mecca smelled something burning as she walked up the back stairs by Eva's kitchen to her own flat and stopped to chat.  Eva's head rested on her forearm on the kitchen table, her tea untouched.  Mrs. Mecca turned off the gas burner and put the burned pot in the sink.  She knew before she touched Eva's cold hand that she was gone.  A gentle sweet passing, like an Irish prayer. 

Carlton E. Spitzer