Adeline's Stories

JAMES & ANNA SOBOL ANITA & JOEY 1957

JAMES BARRINGTON FARRELL

By the end of 1943, Bronco and Paula eventually got married and they had a little girl. Her name is
Margaret. She was born July 1st, I think. Eventually, they had another girl, Pauletti and a boy they
named Kenneth. Bronco legally changed his name to James Barrington Farrell so Farrell is their last
name. They all lived in Newark, New Jersey. Let’s see this is 1998… so Margaret is 56 and Pauletti is
53, the same age as Anita. Kenneth was a very good looking young man. He worked in New York City
as a salesman in one of these very exclusive stores selling men’s clothing in New York City. I don’t
know what his problem was, but recently Margaret sent Verna a letter that Kenneth died. He was 50.

All this while, Paula had never divulged to anyone that she had given James up completely for
adoption. She never told anyone except her father. But all her family knew that she had the baby.
Paula would just say that he’s staying with his grandmother up in Pennsylvania. So they kept asking
her, “Where’s the boy? Well, the boy is living with his grandmother in Pennsylvania.” So when Paula
had the rest of her children, she told them that James was Bronco’s brother. All this while, when they
were growing up, they would ask Bronco, “Dad, when are you going up to visit your brother James?”

James was never told directly that his father was Bronco. What happened was when James was going
to St. Peter and Paul School, Gene’s wife Gert told her son Genie to tell the nun that that lady who
brings James to church is his grandmother. And so one day, he went to school as usual and the nun

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wanted to know the story. Genie was there and he would say, “Yes, that’s not his mother and father.
That’s his grandmother.” Now that’s the first time James had any inkling. James was in about the
fifth grade. He came home, and he said to me, “You know what they were telling me in school today?
They were telling me that I don’t belong here. That my father is out in New Jersey.”

He was most surprised so I said to James, “Listen, you go home and you ask mama to tell you the
whole thing.” But my mother believed in not telling him. She was afraid that if she ever told James he
was going to reject her and go to New Jersey with Bronco. Sometimes Bronco would be home talking
to my mother and she’d say, “Here James, go down to the store,” or something like that. You know,
just to get him out of the house. So anyway, nothing was ever said about it. James always had that
certain feeling when Bronco came, that Bronco was someone special. Verna was at home. Verna
could have told him. But no one ever told him. I felt very bad about it.

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BRONCO’S FUNERAL

Oh, it was very tragic the way all the children found out. It was Gene’s wife Gert again with her big
mouth at Bronco’s funeral. It would have been in 1959 I think, because I had you, Anita and Jacinta.
Bronco used to drink a lot and he got cirrhosis of the liver. I think he was 52 when he died. He was
sick maybe a year, or two years. Two weeks prior to when he died; we all went to visit him in the
hospital in New Jersey. Then the kids saw James. They were eyeing him in the hospital. They were
kind of laughing, you know silly. They wanted to see who their daddy’s brother was. They were still
under the impression all these years, that James was their daddy’s brother.

Bronco always wanted to be buried in Scranton but the funeral was in Newark, New Jersey. Paula
called back and forth and all that, but then, I don’t know what happened about all the arrangements.
Mike and I and you and Anita all drove down to Newark on Thursday for the viewing but the funeral
wasn’t until Saturday so we droved down again on Saturday. Well in the meantime, Gert said she
wanted to go the funeral with Gene and take my mother. Let’s see Frank went also drove in his car. So
we all went in two cars to the funeral.

So here’s what happened at the funeral home. Oh, it was a saddest thing ever. They were all ready to
go home, visiting hours were almost over. It was Gert with her big mouth. My sister Nellie was there

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and she approved of her telling James. So was my brother Frank who was there with his wife, and that.
When Margaret went into the ladies room, Gert followed her and said to her, “Do you know that James
is your brother?” Well that girl nearly flipped out! She couldn’t believe it. She started to scream in
that ladies room. We didn’t know what happened. Then she came out to Paula, her mother and was
very nasty to her. She was screaming and accusing her mother, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that
James was my brother?” Then her sister Pauletti, who used to cry very easily and Kenneth were all
screaming. You know as a result of that situation with those girls, there was a big division between the
Paula mother and the three children after Bronco died. Gert was always a big troublemaker. You’d be
surprised about the trouble she made for me and Mike. Ewwww, I don’t like to say. That was a very,
very, very nasty thing. When I think about it, I just shudder all. Anyway, she said they have to be
told. So all this happened during the arrangements to bury Bronco in Scranton. And, then Bronco’s
daughter Margaret, said no. “He’s my father and we want him here with us in New Jersey. They didn’t
tell me about James all those years. And we didn’t know. I didn’t even know that I had brother.” So,
anyway, there was a lot of anger.

