Nine for Nine

by CM Kelly

“Nine for Nine”, is a phrase you really don’t hear that often, maybe on a basketball court, but that’s about it. Of course you would never hear it in a casino or at a baseball game. An oddish phase that immediately makes you think of perfection, something hard to achieve, definitely a rare event. For me, I would like to make nine foul shots in a row or buy nine stocks that double in price. But life has taught me that it is more likely I will miss nine foul shots and definitely will never pick nine successful stocks in a row!

For this story, the phrase “Nine for Nine” represents the fact, or better described as the accomplishment of Ann Marie and Paul V. Kelly who had nine children in the 50s and 60s all of whom graduated from North Pocono High School (NPHS) in Moscow Pennsylvania, a perfect “Nine for Nine”.

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THE BACKGROUND: All nine of Paul and Ann Marie Kelly’s children were born in Scranton PA, and if you are wondering, yes, we were an Irish Catholic family. Our family has its roots in Scranton. It’s where our great-grandparents settled after immigrating from Europe. It was where Ann Marie Herbert, the oldest of three living on Colfax Ave, and Paul V. Kelly, the third son of five living on Webster Ave, became high school sweethearts at Scranton’s Central High School. After returning home from World War II, Paul would propose to Ann Marie. They were joined together with a classic Irish wedding at St. Johns the Evangelist on Pittston Ave. The young couple would “set up shop” on the south side of Scranton living above the Kelly’s Family Store & Butcher Shop located at the corner of Crown Ave and Maple Street on the south side. Paul would start his career as a butcher and manage the store with his mother. As the family grew, eight of the nine would be baptized at St Johns while five attended St Johns Elementary School.

By 1966, with a brood of eight children, there clearly was a need for more room. Although I was still under 10, I do recall the tight confines of the Crown & Maple apartment, with a double set of bunk beds in the bedrooms, a small kitchen with a side porch and of course only one bathroom. Plus, we had no yard, none, no back yard, no front yard, no side yard! Imagine that scenario, eight children ages 14 to 1, with five boys, living in a three-bedroom, one-bath apartment with no yard to play in!

Of course, a section of Crown Ave was routinely taken over and turned into our play area, with only the Stop sign providing some safety from cars. We actually grew up with shouts of “Let’s go play in the street”, but that all came to a halt one day when # 3 of 9 darted out in front of a car chasing a ball. The injuries were more psychological than physical but playing on Crown Ave was no longer an option. This led us to make the two block excursions down to a wooded area with a small creek next to the old Brook Street public swimming pool (which is now McNichols Plaza Elementary School). It was a prime area for exploring and exercise. If we were really adventurous, we would hike over to the nearby Crown Ave Railroad Tunnel to watch the coal trains enter and exit through that mysterious pathway that ran under the city. Another source of exercise was found tagging along with my older brothers to the ball fields up on Meadow Ave and Adler Streets.

Maybe it was the tight living conditions or strong parental controls from that era (we were rarely spanked, since our parents had mastered the Catholic guilt routine to perfection), but I got the distinct impression that we were very well-behaved: we were never late getting up for school, made our beds, did our homework, did our chores, went to bed on time. It was pretty routine to hear our relatives, neighbors or teachers say we were “perfect little angels”.

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THE BIG MOVE: Sometime between the arrivals of #7 and #8, around 1963-64, our parents decided to purchase an abandoned farmhouse in Springbrook Township. It was located about a dozen miles north of Scranton on a dirt road that was about two miles from any paved roads. This meant it was more than two miles away from any neighbors (aka any civilization). It was a typical farmhouse built just after the Civil War. The foundation was built from field stones, it had a traditional L-shaped floor plan with a porch on two sides, clapboard siding, it was a very austere structure.

At the time Dad/Mom purchased it, the only source of heat was a pot belly stove in the kitchen. Interestingly, there were no fireplaces in the whole structure. The farmhouse was quite run down but had good bones, its previous owners were a hunting club that must have walked away from it ten years earlier. Thankfully the previous owners did install indoor plumbing and brought electricity to the house so it did have some 20th-century conveniences.

