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Remembering Verne Leedom

Verne T. Leedom

Verne T. Leedom

Verne Leedom died this week at the age of 81.

A dozen years or so ago, when I joined Irish Thunder Pipes & Drums, Verne was the band’s drum major. He was out in front of the band, parade after parade—waving the mace, calling out the tunes, wearing the conspicuous fuzzy hat. That he somehow managed to do so at all, a big man with bum knees, is a tribute to his fortitude. And more than that, really. He just loved being drum major. We would have followed him anywhere, and not just because he was yelling at us to do so.

Out of uniform, Verne was every bit as memorable. You’d see him sitting at a table downstairs at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Notre Dame Division hall in Swedesburg, leaning back in his chair and quietly chatting with friends. There might be a dozen or so people in the room, but Verne was the one you’d notice. And it wasn’t because he was the loudest or the most boisterous. His voice carried when he needed it to—you could always hear him loud and clear, even way back in the highly distractable drum line. But he stood out because he was listening. Everyone else was talking; he was listening.

No one listened more intently. He had a talent for making you feel like whatever you had to say was the most fascinating thing anyone had ever said. It was no act. Verne was genuinely interested. His eyes were riveted on your face, his ears and mind were wide open to whatever you had to say, and his little gray goatee never failed to frame a smile if you said something funny. He smiled a lot.

And it wasn’t as if you were Verne’s friend for just that moment. Once you were in with Verne—and he seemed to be open to just about everybody—you were in forever. Verne never “unfriended” anyone that I know of. Even after I left the band to join another one, Verne never held a grudge. Fairly uncharacteristic for an Irishman, in my experience, and especially unexpected in the often catty little world of pipe bands. I would still run into him from time to time at parades, festivals or AOH functions. It didn’t matter whether months or years had gone by. Verne would extend his hand, and he would always ask me, “How are ya, lad?”

Which, when you come to think of it, is a funny thing to call a 60-year-old man.

So thanks to Verne Leedom for making me feel like a kid. I’m most decidedly not one, but I’ll take it. Mostly, though, thanks for showing all the rest of us what it really means to be a friend.

Godspeed, lad.

We asked a couple of Verne’s friends to add their thoughts. Here’s what they had to say:

Pete Hand
Irish Thunder Drum Major

After I joined the AOH Notre Dame Division in 1996, I hooked up with Verne right away. I became part of the Isle of Erin Degree Team that he was a part of. He served as a director on the Home Association with me. When I was president of the division he was my vice president for many years. When I joined the Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums as drum major he gave me some instructions since he had been a drum major. He also served with me on the Saint Patrick’s Parade Committee and the festival committee.

So as you can see, at the age of 82 Verne was very active. He attended everything and was still an officer of the AOH Montgomery County Board when he passed away Tuesday morning.

Verne use to call me almost every day to see how things were or to get some dirt on the goings on at the AOH. He and his wife Ann attended almost everything that came up with the AOH. He was also Grand Marshal of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade when it was in Norristown.

Verne will be missed by all here at the Notre Dame Division. But I will also miss him very much. He always said he never had a brother but he always considered me a brother to him.

We are going to give him a good send off on Saturday at Saint Patrick’s Church in Norristown. That’s what he would have wanted.

Mick McBride

My name is Mick McBride, I was born in Donegal, Ireland, and moved to the States in 1990. I met Verne on a Thursday night the summer of 2001; the night I was sworn in as an AOH member. Verne and I hit it off right away. He always called me, “Mickey me lad.” A year later I joined the pipe band (Irish Thunder) which Verne was quartermaster of at the time, so he had the huge task of “dressing” me (fitting me for my band uniform).

My first ever dress with the band was as drum major for the Norristown St. Patrick’s Day parade in which coincidentally, Verne was nominated as Grand Marshal. As the band reached the grandstand, we halted and left faced toward Verne. I walked to the stage and presented Verne with the band mace and asked if he would do the honor of calling the next set as Verne was drum major of the band for a period of time. I could tell it was an emotional time for Verne and it was for me as well. Verne never saw this coming.

Verne was a very humble man, a very proud man and he held the AOH in his heart strongly, serving the many roles he participated in over the year with great honor, valor and dignity. His intentions were always sincere and in the best interest of the AOH, constantly striving to uphold the values of what the AOH stands for.

