The Art of the Memoir at the Kelly Family House

      There’s no better place to celebrate 40 years of Irish Studies at Villanova University than at the Kelly House in East Falls. There, amid the still-intact (and still beautiful) examples of Kelly for Brick Work—John B. Kelly, father of Grace Kelly who became Princess Grace of Monaco, was a brick layer—Irish literature aficionados of all ages gathered in celebration: Grad students, writers, College Deans, two bona fide Kelly family relatives, Susan Kelly Von Medicus and John B. Kelly, III, as well as former Villanova professor of theology and religious studies, Rodger Van Allen.

    The upbeat mood in the Kelly House was contagious, outstripping the  solemnities you might expect at an anniversary event featuring a symposium that focuses on Irish writing from a diasporic perspective.

Dylan Thomas

   At the reception following the afternoon panel discussion, live Irish music helped guests circulate and chat with one or all of the evening’s four presenters, such as James Silas Rogers, editor of the New Hibernia Review and Director of Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas, who looked every bit the poet in his Irish Fisherman’s Crewneck sweater which had the added effect of making him look like Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.

    The word ‘Welsh’ isn’t too far off the mark because presenter David Lloyd, a Welshman, Fulbright Scholar, professor of English at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, and the author of ten books, read about his Welsh roots while Dr. James J. Murphy, the son of two Irish immigrants who grew up in Brooklyn and who later became a professor at Villanova as well as the founder and first director of the Irish Studies Program at the school, went on to mesmerize the audience with his dry humored, over-the-top hilarious essay, “A Child’s Christmas in Brooklyn,” a story of the early Christmas’ he knew as a child with his immigrant parents. The memoir brought Dr. Murphy close to tears several times but he was saved from the precipice of sorrow by his wife Kathy, effervescent as a cheerleader, who urged him on from the audience:  “Go on. You can do it!” she said.

  Later, Dr. Murphy would tell me how Kathy Murphy accompanies him on all his lectures, sitting in the front row and urging him on in a similar manner.  

   

    Christine Cusick, Ph.D, an Associate Professor of English at Seton Hall University, shared her memories and thoughts about growing up Irish and Polish.

     Among the guests was Adele Lenbenmeyr, PhD, Villanova Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, an accomplished author herself whose books include studies of Imperial and Revolutionary Russia. Had any one of the featured memoirists fallen ill and a speaker’s space needed to be filled, Lenbenmeyr as well as the evening’s MC, the affable Joseph Lennon, current Villanova Director of Irish Studies, could have easily stepped up to the podium   

     James Silas Rogers told an audience at a lecture delivered at the San Francisco Library, that the Irish are still distinctive. “You might think that the Irish came off the boat and assimilated immediately,” he explained, adding that in Irish literature there’s “a sense of reticence and a great deal of silencing.” An example of this “silencing,” he said, could be found in the photographs one often seen in Irish history books. “They tend to be all the same, something that’s due to the fact that if you’re Irish you should not call attention to yourself.” Rogers believes that respectability is an obsession with Irish Americans, and that on a deep level the Irish believe that they are not the same as other people. He explained that the dancing Irish nun pictured on the cover of his latest book, Irish-American Autobiography: The Divided Hearts of Athletes, Priests, Pilgrims, and More, is Sister Justine from Saint Louis who is not doing an Irish jig at all but dancing the Scottish Highland Fling.

James Joyce

        The six-bedroom Kelly house was built in 1928 by John B. Kelly. John and his wife Margaret raised six children in the home, which was sold by the family in 1973. The house had a number of owners after that, including a deranged cat woman who turned the home into a feral animal farm.  In 2016, Albert II, Prince of Monaco, Princess Grace’s son, bought the house for $755,000 and had it remodeled to look like it did in the 1950s. Many of the original features can still be seen including the famous linen closet door with Grace’s height recorded over the years. 

      In 2017, John B. Kelly, III told CBSNews that, “The whole house, from a brick construction point of view, is amazing, and there’s not a crack in it. He used this great mortar that doesn’t need repointing, and it’s almost a hundred years old.”

     Guests were encouraged to take self guided tours of the home. In the upstairs bedrooms there were freshly painted icons in the Byzantine tradition. The icons are not part of the original Kelly family décor but were painted by Grace’s niece, Susan Kelly Von Medicus, an icon writer and teacher at the Center for Irish Studies and the Department of Theatre and Studio Art at Villanova University. Von Medicus acted as the volunteer bartender during the event, along with her brother John B. Kelly, III or JB.   

      

     Old Kelly family films ran continuously on a wide screen TV in the Kelly House den. Featured were sunburned children playing leap frog in the backyard, vintage 1950s cars and shots of the news media crowding the Kelly brick walled den as Prince Rainer and Grace Kelly gave a television interview after the announcement of their engagement.  

   Adjacent to the den was the old ‘Kelly Tavern,’ the bar that Jack Kelly built to offset the absurdities of Prohibition. The bar in those days was stocked with large kegs of beer. Kelly Tavern was alive with every strand of Irish imaginable:  Blue eyes, red heads, gingers, black Irish, a smart smattering of over 65 white haired gentlemen. Many chatted up Dr. Murphy (who showed them old photos of his family in front of a Christmas tree) while others asked Rogers questions about the New Hibernia Review.

    As the lone reporter on the premises, I did a mental comparison of the predominately Irish crowd to the mainly ‘English’ crowds I had observed at English Speaking Union of Philadelphia receptions. The vibes were similar, yes, only with the Irish everything seems to move at a faster pace. The musicians playing Irish music near the Kelly family video screen helped to accelerate the tempo that at times reached a fever pitch. The melodies even caused Dr. Murphy’s wife, Kathy, to dance a little jig.  

  The Kelly House houses the headquarters of the Prince Albert II Foundation as well as the Princess Grace Foundation USA.   

     

 

Thom Nickels