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March 21, 1937 was a gray and chilly day as Donal Flannigan trudged toward Aetna Mill across the Charles River on Pleasant Street. The walk is familiar. It’s one he’s taken year after year. But today is different; he can feel it in his bones. He pulled the collar of his coat up around his ears to cut some of the wind. The din of machinery reaches him long before he gets to the gate. Inside the yard men cluster and quickly push through the large heavy doors that lead to the work area.
“Colder’n a well-diggers arse out there, Dave,” he said to the shift supervisor as he clocked in and headed to the cloakroom. He removed his coat and hat and hung them on the bar of hooks attached to the wall. Below are cubbyholes, and he drops his lunch bag in one.
“Donal!”
He turns to see Joseph waving a newspaper. “Wat’cha got there?” he shouts over the racket.
“There’s a horse-shoe tournament next week over in Waltham. Can you make it?”
“I’ll let’ch know,” he called back. “If ya’ can’t do any better than last time, I should stay home!”
Joseph made an obscene gesture, but he’s grinning. Several men nearby guffawed; waving at the them, he moved to his station.
The mills provided jobs and helped support the growing communities that spread up and down the river. People swim and fish in the water that was gradually being polluted by the factories along its banks. Workers were glad to have the jobs. The Depression has gone on too long. Everyone knew men who have been out of work for years, and even some who gave up and retired from life. A working man knows the risks of working in the mills. People were sometimes maimed or even killed.
“Donal, we’re runnin’ behind. Can ya speed it up? That guard’s what’s slowin’ things down. Just take the damn thing off,” Dave shouts over the clang and clamor of the machines.
“Sure, Boss,” Donal called back. He pulled a pair of pliers off his work cart and loosens the bolts on the protective shield that separates the blades and rollers from the operator. No one thinks anything of it. Without the guard, the work sped up by half. Time is money, and the workers are used to taking shortcuts.
Machines cut, slice, roll, and smash steadily all morning. The racket is deafening, but a man gets used to it. After a while he doesn’t notice the ringing in his ears at the end of a shift. Donal never gets headaches anymore. Just then Donal hears someone whistle and turns in time to see Rocky Snowden signal him.
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“Can’t hear ya,” he called back. Rocky mouthed something, but it is lost in the cacophony of the labor.
“I can’t hear ya! What?”
He looked up again for only a second before his attention was immediately drawn back to his machine. But it was too late. His left sleeve caaught, and the material was pulled steadily into the rollers. Donal tried to wrench his sleeve clear to no avail. He wanted the material to tear, so he can free his arm. The rhythm of the machine was constant; the pull, steady. To Donal it was like watching in slow motion as the rollers chewed on. The sleeve disappeared between the rollers—and with it his hand and then his wrist. There was no pain. All he feels is the terror of what was happening. His arm was pulled into the grip of the menacing machine. Donal pulled frantically—twisting, and jerking. He might have cried out or said something like “oh, shit,” but he wasn’t sure.
He pulled frantically and watched as the arm gradually vanished between the rollers. Then he did scream, not from pain, but from sheer terror. Suddenly there were people all around. People were shouting, but he can’t make out the words. Hands were on him, grabbing and pulling, trying to help, but the thing continues to eat his arm . . . past the elbow . . . up and up. Then everything stops. Silence fills the space as someone turns off the machine. The pandemonium fades away as Donal watched the rollers still clinging to his arm. Now he saw blood spreading from under the rollers. He felt an icy cold chill take over his body. The clamor faded, but all he heard was the ringing in his head. The voices faded completely as everything went black.
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“. . . was nearly torn off at the shoulder. They got him out before that happened. Muscles are wrenched, and the nerve damage could be beyond repair. Only time will tell if he will ever get full use of the arm again. With a crush injury like this, we just never know.” The doctor adjusts his glasses as he reads from the chart. “His back was wrenched severely when they tried to release him from the machine. He should consider himself lucky he’s even alive. I’m sorry, Mrs. Flannigan. We did all we could.”
Moira stood motionless as she tried to absorb all that was being said.