In addition to being an asset for the AOH, and a well respected Hibernian Brother across the state, Verne was a former semi-pro ball player who kept us entertained with wonderful stories of years past, but most importantly, Verne was a loving husband and wonderful father. He was so proud of his family and even in recent weeks as Verne’s health declined, he refused to miss his son Sean’s wedding.

I could sit for hours telling you all the exceptional qualities of Verne—the list goes on and on. Verne will be missed like words cannot explain. Verne and his wife Ann are such a huge part of the AOH and they were first in line to volunteer with so many events at the AOH. Verne will get a send off on Saturday like no other!!!

RIP, lad.

News, People

Honors for the ‘Gold Standard of an Irish Gentleman’

Bob Haley and Joe Montgomery

Bob Haley and Joe Montgomery

When it comes to award banquets and the like, there are times when an organization has a hard time figuring out who to honor.

For the Firefighter John J. Redmond Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, it was a no-brainer.

At their Hibernian Service Award ceremony Friday night at the Firefighters Union Hall in Center City, the Redmond AOH honored the only living person to have an AOH division named after him (Division 65 in Upper Darby): Joe Montgomery.

“He was chosen by a committee of our executive board,” says Bob Haley, president of Ancient Order of Hibernians Division 22. “Joe’s name wasn’t even challenged.”

Haley, who is 48, recognizes well that Joe Montgomery is from another generation (he’s 90), but he says Montgomery is not set in his ways and he’s open to new thoughts and ideas. Since he’s been around the block a few times, though, Montgomery can be relied upon to provide wise counsel. And the young guys are all too willing to learn from the master.

“Joe is a friend to almost every division in the Philadelphia area and throughout Pennsylvania,” said Haley. “Joe is Pennsylvania’s oldest Hibernian. He’s been around long enough so that he knows what’s been tried and hasn’t worked. He’ll sit there and listen to you and what you have to say, and he’ll give you advice. Still, he likes to say, ‘It’s your generation who will keep the AOH going.’

“Joe’s been to every convention, not just the state but the national. He’s been an officer on almost every level. Everybody knows Joe Montgomery.”

In addition to Montgomery’s longtime dedication to the AOH, Haley says Montgomery is noteworthy for yet another reason: He’s what Bob Gessler, founder of the Hibernian Hunger Project and a leader among Philadelphia Hibernians, has called “the gold standard for an Irish gentleman.” Haley notes that Montgomery used to live at 11th and Jackson and, as a younger man, worked as a teamster.

“He went to work in a suit and tie every day,” says Haley. “He’d change into his work clothes when he got to work. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

The division honored several other people of note:

Hibernian of the year
Hubert Gantz
President Garrettford – Drexel Hill Vol. Fire Co.
AOH Div. 22 Recording Secretary

Irishman of the Year
Edward Dougherty
National Hibernian Hunger Project Chairman
President AOH Div. 39

Ladies Hibernian of the Year
Debbie Lenczynski
Treasurer LAOH Div. 22

 

News

Festive Fayette Street

Now, this is a man who knows how to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Now, this is a man who knows how to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Pipers, mummers, scouts, cheerleaders, AOHers, firefighters … everybody gets into the act at the Conshy parade.

The 2011 parade stepped off under partly cloudy skies and cool temperatures, but by the end the sun was shining and the crowds were lining up at Scoops ice cream stand on Fayette Street.

Here are our pics.

News

Elks Lodge Creams the Competition in Annual Irish Coffee Contest

The distinguished panel of judges.

The distinguished panel of judges.

It’s official.

In the sixth and largest Irish coffee competition ever sponsored by Ancient Order of Hibernians Division 1 in Swedesburg, Elks Lodge 714 in Bridgeport rose to the top. (8-East came in a close second, and there was a tie for third with Goodwill Fire Company and the Rib-House.)

Nine groups competed Thursday night, according to the Times Herald of Norristown.

Check out the newspaper’s video for an up-close look at the event.

News

Offend Me, I’m Irish

Local Hibernians protesting at Franklin Mills on Sunday.

Local Hibernians protesting at Franklin Mills on Sunday.

They’re almost the first thing you see when you visit Spencer Gifts in the Franklin Mills Mall. Hanging on a rack near the door is a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “Official St. Patty’s (sic) Day Drinking Team.” Nearby, a green plastic pint glass proclaims: “Green Beer Makes Me Horny.” Elsewhere in the store are shirts with more explicit messages, like one green tee adorned with two small shamrocks, strategically placed, and an invitation to “rub these for good luck.” And another one: “F**k Me, I’m Irish.”

