Frank's Niece!

[caroljane]

Jonathan...he wasn't a very good painter...lol.

He was a student. Some aspects of his work are good. I think that he maybe had a natural eye for certain elements of painting, but not for others.

I think you're right that he looked at painting as a hobby, despite the fact that Rand and some of her followers wanted to give the impression that painting was becoming his career and that he was excelling at it. From what I've read of him, he painted because he enjoyed it, and he pretty much ignored most of the romanticized pushiness and unsolicited artistic advice that he would get from Ayn or members of her circle of followers. I'm not sure, but from what I've picked up in bits and pieces about him over the years, I've gotten the sense that he seemed to have been much more aware and accepting than those around him of the fact that he was a student artist, and not the virtuoso that others wanted to believe that he was. I think the important thing is that he was enjoying learning to paint, regardless of how good or bad he was, and despite the silly expectations and pressures that he might have gotten from others.

>Does it say anywhere where he would do magic tricks...he was good at that. ~Cathy~

I don't remember hearing before that he did magic tricks, but it makes sense that he would be interested in illusions, and be good at them. It fits well with what I've heard about his personality.

J

J, it could just be a generational thing. My father and uncles all did simple magic and card tricks, as did their contemporaries, as young men tweet clever graphics or memes or whatever they do for diversion now. And the personalities of Dad and his brothers are as far from the way I perceive Frank O'Connor as it is possible to be - though come to think of it, their wives were all kooky.

[Jonathan]

Here are a few color versions of Frank's art:

[caroljane]

PFD, if you are not interested in these post, then why are you here? I don't know about the others, but I don't care if you think this post should matter or not, your opinion does not matter to me!

I don't think he was addressing you, Cathy. He was being lawyerly and harrying the Prosecution to get to its point.

[PDS]

PFD, if you are not interested in these post, then why are you here? I don't know about the others, but I don't care if you think this post should matter or not, your opinion does not matter to me!

Cathy:

Now that's the right attitude! Seriously. Almost like a line from The Fountainhead, ironically....

Please don't be offended by a simple question. That's all it was.

The "reason I am here" is the reason have always been here: the posters on this site are invariably interesting, well-read, and mostly recovering Rand aficionados. And they usually aren't as sensitive as Brant is/was this afternoon.

I asked the question because I assumed somebody would enlighten me. Again, that is all.

[Cathy]

Brant thank you so much! Who is PDF and why does he care what we talk about? I will email you my address, I would love to have it!!!! You all will never know how much you all have helped me remember. One thing I truly wish you all would have Known "Ayn Rand" as aunt Alice! You all see her as this independent thinker with strong views, I seen her as a flumpy (if that is a word) disorganized, rattled, sweet, kind, excited woman. If that all makes sense to you. I've seen some of her early interviews today, and in them she seem kind of a dictator. Well, just like Michael said...he wears two hats, That must have been Aunt Alice to...and that's ok. Brant I truly appreciate your gift, and the sentiment you have for my uncle...sincerely thank you. ~Cathy~

[Cathy]

I am sorry PDF if I missed understood...please except my apologies no hard feelings ok? I'm just having a hard time with all this, so please be patient with me. ~Cathy~ sorry...

[Cathy]

Jonathan, they are better than I thought. I can say one thing, he is better at it than I am. Thank you for sharing them with me. ~Cathy~

[PDS]

I am sorry PDF if I missed understood...please except my apologies no hard feelings ok? I'm just having a hard time with all this, so please be patient with me. ~Cathy~ sorry...

