CHRIS TRAVERS | If these walls could talk: Why JFK came to Youngstown in 1946
Walls separate us, protect us, hold up ceilings, keep out the wind, rain and snow. They give us a place to hang pictures and diplomas and mirrors. Put shelves on walls and some of us are suddenly displaying our collection of Irish whiskeys. Walls have been one of the best inventions since humankind moved out of caves which, when you think about it, also have walls. Where else would Neanderthals show off exciting renderings of The Great Mammoth Hunt?
But there is one thing walls cannot do. Walls cannot talk.
I surmise all of us on this planet wish “Boy, if these walls could talk” was more than a whimsical statement. If walls came to life and started blabbing tales from the past, not only would we know more about what happens in the Oval Office, but maybe we would also unravel more of the mystery surrounding, you know, Aunt Mildred’s dirty little secrets.
Of particular interest to me — especially with Memorial Day upon us — are the walls in two homes on Ohio Avenue on Youngstown’s North Side near St. Edward’s Catholic Church. The shadow of John Fitzgerald Kennedy was cast against these walls in 1946.
Clearly, Kennedy was not President of the United States that year. In fact, he held no public office at all. Nor was he married; it was almost six years before he met Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. In 1946, “Jack” was a very slender 29-year-old Navy World War II veteran from a wealthy Massachusetts family who found himself on a career path that had been intended for his older brother, Joseph Kennedy Jr. When “Joe,” also a veteran naval officer, was killed in the skies over England in 1944, family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. firmly planted the baton in the hand of his second-oldest son and set him on a course to Congress in the fall of ’46.
So, how did he wind up on Ohio Avenue of all places that year? Let’s begin with Robert and Marie Holway, who made their modest home on Ohio just up the street from The Rayen School.
The Holways raised eight children, one of whom was Catherine, known to all friends and family as Kate. She was a beautiful and scholarly young woman, graduating from Rayen in 1938, earning her Registered Nursing Diploma from the St. Elizabeth School of Nursing in 1941, and subsequently enrolling at St. Mary of the Springs College in Columbus — now Ohio Dominican University — to pursue a bachelor’s degree.
It was there that the cosmic dominoes of Kate’s life tumbled in earnest — because she met Lenny.
Leonard Jay “Lenny” Thom was finishing up his education five miles away at The Ohio State University. Kate’s college roommate arranged for Kate to meet Lenny and, from all accounts, it’s a wonder Columbus survived the shower of sparks between the two. They were quick to become an item and fall deeply in love, but world events abruptly put thoughts of “happily ever after” on hold.
When Lenny graduated in the spring following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was accepted into an accelerated officers program in the U.S. Navy and assigned to a base in Rhode Island for Patrol Torpedo (PT) boat training. Training alongside Lenny at that base was a Bostonian by the name of Jack Kennedy.
Lenny and Jack became fast friends and Lenny often wrote to Kate about his new buddy. In 1943, they shipped out separately to the South Pacific, where they would receive their assignments. By sheer coincidence, when Kennedy arrived in the Solomon Islands to assume command of PT-109, Thom was already on board to serve as his executive officer.
Less than four months after reuniting, Lenny and Jack and their entire PT-109 crew were swimming for their lives after 109 was struck broadside and split in two by an enemy destroyer in the inky darkness of an August night. Articles, books and a movie recount the harrowing disaster. Start Googling.
Lenny and Jack and all but two members of the crew survived a weeklong ordeal and were rescued. Within six months, they were both stateside and Lenny and Kate decided not to put “happily ever after” off any longer. They were married at St. Ed’s on the morning of Thursday, June 1, 1944, while Lenny was on extended leave. Best friend Jack could not attend the wedding, but later that summer they spent a lovely weekend visiting Jack and the rest of his clan at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
So, if Jack wasn’t in Youngstown on Ohio Avenue for the nuptials, you may ask, when did he show up? This is where the story takes a stunning, ironic and very tragic twist. After the war, Lenny took advantage of his OSU connections and started working for an insurance company in Columbus. They lived with Kate’s parents on Ohio Avenue with their infant son Leonard Jay Jr., and presumably made plans to move to Columbus, but only after the birth of their second child, Christine, with whom Kate was pregnant in the fall of 1946.
It was a long commute on weekends for Lenny — no interstates then. On Friday, October 4, he was returning home with Kate’s brother Jimmy and his friend, who were students at OSU. Shortly before 8 p.m., they were approaching Deerfield on U.S. Route 224, just 30 miles from home. A New York Central freight train pulled by a steam locomotive was coming down a track to a grade crossing in their path where there were no lights or gates. By the time Lenny saw the train, it was too late. His car struck the coal tender behind the locomotive.
While the boys eventually recovered from their serious injuries, Lt. Leonard Jay Thom, United States Naval Reserve, did not. He died the day after the accident at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna. After surviving a war and a shipwreck, Lenny was gone. He was 29.
Jack immediately paused his congressional campaign and flew to Youngstown for the funeral. Arrangements were handled by the McCauley Funeral Home across from Wick Park, but calling hours and services were actually conducted at the Holway residence. Jack stayed with a friend of the Holways who lived across the street from St. Ed’s.
So there it is. In early October 1946, at a time of almost unbearable grief, a future president of the United States darkened doorsteps just blocks from each other on Ohio Avenue as he comforted one friend and suffered immeasurable heartbreak of losing another.
If those walls could only talk.
If you wish to pay your own personal tribute to Lenny Thom this weekend, his grave can be found at Calvary Cemetery in Section 12 (the old part), two rows from the road. His marble stone is as uncomplicated and humble as he was in life, flush with the ground, and accompanied by a round in-ground floral marker inscribed with the name of his daughter Christine who passed away in 2000. An upright marker with the name “Phillips” stands to the right.
While you’re doing that, I’ll be contacting some Ohio Avenue residents about their walls. Stay tuned to this space.
