By Tom Brophy
I believe that we all need heroes as kids growing up to build a strong moral fiber and also to serve as an example from which to learn. I would like to tell you about my Aunt Marie.
Aunt Marie was born Marie Brophy in Skillman in 1914. She was my father’s sister and just about the greatest person who ever lived. When I think about things like compassion, patience, love of children, making you feel important, sacrifice, working under duress and never complaining, dealing with adversity, dealing with pain and pure unadulterated love, they all begin and end with Aunt Marie. I’m sure that by the time you finish this article you either will have known my Aunt Marie or wish you had.
When I was born in 1941 we lived on Spruce Street and she lived down the street. My mother was the school nurse at Miss Fines School so Aunt Marie took care of me during the day. Back then, she probably took care of others but you couldn’t prove it by me. As far as my earliest recollections of her goes, I was the only person on earth being cared for by her. She made me feel so loved and special that if there were others, I wasn’t aware.
Back then, she was married to Frank Bird, who was a policeman on the borough police force. He was the very first meter cop and drove the threewheeled motorcycle. I can remember Uncle Frank getting off work at 3 p.m. in the summer and rushing home to change clothes so he could take all of us to Manasquan at the shore for a swim. Yes, Aunt Marie would be ready to go and we would drive to Manasquan in one hour and spend two hours on the beach and then come home. That is where I learned to love the ocean and beach. My connection and love of the ocean started then and is still a big part of my life as well as the lives of my children and my grandchildren.
Aunt Marie invented the phrase child-care. She took care of children for 47 years. Not one or two kids a day but 20 to 30 a day. If you are now over 60 and had kids in Princeton you more than likely had Marie taking care of them at one time or another. For example, my dear friends Bart and Carol DiMeglio have a daughter Karen who is now approaching 50 and sure enough, Aunt Marie took care of her when she was a toddler. Marie and Frank moved to Hamilton Avenue around 1953 and Marie continued her child-care there. Oh, how I remember the early mornings when the parents would drop off the kids before going to work. The kids were ages 6 months to 5 years old.
It was absolutely amazing to watch her in action. She was the Dr. Doolittle of kids. She was magical with them. You could go to her house around 1 p.m. and there would be complete silence. You would not believe there were 27 kids there and they were ALL asleep taking a nap. She did this all by herself. She would have help preparing lunch, feed them and put them down for a nap.
She would have them sleep sideways on the bed. She would have three sleeping on the floor between the twin beds and about eight on the floor in the available room. There were no arguments, no complaints, no problem kids of any kind. You simply didn’t give Aunt Marie a hard time. Everyone behaved.
She never complained even though she had to deal with crippling arthritis. To visualize her care and love those children each and every day you would never know the total devastation that was slowly destroying this loving, sweet human being. We, who watched this act never could have known the extent of the pain until we saw what arthritis did to her body over the next 40 years. Because of the arthritis, she got a helper who would change diapers and make lunch. You see, the arthritis had begun with her hands and fingers. She needed help. Her outlook on life never wavered. She loved kids and the kids knew it. Everyone loved and respected her.
She got her first major setback on Dec. 8, 1956, when Uncle Frank died suddenly of a heart attack. I vividly remember being woken up by my father and having to rush over to Aunt Marie’s house to comfort her and my cousins Mary Lou and Jimmy. Mary Lou eventually moved to Hawaii and California. Jimmy remained here and raised his family.
Marie grieved over losing her husband and great father to her children and went back to doing the thing she did better than anyone alive and that was caring for the children. She married Frank Petrone who owned a taxi business and was the father of Jack Petrone who became chief of police for Princeton Township. The Petrones are a wonderful large family and still remain close friends ends of mine. So Marie was 45 and married to a second Frank.
She was so busy with all the kids each day and because she had such a knack for making it look easy she became very much in demand. She hired one full time person to help her as her arthritis slowly robbed her of her mobility. She never complained about her pain or the hand she was dealt of losing a husband at an early age, but when she lost her second husband named Frank in almost the same way, it was almost fiction. To think that one person could have two husbands taken to the hospital and not come home is unthinkable.
Aunt Marie continued taking care of children up until the point she couldn’t walk anymore. The arthritis had crippled her to the point where she could no longer work and provide for herself. She moved out of her home and moved to affordable housing but always visited by Jimmy and myself. Finally, Jimmy moved her to Merwick where she could get the 24-hour care that she needed. Jimmy was there every single day to see her and spend time with her. He was the true constant in her life. He loved his mother and his caring of my Aunt Marie over the last 20 years of her life was something I will never forget. He has my total respect and admiration.
Marie Brophy Bird Petrone took care of thousands of children over 47 years and loved every minute of it. She was the most giving caring person I have ever met. I truly loved her and if you knew her, you loved her also. If you didn’t know her you missed out because this great woman was one of a kind and my hero.
Tom Brophy is a native of Princeton and was owner of the former Brophy Shoe Store.
