April 26th, 1931 — John Francis,  first son of Easter Hore and Joseph Lynch, residing at Bailey Ave in the Bronx, was born at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Manhattan, in a neighborhood just north of the George Washington Bridge, still under construction at that time. The world's longest suspension bridge would open to traffic for the first time later that fall. 
       Two years earlier, Joe had married Easter at St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village near the neighborhood where both were raised, and where his new father-in-law owned and operated a prosperous grocery. A daughter, Easter (Essie), arrived in January ’30 followed in quick succession by John (’31), Robert ('34), Martha ('36) and Mary (’38). †
       When the stock market crashed in 1929, Joe had been an associate professor of  pharmacology at Fordham, nursing a dream to open his own Apothecary (drug store) in Riverdale. Sadly, the economic collapse that cost Jeremiah Hore (father-in law and chief financier) $85,000 on one day, put Joe’s dreams on hold as well.
       As the Depression worsened, Joe moved his growing family back from the Bronx to the West Village, into Jeremiah and Martha's large 3-story brownstone at 107 King Street, whose backyard adjoined his childhood home at 289 W. Houston, just around the corner from the Hore's grocery business at 564 Greenwich Street.
       In search of more stable employment, Joe reluctantly decided to join his brother and father in the NYPD where his college education—a rarity in those days for a cop—would fast track him for promotion in the ‘Bomb and Forgery Squad’ setting him on a new and ultimately tragic course.*

*James Mauro's ‘Twilight at the World of Tomorrow’ offers an interesting view of the time.

† Martha passed in '86 (a few years before her mother Easter). Robert, John, and Mary all in 2013, Essie in 2018.

November 25th, 1937 — Joe and Easter were back in the Bronx in their own apartment at 230 Naples Terrace enjoying a meal over Thanksgiving weekend with Easter's parents, as they celebrated their growing family and Joe's recent offer of a posting to the Bronx DA's office that would soon allow him to begin working closer to home.
       The following day the first of two successive tragedies struck that would have repercussions for all our lives. Martha Hore was working alone in the the family's grocery store (Jeremiah was on jury duty a few blocks away) when a troubled youth from the neighborhood came in and made a grab for the cash drawer. In the struggle that ensued, 17-yr-old Joe Healy grabbed a butcher knife and turned it on 65-year-old Martha with lethal effect.
       The family was still working through its grief when the World's Fair opened its gates to visitors with great fanfare on April 30th, 1939. But the ‘World of Tomorrow’ never quite lived up to its promise as news of escalating conflict in Europe filtered across the Atlantic, countering its optimistic theme and dampening the mood.
       The Fair, barely breaking even, soldiered along to midway through its second year. A month after Dunkirk, days before the Battle over Britain would commence, an electrician working in the fan room of the British Pavilion discovered a small, tan-colored canvas bag, and heard ticking.
       The bag was moved to a nearby field in the late afternoon of July 4th, 1940. Detective Joe Lynch arrived with his partner, Freddy Socha. He took out his pocketknife and carefully began cutting away a two-inch strip off the bottom of the bag. “This looks like the real goods,” were his last words.
       Babe Ruth (among other NY Yankees) visited the Lynch apartment on Naples Terrace, where Joe was waked before his funeral service. A detective leading the investigation, present at the wake that day, remembers Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, near tears, urging him, “[Have] your boys give all their spare time to this case.” The crime was never solved.
       At nine years of age, John had become the man of the family.

       1940 to 1953 — With a small stipend from the NYPD, Easter managed to get the kids out of the hot city and into a summer bungalow at 89 Reid Ave, Rockaway Point. At a young age, Dad began working to help with family expenses. He sold magazines (Colliers), jerked sodas (look it up), and meandered up and down the concrete walkways between the myriad bungalows of Breezy and Rockaway Point calling out his trade, “Tailor! Shoemaker!” collecting items in need of repair each morning, returning them that evening.
        In between those pickups and deliveries, if not serving soda, he could be found at the beach, often in the company of a group of young people that included a certain dark-haired Irish girl from Brooklyn whose family, living at 32 Olive Walk, owned the local liquor store.
       Catherine Murnane was the love of John's life, who would eventually win her away from her other suitor(s?). Mom's only real competition was the Almighty himself, who tempted his servant John to consider, briefly, a life of celebate ministry. But in the end, he came back for his girl.
       In spite of the Depression, family tragedies, and an ongoing World War, Dad (and Mom) always referred to those Halycon summer days at Breezy Point in hushed tones, as if something sacred had been shared by the few lucky ones who got to experience that time and place together.
       And so, when the time came in 1997, John did as he had been directed and scattered Mom's ashes into the waters off the beach beside Breezy Point's Surf Club; an act to be repeated soon, from a different urn.
       Finally, the '40s was also the decade John finished his time at Fordham Prep, quickly moving on to the college which shared the same Rose Hill campus, while making the most of ongoing scholarships offered him by the school in deference to his hero father's sacrifice and his own stellar academic record. 
       In '53 he graduated on the Dean's List (English) with the following epithet recorded in the school yearbook: “John ... tall and talented ... a master of all trades ... writes well ... assistant editor of Dun and Bradstreet magazine ... ‘Wake up, Jack!’ ... next stop law school.”
       As it turned out, the next stop was at the altar.