The Origin of O'Malley
In the
midst of the Great Depression, on a hot summer night in 1931, a girl barely
twenty years old of dubious eastern European origins and reputation enters a
northwestern Pennsylvania hospital. Anxious and scared, accompanied only by her
stern, disapproving mother, she gives birth to a son, whom she will call
William.

Though wanting to be
with his mother very badly William thrives as people rally around him in the tightly knit community. He does well academically, is a good athlete and is the star of school plays.
In his mid-teens his
grandmother becomes ill and William is sent to Buffalo to finally be with his
mother. On the long train ride to Buffalo not only does he bring the shame of
his illegitimacy, he also brings a strange eastern European name and a funny
Pennsylvania accent for which he is mocked and derided. Sheltered in his ethnic
enclave his entire life, William isn’t prepared for these these verbal assaults
and is hurt by them. But, he fights back and eventually loses the accent, takes
the name O’Malley as his own and acclimates to his Irish/Catholic neighborhood.
In government housing
of that old First Ward Irish neighborhood he meets a redheaded beauty, named
Marilyn, who also carries a heavy burden of familial dysfunction. They marry
their futures together determined to overcome their humble beginnings. They
work hard and have children of their own—many children. They teach these
children well. They are upstanding, disciplined and smart children. Tops in all
their classes and the envy of the neighborhood.
Yet overcoming their
meager beginnings and establishing themselves as solid members of the middle class,
with even greater prospects for their children, wasn’t as satisfying as they
imagined, especially for William. Resentments start to fester in him. He
gradually becomes aware of how not having a father and being abandoned by his
mother hurt his prospects. He sees people from established
families pass him by and becomes bitter. He feels cheated like he could
have been more, like he could have achieved something greater than the middle
class if only his past was different.
And, on a cold
December morning waiting at the hospital for his sixth child to be born he
begins to wonder who he is and how it’s come to this—six children. He feels
trapped and hopeless and suddenly realizes, no matter how hard you work, no
matter how devoted to God you are, no matter how earnest and upstanding you
are—you can never outrun your past.
In a fit of rage, seeking to claim his true identity, without Marilyn’s consent he changes the name on the birth
certificate of this new son from William to Wilhelm—the name of the man who
wouldn’t acknowledge him thirty years earlier, thus pinning his past to his new son.
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