Neighborhood Characters: The Duck Lady

There may be a million and one ways to mingle with people and not feel lonely in life. Everything from church groups for Christian folk to clubs for the dancing types and bingo for older folks who need something to do. And now in the electronic age, there are social media. News Flash: Most of the people that you interact with on Facebook, Instagram, and whatever aren't the true friends who will be there for you when you need them, Having 2,000 Facebook friends doesn't make for a full social life.

There was an elderly lady in the neighborhood who would use the funeral homes along south Broad Street either to socialize, just have something to do, or both. We called her Duck Lady. All you had to do is hear her speak once and you understood where the name came from. She had a voice like Donald Duck in the old Disney cartoons, and she spoke loudly so you heard her at the other end of the block. You knew it whenever the Duck Lady was around.

We would see her many times a week, yet there were only two memories I have of her. One is that she would often pull a shopping cart down the street on the way to the store. The other memory was that she would also visit the funeral homes every evening to pay respects to each person. From Stolfo to Monte to Grasso to Gangemi to Leonetti, she had them all covered. If Carto was there at the time, she would have been visiting there too. Whether she was shopping or mourning, she would always wear a black dress and veil. She first caught our notice at a family viewing. She said a prayer at the coffin and quietly gave her condolences, toning down that Duck Lady voice for a short time. But as she made her way to the rear of the funeral home, her volume increased to the voice that we came to know and,,, okay, just know. Maybe amused by. When we saw her again, the question of who she was came to everyone's mind. Someone mentioned, oh that's the Duck Lady and explained her visiting habits, and a neighborhood character was created.

I could see if she was a very sociable lady and had lots of friends who recently passed away. But here, the Duck Lady made the rounds every night. She would simply walk in, stay a few moments after paying respects, and off she'd go to the next one. I don't believe she attended the morning viewings just before departing for the churches and cemeteries, only the evening viewings. Still, there are wakes every night but I think on Saturday at those places, so she always had somewhere to go. 

I think I can somewhat understand where she was coming from. Remembering when both of my maternal grandparents were coming to near the end of their lives, they were devastated that all of their friend had gone on before them. This put them in the unenviable position of surviving every one of them. They still had family to cling to, but their social fabric was irreparably torn, leaving them very lonely and friendless. When my grandfather's longtime friend died, he was actually angry about his passing. Angry that he never took him for the visit to his daghter's home as promised, upset that they would never again gather at the bocce courts at Guerin playground; but mostly just upset that his last remaining Italian-speaking friend was gone forever, leaving him feeling very lonely and aimless.  It was the same with Grandmom. She was always having friends over for coffee and conversation and over time, there was less and less of them. For a lady in her nineties who remained active into her waning years, it was devastating for her. Some of us are going to be in the same position someday and it's not something to look forward to. We sometimes don't realize how important our friends are until they're no longer around to pick your day up.

The Duck Lady is long gone. I think she disappeared sometime in the early 1980s, most likely going the same route we all do in life. One has to wonder if her own viewing was well-attended. With all the wakes she walked into, you would think she had she gotten to know many people and it would have been standing room only at her own viewing. She may have actually had only a few family members or neighbors there. With her being such a figure on Broad Street, one of the funeral directors should have held her funeral at little or no cost. Well, that may be a stretch being funerals are so expensive. Okay, maybe they could have at least laid a plaque in the concrete sort of like they did around Broad & Spruce to honor Philly-area recording artists. There they have the names in stars embedded into the sidewalk. What could they use for this lady to remember her?

Where have all the characters gone? Walk down somewhere like South Broad today and you'll see the same old faces over and over, but they're characters aren't as defined as those we knew in our youth. We need more Duck Ladies to keep things interesting.

Appparently this isn't a local phenomenon. I saw a rerun of an old Good Times show some time ago. It was the episode where the character James Evans passed away. Near the end of the program, I can't remember if it were the preacher or funeral director, but someone had said good bye to an older woman and said they'd see her tomorrow - at yet another funeral. Was she a regular just like Duck Lady? Could it be the writer of that episode spent some time on Broad Street? The mind wonders. And wanders.



AND YOU MAY REMEMBER (well, maybe a small few of us this time)...
 
     *Going to confession at St. Monica's on a Saturday afternoon and raising the priest's ire. Rather than the usual standard "Bless me father for I have sinned, it's been 1,472 days since my last confession...", many of us who hung together took a shot at approaching and saying "Bless me father for I have sinned, I peeled a potato and ate the skin" and then ran out of the confessional. Some of the priests ran out after us, some never did, I guess they just sat there and shook their heads. What does this have to do with Duck Lady or funerals? Absolutely nothing. It's too short for it's own article and I wanted to post it before I forgot about it.

    *We can remember horsing around at Leonetti's Funeral Home in the lounge during my mother's aun'ts viewing. We were kids who were antsy and couldn't sit still. My cousin Phillip set off a few firecrackers in an ashtray. Thankfully no one came running. Death can be a difficult thing for really kids to process. unless they are really disciplined, it may be better to have them say their goodbyes and then send them home with a sitter. We were in our early teens, so w had no excuse.

     * One older man at my grandfather's funeral who paid his respects to our family, silently just nodding his head. As he headed back toward the rear, he turned around and came back again. And again. I was standing between my brother and my cousin Dell, when on the third pass, he wouldn't let go and kept shaking Dells's hand. We all laughed when he said, "Weren't you here before?", and then "Hey, let go! That's enough!" It was a humorous moment to a grievous evening.