Kathleen grew up in the early 1950’s and 1960’s in an Irish and Italian Catholic neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood lived in similar houses with big backyards. The Catholic church and the Catholic School were within walking distance for all the children in our neighborhood. It was unusual for any of the Catholic kids to attend public school. But all the kids who were Christian but not Catholic attended public school. They were referred to as “The Publics” by all the Catholic kids. It was like it was some disease or something. And woe be it to any Catholic School student to be ejected from the Catholic School. And then had to attend “Public School.”
Kathleen’s family consists of a mother, a father, and five siblings. Kathleen’s siblings were all a lot older than her. In fact, her eldest siblings no longer lived at home. They were married and lived with wives and their own children. That may seem like a large family, but back in the day, all the Catholic kids had large families. Kathleen had friends in school who had up to ten children, sometimes more. When Kathleen visits one of her Catholic school friends after school, she is overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who live within the walls of their homes. Homes that were approximately the same size as her own home. It had four bedrooms, two parents and six kids. The noise level alone was overwhelming. Not to mention,, there was only one bathroom, which all of the family members had to share. So, as a result, most people only bathe once a week. I kid you not.

On the bonus side, due to the large families with lots and lots of kids, Kathleen never had a shortage of friends in the neighborhood or the town to play with after school, on the weekends, holidays, and, of course, all Summer, which was every kid’s favorite time of the year.

Kathleen’s parents never really seemed to be concerned about her whereabouts. She was told to be home by five o’clock for dinner. And in the Summer to come home when it was dark. Neither one of Kathleen’s parents ever asked her where she had been or what she had been up to. When she was going out, her mother would say, “Don’t be late. Dinner is at five o’clock.” Kathleen would be out the door and on her way to visit one of her friends in no time flat. When it started getting dark out, Kathleen would jump on her bike and head home. And yelling, “See you later, alligator. And her friends would respond, “After a while, crocodile.”

When Kathleen wasn’t busy visiting her friends, riding her bike, or roller skating, she would head downtown and visit the library, or the 5&10 Store, or the candy store. If she had enough money, she would ride her bike down to the custard stand and get a vanilla custard in a cone. Sometimes, she would stop by the vegetable stand, and the nice lady who worked there would give her a piece of fruit, or the lady who worked in the town bakery would give her a donut. By the time she made all her rounds in the downtown shops, she would be so full that when she got home to eat dinner, she wasn’t in the least bit hungry.

Her mother and father would say, what’s the matter? Why don’t you eat something?’ And Kathleen would answer I’m full. Her father would say, “What’s wrong with her? She eats like a bird.” Her siblings, who knew what she had been up to downtown, didn’t say a word. They just laughed. Her next older sister would say without fail, “Yeah, a vulture.” Her mother would say, “ OK, that’s enough, stop picking on, Kathleen. And eat your dinner.”

After dinner, Kathleen helped clear the table, and then she would have to do her homework. Kathleen had trouble with math, and her mother would help her” by giving her the answers.” But Kathleen had no idea how she got the answer. And then her father would say, “Come here, I’ll show you the right way to do it. But his way was completely different than what she learned in school. And the more they helped her, the more confused she got.

After her homework was finished, if it were one of her father’s nights off, she would sit in the living room with him and watch Gunsmoke with him or Wagon Train or Have Gun Will Travel? They both loved the old Western TV shows. But woe be to anyone who sat in the living room and made the mistake of talking while Kathleen’s father was watching TV.

Around nine o’clock, Kathleen’s mother would say, “Time for bed, time for bed.’

Kathleen would beg to stay up later, but her mother knew if she didn’t make her go to bed now, she would want to stay up until 10 PM. And that was out of the question. So, finally, Kathleen would give in and get up, and her mother would say, “Woah, you have to go in and brush your teeth. And you know you have to say your prayers before you go to sleep.”

“Kathleen would roll her eyes and go in and brush her teeth as fast as she could. And then spit it out and drink some water. And head off to her bedroom. Her mother would yell up the steps, ” Your prayers, say your prayers.” And Kathleen would say, “Yes, Mom, yes, Mom. “ She would say a fast Hail Mary and Our Father and then bless herself and try to fall asleep as soon as possible before her sisters came in the room they shared and woke her up with all the rackett they made all the time. As Kathleen started to fall asleep, she remembered she had to get her mother to sign a paper to go on a trip to the Ben Franklin Museum. She fell asleep before she took the paper downstairs. By the next morning, Kathleen completely forgot about the permission slip.

The next day, when Kathleen arrived at school, she realized that she hadn’t gotten the permission slip signed. And she decided to run home as fast as she could and have her mom sign it. The school wasn’t that far away. But she just barely made it back to school before the morning bell rang to go to school. Katleen was out of breath. She felt sick to her stomach since she ran so fast and she had just eaten breakfast before she left for school. Kathleen sat on the school bus quietly for the whole trip from her school to the Ben Franklin Museum. She felt like she was going to throw up any minute. Finally, Sister Joseph said, “Alright, we here. Everyone slowly gets up and brings any and all belongings with them. And form one line and follow the student in front of you.