The farmhouse was surrounded by numerous open fields, each demarked by a typical New England field stone fence. I would guess that there were 50+ acres of clear land within eyesight. The original barn was just across the dirt road from the homestead, but it had collapsed upon itself many years earlier. It was really just a heap of rotting timbers and planks. There were two small ponds just a stone’s throw away from the house, the larger one being about 2 acres in size. There was a beaver pond that fed a small creek (pronounced “Krik” not “Kreek”) just over the hill. In many ways, it was the perfect place to raise a large family.

As a family, we used the “as is” farmhouse for two summers as a vacation spot. I vaguely recall that the house was dry and drab, with only a few lights, lots of mosquitoes and generally a scary place for a 2nd-3rd grader, akin to Norman Bates’ house. The next year Dad totally gutted the place. The clapboard siding was replaced with stucco, new windows and a new roof were installed. The house was totally rewired, new plumbing, a new well and furnace were added. Of course, Dad had his little army of troops he could order around to make this work go quicker. The two oldest boys sometimes were allowed to hammer nails into 2 by 4s, but never could touch a saw.

The icing on the cake for the “re-do” of the farmhouse was the addition of a 15ft by 20ft Family Room on the east side of the house. It had a fireplace on one end and walls filled with windows on the other two sides. The windows provided a fantastic view of the two ponds in the distance, especially at sunset or during winter storms. Dad seemed to really enjoy the views from the far corner of the family room, as he smoked his last cigarette and downed his last beer and shot of the day while sitting at his desk.

I was in 4th grade when we completed the “big move” from Scranton to Springbrook Township. I left my friends at St Johns the Evangelist Elementary School for Elmhurst Elementary School. Apparently, the influx of 8 children at that time into the North Pocono School District overwhelmed them. They had to split those of us in the elementary grades between three different schools: Daleville, Moscow and Elmhurst. Over time there would be some consolidation and eventually five of the nine would graduate from Moscow Elementary. The oldest two went directly to NPHS, where grades seven through 12 were taught.

Although it would have been beyond me to recognize at the time, my parents and older siblings surely must have loved moving from a 3 bedroom/1 bath apartment to a two-floor house with four bedrooms and 1.5 baths and acres of fields to play in. We now had fuel oil for heat, thus no more shoveling coal into a furnace nor the traditional “taking out of ashes” every Wednesday. We now had an upstairs and of course the huge family room with its fireplace and space for all eight of us to watch TV or play games.

Of course, with all this extra physical space that just meant that there was room for one more child, #9 showed up in October 1968, two years after making the “big move”.

Our back & side yards were big enough to hold wiffle ball, baseball, kickball and football games. We had 40-foot-tall pine trees in the front yard to climb and an apple tree in the side yard where we built a tree house. The lakes were a huge bonus gift to the new settings, it allowed us all to learn how to swim, ice skate, catch frogs and fish. Plus, the small creek (again it’s pronounced “krik”) running down the back side of the property gave us another place to play in and explore.

Eventually, my father put together a few 4 by 4 wooden posts and a piece of plywood to hold up a basketball net thereby creating a grass-mud basketball court. We would shoot baskets until it was time to go to bed. Yes, we were somewhat isolated, but we, at least me, generally didn’t care, we had room to run, scream, hide, swim, fish, explore and just be kids.

Although the euphoria for this new utopia was tempered by the endless need to cut grass, shovel snow, install fences, paint them, planting flowers/bushes and eventually work on the ‘Big Dig”, a task that in itself has its own story. With a chore list longer than a broom handle, our dad became a regular Field Sargent, every day after school we always had several hours of work to be done before dinner. With the nearest neighbors more than 2 miles away Dad had a captured work crew. In many ways I believe these chores built the character, muscle and work ethic within all 9 of us. Today, as I describe this daily-weekly cycle to others, they cringe and say it sounds something akin to child abuse. There was no time to “find ourselves, “be ourselves”, or “pursue our passions” we were just growing up.

During the 60s & 70s it was standard fair to be part of the: Cub Scouts/Brownies/Girl Scouts/Boy Scouts, Little League/Teener League, Biddy Basketball and of course we had regular catechism classes at St Catherines of Siena in Moscow. These “outings” away from the house on the dirt road afforded us some non-school interactions with others our own age. But it wasn’t until we got to NPHS, that we began to seriously interact with our peers. I personally never realized any void or lack of friends, of course we had them, but with so many brothers and sisters, who needed more?