To the folks at Egg Harbor-based Spencer’s, this extensive St. Patrick’s Day product line is all in good fun. To many Irish organizations—including the local Ancient Order of Hibernians—the shirts and other apparel are in bad taste, to say the least, and they perpetuate the notion that all Irish are debauched drunks.

For two hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon, about 20 Philly-area AOH members and supporters took their message directly to Spencer’s with a protest at Franklin Mills Mall, near the entrance closest to Spencer Gifts.

With Philadelphia police officers and mall cops hovering nearby, the protesters quietly stood near the entrance, holding up posters with handwritten messages, like “Boycott Spencer Gifts” and “St. Patrick’s Day Is Not a Drinking Day.” Every once in a while a shopper would stop to take in the scene, and occasionally one would hang around for a few minutes to chat with the picketers. Most passed right on by.

That was just fine with the protesters. They weren’t there to make a scene; they were there to make a point.

It’s a point they’ve made before, and with some success. Unfortunately, they suggested, Spencer’s has a short memory. “Spencer did something like this a couple of years ago, but it was taken care of,” said Tom O’Donnell, vice president of the state AOH board. “This year they popped back on the shelves again.”

No one in the group was suggesting that Spencer Gifts stop selling all St. Patrick’s Day products altogether—just the ones that, in their view, glorify drinking and those that are obscene.

“They portray St. Patrick’s Day as a drunk holiday,” O’Donnell said. “We don’t mind celebration on St. Patrick’s Day. What bothers us is the public display of ridicule. They put down the Irish. They wouldn’t do that with any other ethnic group.” O’Donnell also suggested that such products dishonor the memory of the saint after whom the day is named.

John Ragen, who helped his brother Tim Wilson organize the event, said Spencer’s has heard this message before. Last year, he and his brother visited Spencer Gift shops on their own, asking the managers to remove the offending items. This year, they wanted a better organized protest.

Like O’Donnell, Ragen said he isn’t against some celebratory products—he just objects to the ones, he said, that are “raunchy, sexually explicit and derogatory.”

From Spencer’s point of view, the St. Patrick’s Day products that their stores sell are not all that different from the shirts and novelty items sold in other Irish shops, both brick-and-mortar and online.

“Every one of those retailers sells exactly the same type of shirt,” said Spencer’s general counsel Kevin Mahoney, a self-described “good son of Erin.” He added, “It’s not our intention to demean the Irish people.”

If Spencer Gifts’ St. Patrick’s Day items were truly offensive, he suggested, customers wouldn’t buy them. But in reality, he said, “there is an enormous market in the Irish community who are willing to buy these shirts. Most of them have a good sense of humor and understand it’s all meant as a joke, not to be demeaning or derogatory.”

To the suggestion that Spencer’s is being singled out unfairly, Ragen noted that other stores have sold St. Patrick’s Day products which he and other Irish Americans deemed offensive. AOH members and others have objected in those cases as well, he said. “They (Spencer’s) are not being singled out,” he added. “Acme had them in their stores. We e-mailed them, and they pulled them out. Old Navy had some shirts in their store and (when people objected), they pulled them right off.”

So far, there’s no indication Spencer’s intends to follow the example of other prominent retailers, Ragen said. “We haven’t heard a word,” he said.

News

They Danced All Afternoon at Division 39

Sister James and court

This year's parade grand marshal, Sister James Anne Feerick, is second from left. She's joined by Mary Frances Fogg, left, parade committee president Kathy McGee Burns, right, and Mary Patrick, right.

The AOH Hall down on Tulip Street was jammed to the rafters Sunday as Division 39 hosted a big fund-raiser for the 2011 Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Jamison provided the tunes, and both the girls of the Celtic Flame School and guests alike took to the dance floor often throughout the afternoon.

There was plenty to munch on (are meatballs Irish?) and the beer flowed liberally. (No, not too liberally.)

It won’t be the last fund-raiser for this year’s parade … but it will be remembered as one of the best.

Click here to see the photo essay with captions.

People

Local Boy Makes Good

Jim Dougherty, parade chairman Jim Gallagher, and Doc's wife Jane.

Jim Dougherty, parade chairman Jim Gallagher, and Doc's wife Jane.

