The Funeral Visit
The house of Nora Quinn Larkin, in Dubuque, Iowa, was less than half a mile from the Mississippi River. A simple clapboard house, close enough but not too close to the old slaughterhouse, where her husband had been a foreman: a decent house, more than enough house for the Larkins to raise nine daughters. Knowing their mother, not one of the nine was surprised that Nora Quinn Larkin refused to leave the old house no matter how frail she became. And every one of the nine was delighted when Nora Eunice Magliano, one of the younger granddaughters, agreed to move into the house, just so someone would be around. It was really rather sweet, if a little confusing, in that Nora Eunice, who after all did have a bit of a weight problem, persisted in calling herself “little Nora” while always referring to her tiny grandmother as “big Nora.” She had quite a personality, that Nora Eunice, but it was such a relief when she agreed to move to Dubuque.
On the first day of February, 1974, Nora Quinn Larkin died, at the age of 93, in the house where she had lived for seven decades. Her final weight in pounds matched her age in years.
The first thing Nora Eunice Magliano did was call her mother, who lived in Madison, Wisconsin, to tell her that “big Nora” had passed, and that the “the two Noras” were alone in the house together, awaiting the arrival of the priest, the doctor, and the undertaker. The calmness of Nora Eunice’s tone frightened her mother, who hurriedly called one of her sisters, entrusted her with the task of telling everyone else, and got in the car and drove to Dubuque at fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit, which was very fast for her. Nora Eunice’s mother arrived at her own mother’s house just as a hearse was pulling away. In the living room, Nora Eunice and a young priest were kneeling on the floor, praying the Rosary.
After they received the news, two of Nora Quinn Larkin’s nine daughters felt bold enough to make a long-distance phone call to the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, Italy. They each had the sensation, while dialing, of calling across the centuries to a medieval convent, although they both knew very well that the Villa Schifanoia had been built during the Renaissance, and now housed a graduate school of art history for women, a very progressive idea, in their opinion. Each call was answered by a young lady with a southern accent, who went to fetch the dean of art history. Later, comparing notes, the two sisters agreed as to how polite the young lady was, how vast the transoceanic silence seemed when they were put on hold, and how the cost didn’t matter, not at a time like this. Each of the two was privately certain that she was the first to relate the sad news to their distinguished sister, and neither felt inclined to disabuse the other of her sense of priority. And as for Sr. Martin de Porres, the eldest daughter of Nora Quinn Larkin, she immediately made plans to come home to Dubuque, for the first time in thirty-eight years.
The funeral itself was well-attended, though not so crowded as the funeral of Nora Quinn Larkin’s husband had been, thirty-eight years earlier, when the Larkins still had five daughters enrolled in the local Catholic schools, and five entire classes were marched in to attend the services—circumstances under which even a notorious grouch could have a packed funeral. Nora Quinn Larkin, on the other hand, had outlived most of her contemporaries, and her daughters now resided all over the country and even the world, so it was a tribute to her sweet and giving nature that the church was almost half full.
After the burial the family gathered in a large suburban house on the outskirts of Dubuque. Sister Martin told her sisters and cousins and nieces that, after much prayer, she had decided to take advantage of a new policy in her order. From now on she would be using her birth name: she was now “Sr. Eunice Larkin” and they could call her “Sister Eunice.” Nora Eunice Magliano was a little disappointed in the change, but everyone else seemed to like it—they all said it was so much easier to talk to Sister Eunice than to Sister Martin. Then one of her nieces drove Sister Eunice back to the Mother House in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, a few miles from Dubuque, just across the Mississippi.
That evening, the Mother Superior took Sister Eunice aside—after first calling her Sister Martin, and then apologizing with a smile that Sister Eunice considered rather unctuous—and gave her permission to visit her publisher the next day. At first, Sister Eunice had no idea what the Mother Superior was talking about. Apparently there was a priest, named Fr. Bresnahan, who had arranged to send a car in the morning. And the Mother Superior seemed quite certain that she, Sister Eunice, had some sort of business relationship with “B&B Books” in Dubuque. Could this be the place where her niece had found a job? Concealing her puzzlement, Sister Eunice agreed to the arrangements, and asked a few offhand questions about this priest and his publishing house. The Mother Superior told her all the details, rattling off sales figures with evident pride. Sister Eunice listened carefully. This was the first she had heard of Fr. Niall Bresnahan, or Marcellina’s Bookshelf, or a best-seller called Warrior, Daughter, Saint: The Story of St. Matilda of Canossa, by Sister Martin de Porres.
As she followed the Mother Superior to evening prayers, Sister Eunice gave the impression of being most grateful for the permission to visit B&B Books, and kept her astonishment and her suspicions to herself.
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