No apology necessary. You would have to do much worse to offend me in any way. But continuing to call me PDF is one of them.**

**Just kidding.

[Brant Gaede]

I never liked "Man Also Rises" much, but it looked pretty good on the cover of my 25th An. Ed. of The Fountainhead I purchase for eight bucks in 1968. Probably at least a $40 book new today. That'd be about right. Today's buck is worth 25 cents of the 1968 buck. Coming back from Vietnam I had about 5000 dollars of "blood money," which is like $20,000 today. Glad I spent it and got rid of it. If I have to kill people, I prefer not to be paid. That keeps me close to home where I belong. I didn't even want to volunteer for the local ambulance service in Park Ridge, NJ--blood and gore--which may have saved me from hauling Richard Nixon around in 1994. I did drive by his house in Woodcliff Lake--he later moved to PR--around midnight in the early 1980s, drunk, and honked the hell out of my horn.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Brant thank you so much! Who is PDF and why does he care what we talk about? I will email you my address, I would love to have it!!!! You all will never know how much you all have helped me remember. One thing I truly wish you all would have Known "Ayn Rand" as aunt Alice! You all see her as this independent thinker with strong views, I seen her as a flumpy (if that is a word) disorganized, rattled, sweet, kind, excited woman. If that all makes sense to you. I've seen some of her early interviews today, and in them she seem kind of a dictator. Well, just like Michael said...he wears two hats, That must have been Aunt Alice to...and that's ok. Brant I truly appreciate your gift, and the sentiment you have for my uncle...sincerely thank you. ~Cathy~

It's the first one in post 252. The framing is right but burnished aluminum works too. Make sure you use non-acidic matting or it will gas up under the glass and slowly degrade the print by dulling it.

--Brant

[Cathy]

lol...Im sorry once again about the name thing PDS

[Cathy]

Brant, you all are so much smarter than me. When I get it, I will email you so you can tell me exactly how to take care of it. I raised six children, and apparently I only know baby talk. I'm going to get me a dictionary and set it right by me, so I know every word you all are saying...but you all are teaching me some really cool words!

[Cathy]

PFD, if you are not interested in these post, then why are you here? I don't know about the others, but I don't care if you think this post should matter or not, your opinion does not matter to me!

Cathy:

Now that's the right attitude! Seriously. Almost like a line from The Fountainhead, ironically....

Please don't be offended by a simple question. That's all it was.

The "reason I am here" is the reason have always been here: the posters on this site are invariably interesting, well-read, and mostly recovering Rand aficionados. And they usually aren't as sensitive as Brant is/was this afternoon.

I asked the question because I assumed somebody would enlighten me. Again, that is all.

What was the line in the fountain head? Hey I just learned how to do this!

[Cathy]

Brant thank you so much! Who is PDF and why does he care what we talk about? I will email you my address, I would love to have it!!!! You all will never know how much you all have helped me remember. One thing I truly wish you all would have Known "Ayn Rand" as aunt Alice! You all see her as this independent thinker with strong views, I seen her as a flumpy (if that is a word) disorganized, rattled, sweet, kind, excited woman. If that all makes sense to you. I've seen some of her early interviews today, and in them she seem kind of a dictator. Well, just like Michael said...he wears two hats, That must have been Aunt Alice to...and that's ok. Brant I truly appreciate your gift, and the sentiment you have for my uncle...sincerely thank you. ~Cathy~

It's the first one in post 252. The framing is right but burnished aluminum works too. Make sure you use non-acidic matting or it will gas up under the glass and slowly degrade the print by dulling it.

--Brant

OMGOSH Brant I would love to have it, thank you so much! ~Cathy~

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have a sincere question: why does any of this matter?

David,

I'll try to give an answer that goes beyond asking why does your question matter to people who find value in this.

1. To start with, you're a lawyer. You must have figured out by now that an inherent characteristic of human beings is that they are intensely interested in human beings. Your entire practice depends on it.

We humans think in stories and almost all of our stories are about human beings. When they are not about human beings, they are about anthropomorphized animals, other life forms, or inanimate things (that is anthropomorphized to some extent).

2. Based on that, I hate to be obvious, but there it is. There is a hugely successful segment of the publishing, education and entertainment industries out there based on biographies and history. Stories about people. Products come in the form of books, videos, audios, museums, photographs and other graphics, lectures, fictional stories based on true events and people, hell there's even a wildly popular History Channel on TV that runs biographies and stories of the past 24/7. The public doesn't consume this stuff merely because they are forced to (like in a boring class in school). They can't help not consume it. It's what human beings do.

