Mother, Father and Helen
"Mother was the most important person influencing my mind and career. We had a blackboard and she used to teach with it faithfully every day. Before I started school in Sept. 1913 at 5 yr., 3 mo., I knew the alphabet backwards, count well above 100, and spell common words. My table manners were good but my clothes consisted of "Buster Brown" suits and long curls which were cut off just before starting school. When I found I was the only one in the school in Buster Brown, that ended.
"My Father tried to bully me rather than explain. I tended to go my way without confiding in him. For example, when he announced, when I was in eighth grade, that he was taking me down to St. Ignatius High to enroll me, I told him I had already registered at St. Mel several months before.
"My Mother was very concerned about Helen's birth. I was much overweight and she had a bad time, but Helen was normal but a fussy baby. I was a much older person (5 years) and ignored her as she wasn't a boy and hence from a different world. We grew up separately, she had her friends and I had mine. I didn't get to know her until Mother died when she suddenly took over as the head of the family and began to get me in line as part of her world."
Photo of Nell and Al Sullivan, Helen in car window, on a vacation trip late 1920s
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