My Dad's parents

My Grandfather, Joseph Bernard O'Brien of St. Paul, MN met my Grandmother, Frances Lutz of St. Louis on a train. They travelled with their respective entertainment troupes from town to town across the Midwest. My Grandfather, much to the dismay of his older brother, William, abandoned the idea of a partnership in his law firm in favor of singing in Enrico Caruso's chorus.

Frances was a free spirited young woman who travelled throughout the country with her high school diving team after graduation. They created a vaudeville act that involved whole-body makeup to look like Indian Princesses. They would dive into a shallow pool of water from a high diving platform. Chemistry between Frances and Joseph must have been good. She converted to Catholicism and they decided to spend their lives together in Toledo, Ohio. My Grandfather made a living to support their five kids by selling wall-safes to banks across the Midwest.

My father sang in several Gilbert and Sullivan light opera productions while attending college. Real world events intervened when he was chop blocked and suffered a knee injury which caused the withdrawal of his football scholarship. My Grandfather died of a heart attack around that time. My Dad enlisted in the Air Force's Officer Candidate School and became a navigator of a B-29 flight crew and flew 29 missions in the Korean War. 1948 was a tough year and he served his country until 1953 and again in 1960-62 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I never knew my Grandfather but I fondly remember my Grandmother playing poker with her four sons and daughter while wearing green eyeshades every year at the O'Brien Reunion at some unsuspecting Midwestern Holiday Inn.

She used to tell us grandkids, "Always follow your dreams and you will be happy." I did and I am.