Memorial Day 2026, Part 3 World War !

My Grandfather Joseph Lyons was another of the gentlest, most patient, kindly men I ever knew. We spent many lovely moments in the side yard of his house on 10th Street just below Oregon Avenue in South Philadelphia. We were out there because he was a chain smoker. He hand rolled his cigarettes and kept them in a cigar box. He went out into the side yard to smoke and I went out to be outdoors and to be with him, and their family dog, an Irish Setter named King. We had no such little nature spots where I lived, on Warnock Street, just brick canyons of row homes with cemented back yards.

Grandpop Lyons was a thin man with dark hair, glasses, and a quiet, patient personality. He was mild and I think his chain smoking may have had something to do with his suppression of negative emotion. Also, I would suggest his career as a postal delivery man and the walking all day may have contributed to his pleasant and mild demeanor. Anyhow for a shy and timid child like myself, Grandpop Lyons was a refuge.

What I didn't know until I began to research family history in the early 2000's was that Grandpop Lyons had been a soldier in WW !. It is my memory/impression that none of the old people in my childhood talked about the past at all, no storytellers in my family, just tight lipped living-in-the-present was their mode.

In fact, I tried to pry some information from Grandmom Lyons when I found out she had adopted my mother. She sidestepped, evaded, and even made up stories to put me off the trail. Later, I discovered that my mother and my mother's sister Sally, were the children of Grandmom Lyons's sister Sarah, who had died young, 25! And here is where the WW 1 story ties in.

When I visited my Uncle Joe Lyons (now deceased) during the family history period, he showed me lots of pictures of his father, my Grandpop Lyons, in his uniform and with his comrades, and marching in the vast WW I parade that history tells me brought the Spanish flu to Philadelphia. Soldiers returning from WW 1 battles in Europe brought it.

Grandpop Lyons hadn't been to Europe; he had been stationed on the Mexican border, which I found mysterious because i had no clue what Mexico could have to do with a European conflict. I later learned that the Germans had been secretly communicating with the Mexican government to make a deal for Mexico to attack America. The Germans promised to deliver to Mexico all the lands that the Americans had taken from them by force: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas. A secret communique had been discovered and troops were sent to patrol the border just in case.

The parade that brought the Spanish flu was responsible for the death of my mother's biological mother. The Spanish flu burned through the people in Philadelphia and environs like an out of control wild fire. So many people died that their bodies lay undiscovered in their houses. My mother's biologica mother, who by 25 had given birth to 3 children, had sickened and died and her husband, Levy Goldy couldn't take care of the children and put them in the Camden Friendless Childrens' Home where they stayed until Betty was adopted by a stranger family, and my mother and her sister Sally were adopted by her Aunt Lavinia Lyons. Lavinia having been the younger sister, was forced to wait until she married to adopt her sister's children. Joseph Lyons was the husband who made that adoption possible.

During the family history years, I visited the biological Grndmother's grave, Mt. Laurel Cemetery in Philadelphia in the McQuiston plot. I visited Joseph and Lavinia Lyons in the Bethel Cemetery in New Jersey where they are buried because Joseph was a veteran of WW 1.

Joseph Lyons died of stroke/heart disease while out on a Sunday drive with his son and his wife. He lay his head on her shoulder in the back seat, and quietly slipped out of the world. He was in his 60's when he died, no doubt as a result of the chain smoking of those hand-rolled cigarettes. I will always be grateful to him for he gentleness.

Happy trails!

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