“Again, I’m sorry. He’ll stay here for a few weeks, so we can watch him. There will be therapy, of course, to help him walk. I can’t give you any false hope. It’s possible he may never walk again. He’ll have to spend some time in the Sharon Sanitarium, where they have the staff to help him through this. He’ll need to be closely watched for several months, but in time you will be able to take him home. You have help there, don’t you? . . . children who can assist with his care?” Moira nodded.
“Why don’t you go home and get some rest. He’s sedated, and we can’t do any more for him tonight. You
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need to take care of yourself, Mrs. Flannigan. This will be a long ordeal.”
Moira didn’t remember leaving the doctor, the long walk down the hospital corridor, or the flight of stairs that led to the big double doors. It was only when she felt the chill of the wind pulling her coat close to her stout frame that she realized her neighbor, Mrs. Denison, was beside her to take her home. She wrapped her scarf around her head. Her long hair platted, and the salt and pepper braid wound around her head in a crown.
The numbness subsided but was quickly replaced by anxiety. Her mind was racing. How will we survive without Donal’s pay check? How can we pay for his care and food? The children! “Thank God Michael is twenty-one with a good job!” The words came out of her almost like a prayer, but the sound of her own voice in the chill of the night startled her. Ellen, sixteen; Christopher, fourteen; and Frank is almost eleven . . . Now the tears came in torrents.
Just then the bell at Our Lady’s tolled seven o’clock. Moira heard the bell and was comforted. She couldn’t stop crying, and the tears continued to fall until she had no tears left. Mrs. Dennison dropped Moira at the front gate to her house. “You need a ride back to the hospital or anything, you just ask.” Mrs. Dennison said hugging her friend and neighbor.
The Flannigan house had been in the family for almost one hundred years. It was moved from its original location to Chandler Street when the railroad line was laid along Washington Street. Built by hand, including the windows and doors, everything was out of plumb. There were three bedrooms upstairs; living and dining rooms and a parlor were downstairs, along with the kitchen. It was a cozy home for the whole family. Early on, the Flannigan’s realized how important the land was and planted almost a quarter acre in vegetables. In time they added a grape arbor, a coop for chickens, and a fenced area for a pig.
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In the summer of 1938, Donal was able to come home, but everything has changed. Naturally, the children all help with the house and garden, but the family was barely able to make ends meet. Even the atmosphere around them feels different. Michael was the responsible one; always had been since he was the oldest. Ellen was a big help to her mother, not only around the house but in caring for the younger boys. Christopher, the comedian, was ready to enter the tenth grade at Our Lady’s Catholic School. He saw life differently. Not with the maturity Michael had, but he managed to find pleasure in most things around him. Frank, the baby of the family, was about to turn twelve. He was neither mature nor comedic, and, unlike the others, he always had the older ones around to do the chores, making it easy for him to avoid work. His favorite subjects are: “Me.” and “I’m hungry.”
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Donal had not adjusted well since the accident and keeps more and more to himself. He avoided the family, preferring to eat alone in the front room where a bed had been made up for him and where he spent most of his
waking hours. Moira understood that he was depressed. Learning to use his right hand for everything when he had been a lefty was frustrating. He lived with back spasms and almost constant pain. He often dropped or spilt things, and that embarrassed him. He was a proud man, used to providing everything for his family, and now his family provided for him. He preferred the solitude, reading, or watching the real world outside the window.
For the past year, the family had learned to live on what they grew in their garden and sold the surplus. In winter they used what firewood they could find or burned peat that came from the small bog on Hawthorn Street. The younger children collected coal left on the train tracks running along Washington Street.
“We have to be smart and resourceful,” Moira told her children, “My grandparents emigrated from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine in 1847, long before I was born. Four million Irish men, women, and children left their homes and settled far and wide hoping for a better way of life.” She poured milk into a glass for Frank. “I’ve seen many changes in the area over the years. I remember when they built the Synagogue down on Adams Street. The Italian families moved in around 1900. Each wave of immigrants brought new languages and new foods and added another dimension to the neighborhood.”
Moira often thought about how her life would have been different if she had more education. Although she loved her family she was determined that her children will be better off.