Pauline Marie Salmon

"Mom, your eyes are blue."

"No, they are grey. That is what my birth certificate says."

An oft-repeated exchange from the 1970's until five years ago.

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On October 18, 1937, Pauline and her blue eyes (she conceded that her eyes were blue in the past five years) made their debut in Brooklyn, New York. She was the 12th child of Adele and James Corrigan's clan. Pauline's oldest sister, Jean, a 20 year old nursing student at the time helped to usher Mom into the world (and got in trouble for sneaking out of school to do it!). Five days after her birth, Pauline became a resident of the borough of Queens, New York.

While Pauline was the 12th child, two more babies were born and sadly neither survived. For all intents and purposes, Pauline was the youngest of the Corrigan family in her growing up years.

Our cousin Cathleen Breeze recalls her father, our Uncle Al, relaying the story of him returning home from shore leave for the Merchant Marines and having toddler Pauline sit on his knee. Her tiny, bespectacled self (she got her first pair of glasses at age 2) at rapt attention to her adored older brother's words, heard him say, "Don't let them call you 'baby'!"

The thing with Pauline that resonated her whole life: she always maintained a child-like approach to her faith and her devotion to God

and Christ. She never wavered in that perspective. It served her well, clearly.

As she grew up, she was always involved with school activities participating in the Newman Club, Girl Scouts, volleyball, and other sports throughout the years. She was always busy, too, with nieces and nephews! She became an aunt at age 2 with the arrival of James Jones!

In her senior year of high school, Pauline started work at Best & Co., a store that sold high-end clothes for children and adults in Manhattan. This part-time position parlayed itself into the opportunity of a lifetime: it was here that she met a young (his 21st birthday!) man from Dublin, Ireland named Richard Salmon. This chance meeting on June 11, 1955 led to one of the greatest love stories we will ever know!

Upon graduation from Andrew Jackson High School, Pauline attended Grace Institute in Manhasset on Long Island where she honed her secretarial skills. In January of 1956, Pauline got a position at CBS where she sold airtime for advertisers.

On August 23, 1958, Pauline and Richard married at Sacred Heart Church in Cambria Heights, Queens, NY. They rented their first apartment in Franklin Square which was a small upstairs unit. Dark, wood-paneled, Pauline relayed once that her mother Adele came to visit and thought that the apartment was a hallway to a larger unit: no, it was that tiny. Cousin Cathleen relays being very young and going to

Mom and Dad's apartment and observing how small the place was. She even asked where their TV was and they did not have one!

Motherhood beckoned and Peter arrived in June of 1960. Pauline finished her job at CBS to tend to her new charge.

In 1961, Pauline and Richard became new homeowners, buying a lot and having a house built in Lake Ronkonkoma. They would remain at the house for 38 years.

As the years went on, Pauline and Richard added to the family. Thomas arrived in February of 1963, Edward in October of 1965 and Jeanne arrived in March of 1967.

During that time, Richard encouraged Pauline to start taking college classes. Mom began her college career at Suffolk County Community College. There, she would occasionally run in to fellow student, Joyce (Pauline's niece!). What is normally a two-year degree program, Mom stretched out to about 9 years of schooling, always busy with her children and the extra jobs to help out with the expenses of family life. She worked at the telephone company, the local school district, etc...: whatever it was to supplement Richard's parochial school salary. Meals would be nourishing and sometimes dreamed up on the fly: Mom's recipe for creamed everything: clean out the fridge, cook any leftover food, make a cream sauce and serve it over toast. It worked. We were well-fed!

Great family memories were made for the family of six: we would drive out to Westhampton Beach and go to what was then designated "our beach." Dad, replete with his Coleman stove would cook up Sabrett hotdogs and beans. Mom would be ready with the lemonade. We would run and play on the beach. We went to "our beach" for years as a family. We also had many "road trips", usually to New England and the environs. Canada was always a favorite. Trips down to Washington, D.C.

We would also have family movie nights during the summertime with Dad showing home movies on his projector. Favorite restaurants of the Salmons in those early family years included the Modern Snack Bar in Aquebogue and "Bucky Bradford" night at Bradford House Restaurants inside of Grants stores. Friendly Ice Cream was always a good idea, too.

When Mom graduated from Suffolk Community College, she then started to attend the State University of New York at Stony Brook to finish her Bachelor's degree. On campus, she would run in to fellow Stony Brook Seawolf, her niece, Cathleen!

As Mom was moving towards finishing her degree, she took the Law School Admissions Test.

Wait.

