At first, Ed seemed like a pleasant fellow, who liked poached eggs for breakfast, long walks, gardening, smoking cigars, pacing the floor during radio broadcasts of city council meetings, reading to small children, and teaching just about anything, to anyone who would listen. I learned how to grow radishes and how to eliminate "lookit" from my vocabulary, as well as a few choice lines from the poem called, the Wreck of the Hesperus. If he was really in a rare form, he would also do a dramatic recitation of a few lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. "Water to the left of me, water to the right of me, and not a drop to drink. (What will I do, but drown.)" We also heard stories about his brother Walter and his two sons, Edward and Richard. He never tired of describing a long, long hike that he took with his boys up several miles of Burncoat St. and onto their house on 14 Brighton Road. He thought it was funny that the whole experience had been peppered with complaints from the boys, who knew a forced march when they saw one.
Even though he enjoyed these interactions with us, he wanted to do more, so he volunteered to teach religion at St. Bernard's Church. The half mile walk to the church was a bonus, as far as he was concerned. Then one wintery afternoon on his way to class, he fell on the ice and damaged his hip. After the accident he struggled with a bit of depression. So the visiting parish priest suggested that he read the bible. And I can still remember the day he asked my mother if we had one. "Do we have one? He must be blind." I said to myself, since the big old bible with golden-edged pages and red print for the words that Jesus spoken, resided on a table in the middle of the living room. I knew, because I was the one who dusted it on Saturdays. Well, he took that bible to his room and read it for hours at a time, until he began to experience the power of God’s love. There were times when I knocked on his door and he was in another world. He had a new joy and peace about him. It was almost embarrassing to look into his eyes. I was intrigued.
The only problem was that now Ed Dolan was even more interested in reaching out to young people, and we were the only ones around. Worse yet, I was experiencing major struggles in junior high that were quickly become unbearable. So I tried to avoid him as best I could for a few months. But to no avail. Then came the big stand off in our kitchen, when I was sent to do ironing. There he was standing between the freezer and the ominous mangle ironing machine that pressed sheets, towels and the sleeves of small careless children. I really couldn't decide which was worse, ironing or yet another attempt at pleasant conversation with Mr. Dolan. So I came right out and told him, "I hate you!"
"Do you, really?" was his calm response.
I stormed out of the room. Then about halfway up the stairs and almost all the way down the hall to my room, I knew the answer to his question. No I didn't. His persistent friendship was just what I needed. After that we were friends for life. I could ask him anything. I could share all kinds of dreams with him, the big important ones, like a fascination with open heart surgery, or silly teenage issues, like being embarrassed about my violin at school. He was also instrumental in my parent's decision to place me in Sacred Heart Academy, the same high school where his sister had been the principal a few years earlier.
It was during my junior year at Sacred Heart, that our time together finally came to an end. My parents decided to give up their business school and relocate to a smaller house. This meant that Ed Dolan was off to live with his brother for about a year or so, until he needed a nursing home. Lucky for me, he chose one near my family's house and I was able to visit him once or twice a week. Then one day, Ed was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Little by little, he got worse and our conversations got shorter. Until one afternoon, he asked me, "Therese, am I dying?" We both knew that he was, but he needed to say it out loud to somebody. My reply was, "Well yes. We all are."
A few weeks later, I was on my way to visit, when a friend stopped me on the street and invited me to a track meet. So I went there instead. And it was at that time that Ed Dolan died. It was tough to lose such a good friend and puzzling to finally meeting Sr. Charles Edward, who kept saying what a blessing his death was. That made no sense to me, so I cried and prayed and tried to figure it out for myself. It took a while. I guess it happened one day with I was walking by the nursing home and I heard a song on my red transistor radio, Turn Around, Look at Me, by the Lettermen. "There is someone walking behind you, turn around. Look at me. And there's someone to love and guide you…" It was then that I knew he would not abandon me. Somehow, he would be there, walking beside me. And I was so grateful. When I got home and reread his obituary, I chuckled. Apparently, all great men die in February, as well.
Copyright (c) 2011 Therese Boucher www.featurethat.com
Edward Dolan (Feb 3, 1885 – Feb 9, 1965)
Ed Dolan was born on Feb 3, 1885. “All great men are born in February!” he would add with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. He was the son of Charles Dolan, who ran a thread mill on Malvern Road. As business prospered his father moved the Dolan family of ten children, from Gage Street to Gladstone St., then on to a larger home at 40 Hollywood St. As a young adult, Ed Dolan went to the Worcester Normal School on Gage St, then Clark University where he studied to be a high school math teacher.
I really only knew Ed Dolan for half a dozen years, towards the end of his life, long after his wife Mildred had died. In 1957 he took up residence as a boarder in our family’s home on 78 Burncoat St., Worcester, Mass. My parents had bought an oversized house with a wrap-around porch and thirteen rooms. The idea was that our family and their thriving enterprise, called the Fenner Business Career School, would grow into the space. Meanwhile, they reasoned, a boarder or two would be a wise financial move. So there we were –five kids, two or three boarders, three school rooms, four homemade typing tables, ten stenotype machines, and two busy parents.
