Robert P. Coughlin--My Dad

This past week was the 11th anniversary of the passing of my Dad, Robert P. Coughlin, known, like me, as Bob. My Dad was actually baptized in 1922 as Paul Robert, and some official documents (like his Navy papers), use that name. But some time early on, the name was flipflopped and he was known as Bob and presented himself formally as Robert P. He was the third child of Cornelius Francis ("Connie") Coughlin and Cora Bowers Coughlin, after Francis Cornelius ("Connie") and John Anthony ("Jack"). After my Dad there were two more children: Bill and Bernice. I think all the Coughlin kids were born in Cleveland, probably around E. 87th, but were raised mostly in Willoughby, Lake County, Ohio--about 20 miles east of Cleveland.

Dad was our hero, for so many reasons: he was our protector and defender; he was our provider and advocate; he was a Navy combat veteran from World War II. And he was a good and kind and loving man. And he did all of this in spite of some heavy burdens. One burden he carried was severe asthma, which was very serious at times in his childhood and adolescence and prevented him from being accepted into the Navy before the war broke out (after Pearl Harbor, it was another story--"Sure we'll take you! Welcome aboard, sailor!"). In his late 50's Dad suffered from heart problems. He had bypass surgery around age 57, and suffered from congestive heart failure and diabetes in the last years of his life. These last illnesses were debilitating to his great energy and spirit. Along with these illnesses I think he suffered from some level of depression. Maybe that was a consequence of the medicines he had to take as well as the weakness caused by the heart failure. Still, the image I have of my Dad is of the guy in his thirties and forties, with his black hair, drop-dead good looks, broad shoulders, with forearms and biceps like Popeye-the-Sailor. Dad was strong! A nice trick he could do was to rip the Cleveland yellow pages (about 4 inches thick) in half! It was part technique, but part brute strength. Dad could also run very fast and hit a baseball a mile. We enjoyed watching him play softball at Mudville (officially, "Willow Playground"), with his tremendous hits and great defensive play. One time he hit a home run at Mudville and as he stepped on home plate, he broke his foot! I wish we had had the chance to see him play fast pitch baseball when he and his brothers tore up the Lake County leagues. Dad hit a famous home run at Painseville Township Park on a very muddy day. When he circled the bases, he avoided the incredible mud puddles around the bases (thinking that it was no big deal because the ball went out of the park, into Lake Erie). Well the other team pulled the appeal play saying he missed a base, and Dad was called out. He and his brothers were great ballplayers, but any chance for a career in professional ball was halted by the war. One brother, Connie, did get a tryout with the Cleveland Indians, and we have the letter sent to Connie offering the try-out. Their baseball careers were in the tradition of their father, Connie, my grandfather, who was one of the great ballplayers to come out of Cleveland in the early decades of the 20th Century.

My Dad's life surely was shaped by the bittersweet years of the Great Depression and then by World War II. From the time my Dad was seven years old to the time he was in his mid twenties, the world was in chaos, depression, and war. So you can imagine how wonderful it was for him around 1946 meeting Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick (of the locally well-known Fitzpatrick family). What Dad probably wanted more than anything was a life with Margaret Ann, a family, children, and a job that paid the bills. There had been so little of normal life that he was ecstatic about settling down to this kind of life. He married Margaret Ann in August of 1947 at Immaculate Conception Church in Willoughby (the reception was above the fire station in Willoughby-on-the-Lake). Ten months later I was born, the first of 5 children. [More coming on Dad infuture blog entries.]