Pauline did not get the memo.

Pauline's four older sisters: Jean, Elsie, Mary and Adele were all nurses.

Where did we go wrong? Another lawyer in the world!

Pauline attended St. John's University Law school starting in 1976. Staying on theme, Mom would run in to her son Peter who attended St. John's University starting in 1978!

Those were challenging years for the young family as Mom attended school at night. Chores were assigned: Peter and Jeanne on dishwashing and drying and alternating nights of Tom and Ed. Richard was an absolutely wonderful father, but cooking was not part of his skill set. In those years, we ate a lot of spaghetti and jarred tomato sauce! Mom would spend her days studying, even if it meant studying in the Spitfire Orange Volare station wagon parked in the garage! Whatever it took!

But, we all felt invested in Mom's schooling and eventual outcome (in third grade, I could recite to you the elements of assault and battery!).

In May of 1980, at age 42, Mom graduated from St. John's Law. There was no one person more proud of her than her love, Richard. He was positively beaming at her accomplishment!!!

Mom had a lovely period of time after the Bar exam and before she started her first post-law school job. From July 1980 to January of 1981, Mom crocheted more afghans than anyone could have! It was her moment to breathe after years of hard work and intellectual toil.

During that time, Mom also started on a rather large project: she started working on the genealogy of the Corrigan and Johnson families.

This was a labor of love that she worked on with her cousin, Marie Gerty. The two of them spent decades researching, reaching out to distant relatives (a relative in Norway who lived on an oil rig! He called Pauline and Richard after 9/11to see how they were doing!) and creating literal volumes of information about our ancestors. Pauline's rigor for genealogical research took her to Salt Lake City on multiple occasions to review the Mormon's well-documented records in search of missing narrative to the family lineage as well as abroad to Irish collections of family documents.

Mom started work as an attorney at the Children's Rights Bureau of the Suffolk County Legal Aid Society, Inc. in January of 1981. She had interned there during law school and loved the level of commitment afforded to the children by the office. She eventually became the supervising attorney of the office and retired on November 1, 1999.

As an attorney for children, Mom more than just represented them in proceedings. Some of these children were in foster care, some were taken into custody for having allegedly committed a crime, some were in the middle of messy custody disputes. Mom's quiet, deliberate ways and hard won skills as a mother coupled with her finesse and skills as an attorney, no doubt made an impression upon her young charges and provided them with the best level of advocacy in the courtroom.

I (Jeanne) eventually became an attorney and would sometimes see Mom speaking for long periods of time with her clients on a bench outside a courtroom. Her level of caring for these children was self­ evident.

Those early years in her career, she would not only be participating in trials and hearings (sometimes late on a Friday night-if there was an especially muddied custody dispute) at court, but, she started to focus on her own community where they were raising their family.

Pauline was one of a few people who helped to revive the Centereach Civic Association. She became president of the organization and went up against town boards and other officials in her advocacy for the community. She won many battles on behalf of the residents.

Mom became one of the founding members and officers of the Suffolk County Women's Bar Association.

Mom also dabbled in politics. She was a member of the Suffolk County Democratic party and would go door to door on behalf of an issue or candidate.

Some of those civic and professional activities started to wane as Mom approached her 50th birthday. On her birthday, she went swimming. She never stopped swimming until about four years ago. She was a member of the YMCA in Patchogue and would swim every morning (except Sunday!). It was her peaceful place to process the rigors of work and family life. It was in this time of her life she started to speak of doing things that she always wanted to do.

Fly a helicopter? She would go on to do that. Go in a hot air balloon? Yes, that too.

There was always a sense of adventure in that period of time for both Mom and Dad. They traveled the world: Australia, Russia, Hawaii, France, Ireland, etc...gaining knowledge and perspective as they went.

In 1986, one trip brought them to San Diego.

They were never the same after that. They came back and said, "We are going to retire to San Diego."

They would return to the city as often as they could because they fell deeply and madly in love with "America's Finest City."

As the years went on, Pauline and Richard's family expanded with marriages and grandchildren. They each embraced their new status as grandparents with great zest!

Mom went on to become "the great communicator" for the Corrigan family at large given her well-developed computer skills. She would email brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews with any family information, genealogy findings, etc...She managed to keep our large family connected through the decades!

Mom retired from the Legal Aid Society in November of 1999. Pauline and Richard then moved to San Diego thereafter. They enjoyed great health and happiness for many years in this great city!

Mom and Dad's spiritual journey included a love and devotion to St. Padre Pio. Their quest to learn of the saint took them many times to St. Giovanni Rotondo in Italy where they met with similarly-situated faithful. They even were interviewed for a radio program while there.