Conshohocken loves a parade, says this year’s Montgomery County St. Patrick’s Day grand marshal Jim Dougherty. And if anyone should know what they love in Conshy, Dougherty should.

Except for a two-year hitch in the Marine Corps, including a year in Vietnam, Dougherty has lived all his life within that Conshohocken ZIP code. He spent his early years on Hector Street. His dad Matthew was a Conshohocken police officer, later working for the Montgomery County sheriff’s department. After the young Dougherty returned from the service in 1981, he became a Conshohocken police officer, rising through the ranks to become a detective and, later, the department’s chief. (He retired in 1994.)

So six years ago, when the Ancient Order of Hibernians Notre Dame Division in Swedesburg went looking for a point man to help them move their annual parade from Norristown to the neighboring river borough of Conshohocken, they turned to their old friend “Doc” to help them gain all the necessary local approvals.

Says Dougherty, it was not a hard sell.

“I took it before the council. The vote was seven to nothing in favor,” he recalls. “That’s how tough it was. Most of the people on council were Irish, anyway.”

And with that, the first parade marched down Fayette Street on March 11, 2006. It’s been a popular event from one year to the next, with crowds lining the street from one end to the other. “It’s still wall to wall,” says Dougherty, and each year the crowd gets deeper.”

That the parade is now in his home town is gratifying to Jim Dougherty. He has never stopped loving and caring about that scrappy little borough, and the local attachments run deep.

“My family’s there and that’s where I’ve stayed,” he says. “It’s been redeveloped, but it’s still the same way it always was. It’s a quiet, quaint town. In Conshohocken (when he was a kid), everybody knew everybody. It was the kind of place where, if you got in trouble with the police department, your father and mother knew about it before you got home. And basically, it’s still the same way today—everybody still knows everybody.”

So when his friends in the AOH came calling with the idea to move the parade to Conshohocken, it wasn’t a tough sell for him, either. And he’s quick to add that it wasn’t all through his efforts that the parade came to town.

He recalls the event (AOH Notre Dame Appreciation Day on December 18) at which parade chairman Jim Gallagher read out all of his accomplishments and spent some time talking about his role in the move from Norristown to Conshy. “It was all true,” he says, “but there were other people in town who did a lot, too. We all brought the parade to Conshohocken.”

Dougherty will be honored and officially sashed as grand marshal at the Grand Marshal’s Ball on March 5 at the Jeffersonville Golf Club Ball Room. Any Irish organization that wishes to take part in the parade in Conshohocken please e-mail Pete Hand at hjerrylewis@comcast.net.

News

Hibernian Hunger Project Helps to Make the Season Bright

Making a list and checking it twice: Bob Gessler and Donna Donnelly.

Making a list and checking it twice: Bob Gessler and Donna Donnelly.

On a chilly Saturday morning, a small fleet of cars, minivans and trucks pulled up in front of Shamrock Food Distributors on Fraley Street near the Frankford Armory. Bob Gessler, founder of Philadelphia’s Hibernian Hunger Project, pulled up, and within minutes the huge loading dock doors rolled open. Volunteers wearing jackets and shirts from many local Ancient Order of Hibernian divisions poured from the vehicles, and within a short time a very smooth-running assembly line spontaneously took shape.

Boxes were loaded into truck beds and wedged into car trunks. Gessler handed envelopes neatly filled with addresses and street maps to drivers, and soon all those vehicles were headed out of the neighborhood in all directions.

This rarest of things—an Irish project run with Prussian efficiency—was the Hibernian Hunger Project’s first Christmas food basket operation. The local Hunger Project committee hatched the idea maybe three weeks before, not knowing how it might go or how many needy families would be provided with frozen turkeys with all the trimmings for their Christmas dinner.

In the end, the local committee raised funds for 70 boxes loaded with food, and easily found needy families to receive them.

“We had a committee meeting to propose the idea, and we all said, let’s just do it,” explains Gessler. “We sent the message out to as many people as we could, and we got a list of names. This year, so many people need it. What’s nice about this is, it really does some good. Everyone we talked to was appreciative.”

Helping the project get off the ground was Jimmy Tanghe, owner of Shamrock, who found a way to turn the many donations into boxes crammed to the lids with nutritious food. “I asked if he was up to the challenge,” Gessler says, “and he was.”

This year’s project was so successful, Gessler says, there are already plans to do it again. And Gessler and his gang are already thinking big: “I think 200 baskets is the minimum for next year.”