How our Mom and Dad managed all of the issues, activities, daily problems, finances, feeding, cleaning, washing/drying, drop-offs and pickups that swirled around us nine children, is all well beyond my level of comprehension.

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HIGH SCHOOL: When I got to NPHS in 1969, it was still a rather new facility, built in 1964 with the consolidation of Moscow High School and others in the immediate area. To me it was a gorgeous, modern facility, it had sleek – clean lines with a unique rounded roof to the gymnasium. Nothing like the Roman or Gothic-style High Schools in Scranton.

The classrooms and library were full of natural light, the hallways were lined with lockers, the auditorium had soft cushioned seats, it had classrooms dedicated to art, home economics, music and shop. The cafeteria was bright and clean which opened out into a mini courtyard. The football and baseball fields were adjacent to the school, you could see them from the classrooms. The building reflected America at that time, a rapidly growing population, modern designs, the jet set age, it truly reflected the idea that a very optimistic future was within reach.

While I was at NPHS, Mr. Aikens was the principal of this facility. At my current senior stage in my life, I can only remember a few teachers from those six years in that building. Sadly, only two or three teachers had any memorable impact on my education. To be totally honest, it was pretty much a 50-50 split between those that left me with a positive memory and those that left me with a negative one. And I don’t consider that a bad thing. I firmly believe we learn as much from positive experiences as we do from negative ones. We all know the phrase or quote, “….it’s not how we handle our success, it’s how we deal with our failings…”

Of the ~ 1,000 students in this building, maybe a few dozen walked to it from the town of Moscow, maybe 50 or so had a car and could drive to the HS, and the rest of us arrived in waves of busses from: Big Bass Lake, Elmhurst, Daleville, Gouldsboro, Moscow and the Townships of: Jefferson, Roaring Brook, Lehigh, Clifton, Covington, Thornhurst, Madison, Jefferson and Springbrook. It was an expansive school district; we were not the only family living on a dirt road.

Within the nine of us, several would-be Class President, Home Coming King, or captains of a sports team, most would letter in 1 or more sports and make the Honor Roll. Always leading by example, our Mom held a term as president of the PTA, and our father was president of the Boosters Club. Seven of the nine went on to graduate from college, 6 would get advanced degrees.

In the end, all Nine of Nine would graduate from NPHS. We all rode Bus # 28, studied in the library, ate in the cafeteria, watched school productions in the auditorium, played for or cheered on the Trojans in various sports, and on our last day we all walked across the same gymnasium floor to receive our High School diploma.

Thankfully, our parents did get to see all nine cross that gymnasium floor, but unfortunately, they are no longer with us. With the passing of our mother in 1990, we set up the Ann Marie Kelly Scholarship Fund, it was renamed the Paul V and Ann Marie Kelly Scholarship Fund after our father passed in 2004. The Fund has awarded over $70,000 to NPHS students.

Nine for Nine, a high accomplishment by any standard.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS & NPHS CLASS

# 1 of 9 Mrs. Erin A. Daumer Class of 1970
# 2 of 9 Mr. Paul V. Kelly, Jr Class of 1971

# 3 of 9 Colonel Sean P. Kelly, USAF Class of 1973
# 4 of 9 Mr. Colin M. Kelly P.E. Class of 1975
# 5 of 9 Dr. Garrett M. Kelly Class of 1977
# 6 of 9 Mr. Mark H. Kelly Class of 1979
# 7 of 9 Honorable Mauri B. Kelly Class of 1981
# 8 of 9 Dr. Pamela M. Salvino Class of 1983
# 9 of 9 Mr. Christopher J. Kelly Class of 1986

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I lack professional training or writing experience. I hated my HS/College English and literature classes. My passion has always been engineering, with a focus on numbers, formulas, equations, and algorithms. Believe it or not, all of my stories are based on actual events, with just a small touch of embellishment to fill in the memory gaps.

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...a phrase you really don't hear that often..

Nine for Nine

by CM Kelly

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