Elizabeth
Jane Bosquez was born on January 9th, 1947 to Peter Francis McArdle
and Georgiana Good. She was the eldest daughter among five sisters,
with younger sisters named Rose, Nancy, Mary, and Jane. Her father
Peter was born in 1917 in the South Bronx and her mother in 1920 also
in the South Bronx.
Peter
was a truck mechanic at National Gypsum before entering the Army as
the US was entering WWII. He was one of a family of 9 siblings. Three brothers would serve in the war. He enlisted in June of 1942, joining up
with Battery D of the 175th Coast Artillery Battalion, and would see
action in North Africa, Italy, and France. During Operation Dragoon, fought April 15th of 1944, known as a sister operation to the
Normandy Invasion, he was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for
saving a number of his fellow soldiers wounded from a German bomb
that struck the LST landing craft transporting them to the invasion.
He towed multiple soldiers to shore that were wounded from the blast.
He was discharged soon afterward having recovered from his injuries.
During his service, he inquired about a picture of a woman in the
barracks posted by a fellow soldier Raymond Good also from the South
Bronx, of his sister Georgiana and asked Raymond for permission to
write her. He corresponded with Georgiana for the duration of his
service and met her for the first time upon his return home.
Georgiana was the youngest of 11 children. During the war, she
worked at the A&P supermarket, candleing eggs (holding them up to
the light to determine if chicken embryos had yet formed), and could
hold a dozen eggs in her hands at a time to efficiently sort them.
This was quite a delicate operation as breaking eggs was frowned upon
among her peers at A&P.
Peter
and Georgiana were married in 1945 and had their first child
Elizabeth at the beginning of 1947. Peter would always find work to
support his new family that would grow to five daughters over 10
years. He was employed at the Veterans Affairs hospital on
Kingsbridge Road in The Bronx, serving as a plumber. During his
tenure, he was exposed to radioactive chemicals used for early
medical imaging efforts at the busy overtaxed VA hospital serving the
dense population of returning veterans to NYC. Part of the workers
protocol would be to wear radiation badges to measure cumulative
exposure to radiation. After a certain level of exposure, the
workers employed on a per diem basis, would be laid off upon hitting
a prescribed threshold. Peter, always with breadwinning for his
family at highest priority, along with some other workers would
routinely leave their radiation badges in their lockers to extend the
hours they were allowed to work to continue to earn for their
families.
Peter
started feeling quite ill in 1965 and got the attention of his family
by developing a healthier diet, eating yogurt and bran instead of the
usual fare of meat and potatoes washed down with common libations
typical among Irish labor in the neighborhood. He became a patient
in the hospital where he had worked, which was not very comforting
having been witness to the overwhelmed resources of the hospital. He
staged an escape from the hospital at the beginning of April 1967 to
rejoin his family, certain that he would die with continued treatment
there. He had been diagnosed with acute leukemia. The police came
to return him to the VA hospital, but the family
refused and admitted him to a private hospital. He
would die a few weeks later after celebrating his 50th birthday. He
and his brothers often joked they would never live to see 50, but he
was happy to celebrate that birthday to exceed their morbid
predictions, although would succumb to his illness soon after.
Georgiana
would never quite adapt to the loss of her husband and the heavy
responsibility of raising five daughters without their father and
sole breadwinner of the family. She would follow him in passing a
few years later in 1970. At the time of Georgiana's passing the 5
daughters were ages 13-23 in various stages of education. Elizabeth
was thrust into an early matriarchy, and all the sisters would take
part in care of each other. They lived at the family's home on
Alexander Ave in Yonkers and various apartments in the Bainbridge
neighborhood of the Bronx in various combinations of family and
friends as they worked their way through school and into employment
and self-sufficiency.
Elizabeth
(known as Betty to friends and family), would meet George McAveney
when visiting with friends in the "Irish Hill" section of
Glen Spey, NY. The McAveney clan would assemble there at their Aunt
Gene and Uncle Jim's house, and had mutual friends with the McArdles.
Betty and George (both aged 19) were married in Glen Spey in 1966
and had their first child Peter in August of 1967. Geordie would be
born a year later in November of 1968. The young family would live
in The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Jersey City before settling back in
Yonkers near Betty's childhood home.
Betty attended Saint Barnabas HS in the Bronx and made many lifetime friends. She was a National Honor Society member and was awarded a Regent’s Scholarship at graduation. As her 4 sisters followed in her steps At SBHS they would be compared to (sometimes disappointingly) their oldest sister’s academic prowess. Betty would later attend Lehman college juggling care for her
family with her education and eventually would earn a Master's Degree
in Education. Most of her career was spent teaching special
education in the South Bronx. She started her teaching career at Our
Lady of Victory, a Bronx catholic school that was closed due to
financial difficulties with the Archdiocese of New York. The school,
small but serving an impoverished neighborhood was desperately
needed. For a year, help would come from CORE (Congress of Racial
Equality), to open a small school in the neighborhood to serve these
students. A New York Times article
(
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/13/archives/core-p...)
describes the situation and mentions Betty specifically and includes
a picture of her with a student. The specific mention in the
article: "One teacher, Betty McAveney, even offered, to donate
her salary in an effort to reduce the school's deficit".
Despite her modest circumstances, Betty was always very committed to
education in the South Bronx and would go on to enter the New York
Board of Education's public-school system where she would spend the
rest of her teaching career.
The
family would enjoy the familiar and stable surroundings of Yonkers, NY moving from Bronx River Road to a house on Kimball Avenue which they
would keep until Peter and Geordie were off to college. Betty and
George divorced during their sons' high school years, and Betty
remarried German Bosquez and moved to
Kneeland Ave in Yonkers. She got involved in community theater and
would act in and produce plays with Bronx based community groups,
enjoying a new phase of her life with less pressure of family care.
Her younger sisters all had families of their own and her sons Peter
and Geordie were pursuing engineering degrees at RPI and MIT
respectively, both living away on campus. A link here describes a
play she produced that was staged at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln
Center during a community theater showcase:
(
https://www.cinemavii.com/projects/Revivals/ADIHAN...).
A lively group of friends in the theater group would enjoy events,
travel, and theme parties, a number of which were hosted by Betty and
German at the Kneeland Ave house.
Betty
would retire from the New York Board of Education around 2008,
coinciding with the end of her second and final marriage. She
purchased a home in Fishkill, New York with sisters Mary and Jane
(who had two daughters in the Fishkill school systems at the time).
The house, a 6 bedroom Colonial built in 1829 was held by the family until December of 2019. In true
McArdle fashion it housed many family members and friends of family
over that time. Mary and Betty also owned condominiums in Florida, a home in North Carolina and would travel back and forth with the seasons
over this time. Betty passed away on May 1st, 2020 as a result of a
car accident near her home in Fernandina Beach, Florida. A small service was held in Fernandina Beach featuring prayers, memories and Irish music. Accompanying her in cremation were a favorite quilt, a sun hat and a nosegay featuring 5 red roses and 2 purple lilies, a family tradition. Betty leaves behind her 2 sons, a future daughter-in- law, many nieces and nephews and her 4 remaining sisters. She is missed.
The family
will be arranging a memorial service in the New York area when
circumstances allow. Please check back as we will continue to upload
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