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Bob Sweeney—A Remembrance
By Timothy Joyce
Bobby Sweeney was a Guardian Angel to the Joyce family. He had spent some childhood years living with my mother Anna Mae Stewart and family under the loving care of his Aunt Agnes (our grandmother) who died young before any of us were born.
His dad, Martin L. the chief of our clan—the legendary Uncle Mart, was down in Congress taking names. He was the only member of Congress who opposed America’s entry into World War II because it meant coming to the aid of the English who had treated the Irish so cruelly for eight hundred years. Unless they left Ireland, he wasn’t about to lend a helping hand! No sir!
Bobby and Anna Mae in particular regarded each other more like brother and sister and in time he would show again and again unbelievable brotherly love and kindness to our mother and to our father Bill Joyce, the youngest of 13 from Balinrobe, County Mayo. Our father’s dad, Michael, had died before his mother Julia Brannigan gave birth to the youngest Bill. Thirteen was an unlucky number for Bill Joyce. Indeed his life made you believe in a curse. His suffering was gigantic and completely unintentional.
When our house was destroyed by fire and we were left destitute, Bobby sent money to my mother on the condition that she would not tell anyone. On her deathbed she revealed that it was Bobby who paid the rent on a house nearby. She was sworn to keep the secret from everyone.
When Michael, may he rest in peace, was expelled from St. Ignatius, he was a shakened boy of 16. It was RES who got this gifted high school dropout a job at the County Welfare Department, as the youngest case worker in history and thereby sent Mike off on his first steps to a life that Charles Dickens could not have imagined.
When our father was besieged and addled by crippling mental illness where his breakdowns would come often but always in unexpected ways; the only option for Anna Mae was to sign him in to a mental hospital on Turney Road. That ‘institution’ has become in my heart the equal to Hell on Earth (the very name still chills my blood.) Though it is long gone, the grounds are still haunted by the voices of those who suffered horrors as patients.
Bobby Sweeney used his considerable influence in Washington to make sure our dad could get into the Veterans Hospital in Brecksville. And while it wasn’t Heaven, at least when we visited Dad he didn’t have the blackened eyes and purple bruises at his temples where he was tortured with electro-shock treatment on Turney Road. Bobby worked his magic and made the life of our father just a little bit better.
When the sad life of our father ended—he was killed as a pedestrian by a car on Puritas Avenue while crossing to go to St Patrick’s and get his throat blessed on St. Blaise Day—Bobby Sweeney paid for the wake and burial out at Holy Cross. He only asked that once again Anna Mae keep that a secret between the two of them.
I shall never forget my wedding day, held at the Newman Center (a store front on Euclid Ave.). A friend said she made wonderful sugarless cakes and would be glad to make a wedding cake. The cake was late, very late, and when it arrived it tasted like compressed cardboard. Suddenly the front door opened and in came dapper Bobby in a sharp suit and a green carnation in his lapel looking like Jimmy Cagney and right behind him was Jimmy McCoy who acted as Bob’s second for years. McCoy held a beautiful sheet cake of iced white frosting and placed it on the table.
Soon he returned with a case of chilled champagne. Bobby shrugged it off saying that he had been to a political fundraiser and he thought he would just bring along what was left over. It felt like Jesus at the wedding feast where he brought in the “best wine for the last.” I never believed for a minute the story about the fundraiser.
And throughout many of the challenges our family faced, the Sweeney family has always treated our family with brotherly love and fellowship—always. When I was in the presence of Bobby Sweeney I always felt like I belonged. Standing next to him one could feel his undefeated will to never ever give up, or walk away from an honorable fight, or to always be there for the downtrodden and the dispossessed. The man in full was just about the greatest man I ever met.
Thus it was nothing short of a miracle that day when I showed up in Cleveland to learn that Bobby was on his deathbed. How could he die? It seemed impossible. I was honored to be among the brothers and sisters as they helped ready himself for the Next World. When it was my turn, I got out the rosary beads my mother had given me from the trouser pockets of my father before the casket was closed. “Pray with rosary often. Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. Pray for a happy death.,” she said.
I held the beads in my hands and broke down in tears before I got through the first decade, I came to his side and touched his hands: “Oh Bobby, Bobby! How can I ever thank you for all you did for our family.” He couldn’t speak, but I saw him for a split second as I always did as a boy: “Timmy, don’t weep for me; what you do for your own people never needs a thank you. Never.” ♥