There's a thing called a "story trance" and we all go in and out of it all the time. Check this out. If you want to hook a person's interest and capture their attention, almost against their will, start a conversation at a party out of the blue (even with strangers you just met) with a line like this, "Man, I was almost killed when that Mack truck ran into the side of my car. I still get nightmares seeing my two-year old flying in the air like that."

Bingo, Instant attention. Someone will ignore this only if they are deep into another story or if they are competing for attention or something like that. Caught unawares, people immediately think an inner "Huh? Say what?!" and they focus in as their mind turns off the rest of the world for a bit. They immediately go into a "story trance."

Notice that this is not a story about the life-cycle of a plant or a discussion about philosophy or technical instructions on how to operate a software program. It's a story about human beings--and fundamental values at that (life and death). The effect is innate to our very minds. (This is an epistemological issue I am studying and will probably do something with over time.)

3. People also have great interest in not being deceived. Nobody likes to be an unwitting patsy and nobody likes being lied to. The fundamentalist Objectivists have promoted a sanitized version of Ayn Rand and Frank for decades. And they have shouted at the Brandens "Liar, liar, pants on fire," during this time with a viciousness that is impressive, to say the least.

They have transformed Ayn Rand into a myth and they have tried to sell it, over and over.

And why have they succeeded at times? As it is only natural for people who are innately interested in people and who are also interested in Rand's ideas to be interested in Rand as a "people," too, that automatically makes her history important to them.

What happens with Cathy's memories of Uncle Frank and her "kooky Aunt Alice" is that they are at odds on a fundamental level with The Great Ayn Rand Mythology, and instead deal with Ayn Rand as a typical member of the family of someone who does belong within the O-Land orbit. There's no way to sanitize her narrative and there's no way to reconcile it with long-held cherished stories about Rand.

A good example is Rand teaching her a prayer. Say what? Ayn Rand is the atheist's atheist. How the hell did that happen? It has to be a phony cooked up story to undermine her. Except Cathy says she remembers it and she's credible, (And getting more and more credible by the day to the doubters.) So how does a fundy deal with that? This is more than important to a fundy and to people who have gravitated to Rand precisely because of her atheism (many of whom have had horrible experiences with religion). It feels like a massive betrayal to them.

Another example is even more serious. Cathy asked several times so far why Rand did not stand up for her when she was a child who received brutal beatings and Rand knew about them. After all, Rand was a famous activist and, although she did not say it, I know some of the more Rand Myth people have thought it by now, Rand preached that initiation of force was sheer evil. So what could be a purer example of this sheer evil be than a small child being savagely beaten right under her nose, in her very family? As an adult, Cathy asked where was she? In her subconscious, she's been asking for almost half a century. It's a fair question, too. I would be asking the same damn thing in her shoes. Definitely not one of Rand's finer choices.

(And I say this with all the admiration I carry of Rand.)

Read this thread and the one on SLOP from that perspective and you will see there are several parts of Cathy's story that suddenly strike the sanitized Ayn Rand Myth like a root canal where the dentist did not apply enough anesthetic.

4. Those who participated in the PARC wars have encountered a very stubborn boneheaded Ayn Rand Myth mentality in Valliant and his supporters. There were oodles of rationalizations and misquotes and parallel myths offered as truth and snark and intimidation and a whole host of things like that. It was irritating to think grown human beings could do that in earnest. Now deal with people like that over months and even a year or two. That's really really really irritating.

What;s worse, Valliant had a habit very similar to Eric Holder of never answering a question directly. For example, you could ask if he believed Ayn Rand was jealous of Nathaniel seeing a younger woman and that was part of the mix in her reaction, and Valliant would pivot to do something like going on and on about Nathaniel's victimizing Rand. You ask again and he would respond with something like Rand could see further and clearer than anyone in history and this is what people want to attack in her. You ask again and he would say he dealt with this in his book. You ask again and he would start asking why this is so important to you. And on and on. He would never say yes or no. This habit stinks of dishonesty in the back of most people's minds and they get very irritated at being treated like a young child asking about the birds and bees and being given a cookie instead of an answer. That has built up over the years.