Mom took this devotion even further by creating a webpage dedicated to Mary Pyle, who was St. Padre Pio's spiritual daughter.

Pauline and Richard felt the call to help their brothers and sisters who lived on the streets of San Diego early on. As a couple, they would go out and bring water and fruit cups or cookies to those less fortunate. They would have discussions. They sometime provided them with guidance. Anecdotally, I understand that they were instrumental in helping a small number of people get out of their predicament. They did this for many years. Pauline continued it after Richard passed away but as she got older, it was incrementally more difficult for her to do.

In 2016, Richard was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. This news came as a complete shock to Mom and Dad.

Dad passed away on February 8, 2017.

Widowhood was a challenge to Mom as everything that she did prior was with Richard. She navigated it as best as can be.

She started to walk and walk! She and her friend, Peg, managed to traverse miles of San Diego roadway over the past few years!

She got involved with the folks at Immaculate Conception Church. She made many new friends there and certainly felt a sense of community which proved to be the perfect salve for widowhood.

As the years went on, Mom would always be doling out her small acts of love: delivering her cannoli dip and chips to those who might need a pick-me-up; bagels for the front desk of her building; saying prayers for someone who was sick and adding them to the Immaculate Conception prayer brigade list.

Things that Mom loved: The Brooklyn Dodgers (although, she was still ticked off that they left Brooklyn), Mallomars, babies! (she was a baby hog, if ever), chocolate chip cookies, a good matzoh ball soup and a nice pair of clip-on earrings!

Mom never stopped being a devoted mother. Early in November of 2023, I (Jeanne, again) traveled to Aruba with my husband and our dear friends. I was speaking with Mom and standing in the warm, beautiful Caribbean Sea. She asked what I was doing as she probably heard the gentle waves, and I told her that I was standing in four feet of sybaritic waters. She sent a long missive via text to my husband, complete with documentary evidence to support her position that I was in grave

danger by standing in water talking on my cellphone. Always the attorney prepared with her arguments but also always a Mom!

November 12, 2023, Mom was walking and suffered a heart attack. She spent the 11 subsequent days in the hospital. In those 11 days, she was constantly with her children and was never left without a child near her.

Mom passed away on the afternoon of Thanksgiving, November 23, 2023.

Those days in the hospital were undeniably precious to her four children. We choose to view this time not as the time that Mom suffered and passed, but, as the time that we were privileged to be with her as a family. We four siblings had not been in the same room in a few years-pandemic, travel, etc...all intervened-she managed to get the band back together! Pauline was so funny and cogent through the time. We are honored that we were with her in this process.

While we are so sad at this loss, we are more than GRATEFUL, that funny, quiet, kind, quirky, graceful, humble Pauline Marie was our mother, our grandmother, our mother-in-law, our sister, our sister-in­ law, our aunt, our friend and, for me, Jeanne, additionally, my mentor.

As we told her when we said goodbye to her, job so perfectly done, Mama! Enjoy that great reunion with your love, Richard, and keep a warm plate of creamed everything for when we meet you again!

A special thank you to my brother Peter and his wife, Christy, for all their care for Mom as the sole Californians in the sibling bunch. They

were always at the ready to take care of Mom and Dad as needed through the years.

Pauline is survived by son Peter and his wife, Christy, and their sons, Matthew and Thomas and daughter, Caitlin and as well as Pauline's grandpup, Samson; by her son Thomas and his partner, Christine and Tom's children, Richard, Nicole and Ryan; by her son Edward and his wife, Ginny and their three daughters, Danielle, Alyssa and Brianna; by her daughter, Jeanne, and her husband Frank. She also leaves behind her sister, Adele Dunne, her sisters-in-law, Mary Salmon and Betty Salmon, and many nieces and nephews, both in the US and Ireland.

Pauline: a life of faith, hope, grace, humility, love and humor. And beautiful blue eyes.

Rest in peace, Sweetest Mommy.

A visitation for Pauline will be held Sunday, December 3, 2023 from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM at Pacific Beach – La Jolla Chapel, 4710 Cass Street, San Diego, CA 92109. A funeral service will occur Monday, December 4, 2023 at 11:00 AM at Immaculate Conception, 2540 San Diego Ave,, San Diego, CA 92110. A graveside service will occur Monday, December 4, 2023 at 2:30 PM at Mission San Luis Rey Cemetery, 4050 Mission Ave, Oceanside, CA 92057.