Chicken today, feathers tomorrow. That’s how my mother described life with my father, James McQuilan Stewart, a Belfast-born charmer whose love of literature led to my career as an advertising writer.
In this 1923 photo, he looks every inch the winner.
He arrived in New York in the early 1920s, bringing with him an excellent head for figures, a great sense of humor and the Irish love of poetry. As a child I read and re-read a leather-bound book of poems he gave me; six decades later I can still recite Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Goal”, his favorite poem, by heart.
During the darkest days of the Depression, with no job and a second child on the way, my father tried his luck now and then at Belmont or Aqueduct racetracks. Thanks to one memorable win, he showered us with gifts: a Tiffany diamond ring for my mother, a rocking horse with a wonderful tail for me.
When he lost, Mom said, “Chicken today, feathers tomorrow.”During World War II, we lost touch with my father’s brothers Robert, Edward, and George (one of whom was an RAF pilot during the war), and sisters Doris and Lillian who owned a dance studio before marrying and moving to Wales. At one point the family lived in Liverpool. Today I long for aunts and uncles I’ve never met, all speaking with my father’s beautiful Belfast brogue, the one I had as a child.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the August/September 2010 issue of Irish America. ⬥
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