Also, the ARI folks have limited public access to the archives, especially of "enemies" (meaning anyone who told a story about Rand that did not fit the myth), and produced one bowdlerized version of Rand's unpublished writings.after another. Whenever called on this, they have stonewalled and simply said the public has to trust them.

A small cottage industry (intellectually speaking) developed over time of people comparing the bowdlerized stuff to the stuff they did have access to and noting the discrepancies. There have been many, way too many for the self-appointed official caretakers of a philosophy devoted to reason. This makes people distrustful of any story about Rand coming from the keepers of the flame.

5. Some people who participated in the PARC wars have ended up "hardening" (so to speak) certain ideas of Rand's story in their minds because it was honed against a boneheaded polemic. In other words, there are matters they have long since considered settled because they debunked some really prolific knuckleheads. And it was a long hard slog to do it.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Cathy appears and tells a story that does not fit the polemic, but something out of left field. To anyone who has invested that much time and energy in defending a position, this can be quite a shock.

I could go on, but this should cover a lot of food for thought.

Cathy's story is very, very important right now. It's not just scratching the gossip itch (which is important in an of itself to human beings).

If for nothing else, we are being privileged to see raw, unadulterated, unsanitized memories emerging from someone who actually lived a small part of this history decades ago and has not been heard from before. We are seeing it warts and all. Any mythology in her narrative is from family retellings and tricks memory plays, not schisms in O-Land or ideological purity issues.

And I'm loving every minute of it.

Cathy's a brave woman to walk into this mess with her head held high and stick to her stories as she remembers them in the face of nitpicking and sometimes hostile reactions.

In short, there's a lot more at stake than appears on the surface.

I hope that answers your question, at least partially.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... the posters on this site are invariably interesting, well-read, and mostly recovering Rand aficionados.

David,

Bullcrap.

Most still are Rand aficionados. Just not fanatics.

And most are not recovering from anything. They just have a place to talk as they honestly think instead of being peer pressured into a party line.

I grant you some folks fit your description. Part of my own transformation from a Randroid-like jerk to a drug addict, then to a reasoned position might look like I am "recovering." But I am "recovered," both from the cult thinking and from the drugs. I have been for years. That's far more precise.

I fully agree that most are "invariably interesting" and "well-read." If you have any more praise of OL members, I will most certainly agree with it.

Michael

[caroljane]

Michael, utterly excellent points, you have nailed it.

For me the most crucial point is a moral one. If Rand did indeed know that Cathy was being beaten, what does her inaction mean? Maybe she deferred to Frank on this one "It wouldn't help to mix in, we can't do anything".

I wrote a short piece here once on "Why I Admire Ayn Rand as a Human Being". Now I am wondering just how human she was and in what ways.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen, Elizabeth was the youngest of the O'Connor children born to Mary (Minnie and Dennis O'Connor). We called her aunt Bess...and you got it...I remember that Ellen is Aunt Bess's daughter! It wasn't Aunt Agnes's grandchild it was another niece. I remember now that we were jealous of her...if my aunt loved her more.I Didn't remember that until you said Elizabeth, thank you. Is she still living??? I think I better start writing down all these memories, I don't want to lose them again. Ellen couldn't be that much older than us...I don't think. She could still be alive. We left my father's home in early 71, it was way before that was the last time I seen Uncle Frank and Aunt Alice. I believe the last time was in 69. I also now believe the conversation between my father and Aunt Agnes was in 69/70 because we were not in my father's house most of the year of 71. Ellen, I just remembered that Denny Donahue (one of the other set of twins) is the last remaining cousin's I have...he was Ellen's brother and he is well up in his 70's. The twin boy's Denny and Danny were the youngest of Aunt Bess's children:( ~Cathy~

Now I'm confused, since I didn't mention Elizabeth. Maybe it was the "Donohue" which clicked for you. Is it "Donohue" or "Donahue," btw?

Let's list the family members.