As Kathleen got off the bus, she realized that she was going to be sick, and she stepped on the sidewalk and threw up. Unfortunately, Sister St. Joseph was standing there. And she was on the receiving end of Kathleen’s upset stomach. All the kids started laughing until they saw Sister Joseph Catherine’s face. Then they immediately stopped laughing, double-timed it, and entered the double doors in front of the Ben Franklin Museum. It looked like everything would be alright until one of the boys started laughing, and before you knew it. All of the kids were laughing. Kathleen knew she was in big trouble. Sister Joseph Catherine was two-stepping it in her direction. “Kathleen, you are to stay by my side for the rest of the day; after we leave the museum, you will sit next to me on the bus back to school. Do you understand?”

I looked down and nodded yes to her, the thought of sitting next to her on the bus all the way back to school, seemed like a nightmare. If there were any way to get out of this mess, she would do it. Catherine felt a tear run down her cheek, and more followed. Catherine wiped her sleeve across her cheek. There was no way she was going to let anyone see her crying. Kathleen took a deep breath. And slowly walked toward Sister Joseph Catherine. This was going to be a terrible day. Katherine wished she had stayed home.

For the next several hours, Kathleen followed Sister Joseph Catherine all around the museum. She could barely look at the exhibits. She decided that on the next school trip, she intended to pretend to be sick. Because there was no way she was going to repeat this outing.

Kathleen’s stomach started to growl. She didn’t eat any breakfast this morning. And she was really thirsty. And then Kathleen heard Sister Joseph Catherine say,” It’s time for lunch. Let’s head back to the bus. That was the moment Kathleen realized she had forgotten to bring her lunch bag. And she didn’t have any money to buy lunch in the cafeteria.

Luckily, her best friend Helen asked her to sit next to her. When Anne Marie realized that Kathleen didn’t have lunch, she said, “No problem, you can have half of mine. My mother always packs too much lunch.” Kathleen smiled at her and said,” Thank you. I’m really starving. So, they found a table in the cafeteria and quietly ate their lunch together. Anne Marie said, “Wow, Sister Joseph Catherine really has it in for you today. “

“Yeah, I wish I didn’t even come today. She never leaves me alone.”

“Well, we had fun together, and your lunch was really good. Your mom makes great sandwiches. I guess we’ll see the rest of the museum when we’ve finished lunch. I love seeing “The Big Heart.”

“You do; I think it’s creepy, and the beating of the Big Heart makes me feel sick to my stomach. I hope the next time we go on a field trip, we do something new.” 

“ Yeah, your right, they should take us somewhere new.”
The next thing they knew, the sister was calling all the students to gather as they were going to leave the museum and go see some historical sites, starting with City Hall. “Alright, children, we are going to get back on the bus and head towards City Hall to see all the historical sites. I want you to pay particular attention to the speaker because we are going to have a test at the end of the week regarding that period of history.” There was a group moan from all the children. Why did the sister always ruin everything with tests after an outing?

After the visit to City Hall, the kids all got tired and bored. They had enough history in one day and just wanted to go home. And before you knew it, the tour of the City Hall was over, and they were loaded back onto their bus and headed back across the Ben Franklin Bridge and back to New Jersey. All the kids were tired, and several of them fell asleep on the ride back to school. Kathleen was one of them. And then suddenly, the bus stopped. Kathleen woke up. “What’s happening?” The bridge is up because there’s a big ship going underneath it. It’s cool. You can see it if you look out the window.

All the students were glued to the windows, looking at the open bridge and at the gigantic ship that was passing under the bridge. The kids were excited and staring out the windows. When the ship got to the other side of the bridge, all the students tried to get to the other side of the bridge. All the kids started clapping.

The next day, the students were asked to write an essay about their outing, and they all talked about their outing to the Ben Franklin Museum. Kathleen decided to write about what it was like in the Big Heart exhibit. She wrote down every detail that she could remember. Then she decided that her next favorite experience was waiting to cross the Bridge while the bridge was up and the big ship was passing beneath. She added that she decided that she wanted to grow up and be either the captain of one of those big ships or in charge of the bridge.

When Kathleen got her paper back, the teacher said she had written a good description of her experience on their outing. However, there was no way that any female was going to grow up to be the captain of a ship or man at the Ben Franklin Bridge. Her teacher said, “She should accept that girls would grow up to get married and have children, or they could become teachers or maybe nurses because that’s what girls were supposed to do.

Kathleen got so mad that her teacher said that the only thing girls would be is a mother, a teacher, or a nurse. She decided that, on that very day, no matter what it took, she was going to be the captain of a boat or be in charge of the Ben Franklin Bridge.

But, it wasn’t until 1968 that a woman was allowed to work as a tugboat captain in New Jersey. But, after that first woman was hired, other women did the same. Sure enough, Kathleen was one of those women to be a tugboat captain, and she crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge countless times in her lifetime as a captain of a tugboat. And she led the way for other women to do the same. And it was because of women like her that all women were allowed to work in occupations that formerly had been men only.

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