...first lived in when he arrived in New York after immigrating from Tipperary, Ireland.
After researching 1930 census information from
http://www.ancestry.com/, my mom found information that indicated that a "Daniel Coffey" and a "John Coffey" were borders at this home of Frank and Elizabeth
Conat of 10 Willow Place, Brooklyn, NY, along with their children, Katherine, Francis, Edward, and daughter-in-law, Margaret Hughes
Conat.
While in NY for a few days visiting Michelle and Jeanna Bryner, I told mom I would look up the street and take a few pictures. "The house probably isn't there anymore, but if it is I'd like to see it," she said and - remembering her trip to see her childhood home in the Bronx where the cabbie wouldn't allow a lady to get out in such a place - added, "Who knows what the neighborhood will be like."
On the morning of my birthday, Michelle decided to call her bosses and ask if she could take a half day off from her job that she works from her apartment. "I see no problem with that, "said one, so we we off on the subway with our map of NYC to find Willow Place. After a stop at Starbucks, we walked the several blocks to a green-eye inducing neighborhood of stately brownstones and brick row houses on tree lined streets. "This doesn't look too shabby for a couple of immigrants."
Michelle and I took several pictures of the exterior before sitting on the curb across from the street so we could look at the houses, drink our coffees, watch owners with the dogs greet each other, and dream of owning such a home in such a neighborhood. I opened my cell phone and called mom. "Guess where I am?" I told her how easy it was to find the place, and how pretty the street was. She wanted to know if we went in the house - "No...I don't know if we should bother the people...they probably don't know anything about the original owners..."They wished me a good birthday and I told them I'd call them again later. When we stood to leave Michelle and I looked at each other and then at the house, and decided to ring the doorbell.
There were four doorbells. Surely any chance that one of the original Conat children still lived there decreased significantly when we saw that. Was there even a point to ringing the bells? We looked at the window boxes with casually manicured flowers and green leafy vegetables
growing from them and agreed: "Surely these are people who wouldn't mind strangers ringing their doorbell midday on a Wednesday to say, 'I think my grandfather lived here about 90 years ago.' You wouldn't know anything about that now, would you?"
We rang each of the bells starting with the ground floor apartments with the thought that the chance of someone being annoyed with our ringing his or her doorbell increased exponentially the more flights of stairs were between the person and the front steps. I pushed the first button. Waited. Should we leave? No, if it was me I'd be happy to help two young girls....Michelle pushed the second button. Waited. Maybe they are people who work from home and would be really made to be bothered? Then they just won't answer. I pushed the third button. Waited. I mean, what are the chances that they would know anything about the owners, let alone something about my grandfather.
It was the last doorbell that we rang that got any response. Heavy steps coming down the stairs, which definitely sounded like "Why those damn kids..." Then snapping open of various locks and bolts, undeniably to the tune of "Wait (snap) 'til I (slide) get my (chain rattling) hands on - " and the door opened a crack.
A small Korean lady in a pink sweater looks out at us. "Ah...yease?"
Just her opening the door was a sign to us this small middle aged Asian immigrant in sweats was the wise gatekeeper of all answers John Coffey, circa 1927. We both tried in various ways and various times to explain who we were looking for and why, stressing from different angles, "But he lived here, where you live now" as if we only had to find the proper words and emphasise to jog her memory and she would put her hand to her forehead V8 style and say, "Ah yease! The suitcase we found under the floorboards filled with pictures of green rolling hills, letters to "John Coffey" and the bottle of Tipperary Whiskey - that is who you mean!" But any way that we clumsily tried to explain what little of the story we knew (Michelle doing a great job improvising off of what I told her the hour before) she never stopped regarding us with her face cautiously tilted away from us and her hand on the doorknob. But really, she was as nice as she could be two to strangers who were standing on her doorstep in the middle of the day asking if she may have any clues about people who lived there almost a century ago.
The house is a co-op now, divided into four homes over eight years ago when the Korean lady moved in. She knew little of her current neighbors, and nothing of anyone named Conat or who may have owned the home before it became four smaller houses. We thanked her and she wished us luck, and we looked at the view from the front steps one more time before leaving, to see what Jack Coffey may have seen as he stepped out his front door to begin his life in America.