According to Barbara (pg. 84), the seven children of Dennis and Mary Agnes O'Connor who survived childhood - in order from oldest to youngest - were:

Nick

Joe

Frank

Agnes

Margaret

Bill

Elizabeth

None of the three oldest boys had children.

Agnes had three daughters, in order oldest to youngest:

Mimi

Marna

Connie

Did Margaret have any children?

I think you said that you had a considerably older brother, but I'm not sure if you did say that.

You have a twin sister, Conny.

Elizabeth had three children:

Ellen

Denny and Danny, twins

Is the list right, and do you have birth and/or death dates for any of them?

(I think you said that Agnes died in '83, but I don't recall your mentioning any other birth or death dates except that you and your sister were born in 1958.)

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Of course it matters to Cathy.

Was it not implicit in my question as to why it should matter to anybody else?

Not to me, no. The question you asked was "why does any of this matter?," which I took to mean why would it matter to anyone, and implicitly, why would anyone care to try to help Cathy out with it.

Not the first time your "nuance" hasn't registered with me. ;-)

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Does it say anywhere where he would do magic tricks...he was good at that. ~Cathy~

I don't remember hearing before that he did magic tricks, but it makes sense that he would be interested in illusions, and be good at them. It fits well with what I've heard about his personality.

J

I likewise don't remember ever hearing before that Frank did magic tricks, although I lived in the NYC area for 12 years, knew a lot of Objectivists, and heard a lot of gossip.

I think it makes sense that Frank might have known how to do magic tricks. He might have learned them in his youth when he and his brothers Nick and Joe were putting on amateur plays for the neighborhood.

However, I wonder if, in that particular memory, you might be mixing up Frank with Marna's husband. According to Heller, Marna's husband was a traveling magician (pg. 181). I know you said you never met Marna, but might she have visited at some point and you forgot? Or maybe her husband came through town on his own. Or maybe it indeed was Frank who did magic tricks for you and your sister.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here's a find from the "Calendar" in The Objectivist for January 1969:

On Saturday, March 1 [1969], Ayn Rand will appear on "The Alan Douglas Show," on WKBF-TV in Cleveland [my emphasis].

Ellen

Oh, damn, spoke too soon.

The next "Calendar" - February 1969 - says the appearance was canceled.

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

But Cathy and her sister weren't there in the early 70s, right?

Cathy, when were you sent off to foster homes?

I much doubt that Frank could have visited Ohio in the early 70s - or later.

He had a mild heart attack in early 70, and his health and mental faculties were diminishing

If there were yearly visits (say 5) and semi-yearly (say 5) you could be talking 15 years.

I don't know where this would fit in the chronology.

Also, I find it unlikely that a girl of 13 in a Catholic home would have learned about Rand's affair, the reason for the affair, the funding of Rand's alleged abortion, and Nick Carter's sexuality. We didn't talk about that stuff in my Catholic home, and we were post Vatican II.

-Neil Parille

[Ellen Stuttle]

Neil, she said there were 3-6 visits. The "yearly" was a mistake.

She's also said that she overheard the stuff. They weren't talking about it to her.

Ellen

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

Didn't she say she heard Rand saying something to her about Nick being homosexual?

So Cathy's family dished the dirt knowing that she might over hear it? Again, not my family, but YMMV.

In 100 Voices, there is a mention of Marna's husband being a magician and Frank and Ayn enjoying it, but nothing about Frank doing magic tricks.

-Neil Parille

[Cathy]

ok...first things first. I will listr the order of each family; you are right Ellen about my father and sibling. Except Nick's name was Harry, and Bill's name was John.

Aunt Agnes

Marnia (MiMi)

Lee

Marna (Dockey)

Connor (Connie)

She also had a baby girl named Denise born Feb 13th but died when she was 7 months old.

Margret...I know nothing about, right now anyway.

Elizabeth Aunt Bess)

Larry

Gil

Ellen

Denny

Danny

John (my dad)

Cathy

conny

agnes died 1983

John died 1980 birthdate was Dec 29 1902

I don't know the rest. My oldest adopted sister was my mom and her first husbands child.. She was not my dad's.