Nellie and Frank had relatives in New Jersey and Gene and Gert were going to stay in a hotel with my
mother and James on Friday and Saturday. But after that happened, my mother refused to stay with
them. Oh, my mother was devastated. Oh, it was the saddest funeral ever. See my mother always did
things differently than any other mother that I ever knew, like when I went to school and all that.

Well let me back up a little. See after Bronco worked in the gas station he got a job at the docks at the
shipyard. Bronco belonged to the Iron Gang in Newark, New Jersey and they were all underworld.
They were real Mafia people that he worked for. The Mafia controlled all the docks. You know, like
when they have the gangsters on television and they talk about those gangsters in New Jersey and New
York, Well those were the kind of people Bronco worked for. You remember when he used to come
and visit Scranton he’d always have a big cigar and a big wad of cash in his wallet.

So anyway the union arranged everything for the funeral, the service was in church, and they had these
great big scraping men carry the casket on their shoulders. You know like you see in the movies with
the sunglasses, you know. They didn’t carry him like they do normally into the church. They carried
the casket on their shoulders when they came into the church.

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When we got into the church Margaret cried bitterly. In fact, Margaret cried all night Friday night and
during the funeral on Saturday. She just cried and she cried all during the services in church. There
was no holding her down. She just cried bitterly and so did the little boy. They didn’t want to have
anything to do with their mother Paula. She would say, “You did that to us. You didn’t tell us.”

So after the funeral Margaret and her mother Paula didn’t talk to each other and there was a big
division. Margaret got an apartment and she got Pauletti and Kenneth to live with her. I don’t know
what happened to Bronco’s wife Paula. The whole family separated and didn’t talk to each other.
Margaret was a very capable girl and very mature girl. Bronco had sent her to a business school and
she got a job working in an office. He bought her a car so she was very independent. I think she was 18
when Bronco died, because she had already graduated from high school. So, Margaret took over
raising her sister and brother. When she would write to Verna there was no mention of her mother
Paula in the letter. Absolutely nothing. So I don’t think they ever had anything to do with her.

Even later on, when James was older, he used to go to cemetery hoping that he would see those kids.
He wanted to know what they looked like. And often when he was married, he’d go to New Jersey and
he was looking for a place, like an address, to see if he could see those kids. He wanted to see them.
He’d go to the cemetery every Memorial Day. He’d put a flower on the grave to see whether he could
see them. It went on for like that for years.

But, it was about two years ago, in 1996, Margaret wrote a letter to Verna. She wanted to know if
James is still around and she want to get acquainted. “We all want to get together again.” She sent a
picture of herself and her daughter and her sister Pauletti who also had a daughter. Kenneth was not
married. She said, “This is the picture that was taken the year before Kenneth died.” So we don’t
know exactly when it was. She wanted James to write to her. So Verna gave James the letter and
showed him the picture. But James said, no. “A lot of years have passed. That is in the past. Now, I’m
perfectly satisfied to be here and I don’t worry about it.” I guess later on, he just resolved it all in his
mind and he said “I have my life and my family here.” So Verna never wrote back at all. James did
not want to communicate with them. But many times Verna would say there would be a car with a
New Jersey license plate that was parked in front of her house.

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That was the last of the old stories
Adeline wanted to talk about, and certainly
some were very difficult for her to remember,

but she seemed to be happier enjoying
all the Grandchildren as

life continued on for all of us

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After I moved to Arizona, 1973
Mom and I would talk every Sunday by phone

and she always kept me up to date with
everything going on at Oxford St.
Here is my favorite photo

together outside St Patrick’s Cathedral in
New York City celebrating
her 80th birthday in 1997

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