When Patty Crowley`s husband, Pat, died 14 years ago, it brought her face to face with the realities of being single. An indefatigable worker for peace, minorities and the underprivileged, Crowley now puts a special focus on women`s issues. Crowley, 75, recently resigned from the boards of several prestigious Chicago social service groups to spend more time actively helping others-from spending nights at a shelter for homeless women to visiting women in jail. Crowley also is president of Space Travel, an all-women travel agency she and her daughter, Cathy George, founded. She talked with freelance writer Catharine Reeve about her lifelong belief in personal involvement in social issues.
My father, a French Canadian, was very, very poor, and I think my father had determined that he`d never have his own family see hunger. He eventually owned a textile company, and he was very successful. My mother came from a wealthy Protestant family in Benton Harbor (Michigan). She wanted to be in society and stuff like that, but she had a social conscience, too, because she wanted me to be a Girl Scout, and Girl Scouts was not a very fancy thing to be in (then). I was the only one from my (Roman Catholic) school who was in it. Girl Scouts was marvelous for me because I began to meet people from other economic levels and other faiths. I went to camps and to the World Eucharistic Conference in Dublin (Ireland), and I was a recipient of the Golden Eaglet
(highest award in Girl Scouting at that time).
During World War II (by then she lived in the Chicago area), most of the men in our group of friends were married and had one or two children, so they weren`t called to (military) service. But there was always the danger of being called, and you lived under a strain. I think the whole war made one think,
”What (is) life all about? What (are) we doing with our lives?”
When someone invited my husband, Pat, to join a group of men to discuss what values they should have in their work life, I was sort of against the group because it took Pat away from me; he was gone to these meetings at night. Then some women`s groups started, and I got into one, though I`d never liked women`s groups.
Finally in 1949 the men and women got together as couples, no more than six or seven couples to a group, and we formed the Christian Family Movement
(CFM). It started in the parishes in the Catholic church. It was based on the Scriptures.
We began to analyze what feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless-what did all that mean we should be doing? The idea was that you should be concerned with things beyond the church, that you were a family in a given neighborhood and that everything that happened in that neighborhood affected your family: the problems, the racial issue, the political issues, the international life.
We had a set program on one topic each year. At first it was getting to know your neighbors, and then on becoming involved in your community; then, in the early `50s, we had a program on race, long before anybody else did. We would invite black people to our house in Wilmette-it was quite a thing in those days-and we`d take people from Wilmette down to visit black families on the South Side. The idea is that unless you see things and do things, you`re not aware of what`s going on in the world, that to get to know other races, you have them in your home and go to visit them in theirs. I still think that to have a social awareness, you have to see things before you`ll do anything. CFM had a great effect on me and on my life with Pat; it brought us closer together. My theory is that many couples don`t have a common interest together, except for children, and I don`t think they`re enough to keep you together.
When Pat and I would take a trip, we`d usually take a couple of our children with us and stay with families and talk about CFM and help groups get started. It was thrilling to see couples all over the country and eventually all over the world, from Japan to Ireland, who were trying to form these small groups.
When we took international life as a topic, Pat and I started having foreign students live with us. By the time we moved into Chicago (from Wilmette), we had five foreign students living with us-three of them were blacks from Africa-and we had to get a five-bedroom place because we had three kids of our own then. We were turned down by some (building owners) because Pat told them the students were not maids and that they were not going to come up the back entrances. Some of the students lived with us for four years; we gave them room and board, but they all had scholarships for tuition.
I almost died when our last child, Cathy, was born. At such a time you think of all the things you didn`t do. It helped me to think that what`s important in life is what you do for others.
After Cathy was born, we started taking foster children because we couldn`t have any more kids (of our own), and we wanted a lot of kids. We had about 12 foster children over the years.
Pat and I were always a couple (they were married for 37 years), and then all of a sudden I was a single woman. (Pat Crowley died in 1974.) One of the hardest things after the death of your husband, especially when you`ve done so much together, is to find yourself alone. Your whole life changes. You`ve done everything as a couple; now you`re invited to a dance, and it is always as a couple, so you don`t go.
I never knew single women before, and as a couple I think we were insensitive to single women-never included them or thought of them. Your life is different when you`re alone-you have to change; you can`t hold on to what you had before.
Life has different stages. Mainly because I`m alone now, I`ve become very interested in women and what they`re doing and their struggles. That`s my life now-the homeless women, the women in jail, the liturgy with women, the needs women have to better themselves in their careers. Not that I`m opposed to men. But I`m not interested in finding anyone to marry, which a lot of women might be.
I`ve decided that most people ask you to get on boards (of organizations) because they think you can raise money, and I`m very poor at that. When you`re on them, you don`t do anything but go to meetings and listen to what other people have done.
I have nothing against any of the groups, but for me at my age-I`m 75 and don`t have too many more years to live-what matters is the whole idea of being active. So I got off most of the boards I was on, and I told people that I wasn`t getting on any more boards unless I could actually do something.
I would see so many homeless women on Michigan Avenue, at the bus stop, on the benches when I walked to church, and I really wanted to do something. I went to a meeting, and we decided to start a shelter here (on the Near North Side). It`s called Deborah`s Place, and one of the requirements of being on the board is that you have to work at the shelter, either overnight or at dinner. We have up to 30 homeless women a night now. (Twice a month) I go and sleep in my sleeping bag on a mat on the floor. You take turns; you sleep for a while and then get up, but you have to stay up for three hours during the night. You just sit and read. You have to get up at 5:15 to help get breakfast, then put the food away and wash all the mats and pillows with disinfectant.
I wouldn`t be interested in doing just an overnight shelter. That is not the answer to the problem. But we have a day shelter called Irene`s, after a homeless woman who committed suicide, where homeless women have job and housing counseling. They can stay there until 6:30 at night. And we have another building, Marah`s House, for 22 women who are not ready to go into their own housing but are ready to go off the street and live and work in a community. They all have their own rooms.
One thing is good: We don`t see many of the same people anymore. And one of the women who is a volunteer now used to be a homeless woman. It`s an ennobling of women and giving them a chance. But a lot of the women are mental cases, and that is a problem.
Once again, you get a better idea of what it`s like to be in someone`s shoes if you see them and talk to them. I have a better understanding of the problems of homelessness by seeing the homeless.
I was on the Chicago Housing Authority board, but I (along with three other members whose terms had not expired) was asked to resign by Mayor Sawyer. I resigned under protest. The big problem (in the CHA) is the vacancies and why the apartments are vacant when so many people need housing. One of the other things I`m on is HOME (Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly); they work with the elderly poor. I was able to help put the two together. Since CHA doesn`t have any money, HOME has been sponsoring the cleaning and painting of more than 150 apartments for the elderly and hopefully will set an example for other groups and corporations to help CHA.
I`ll do everything (to promote a cause) but get arrested. I go visit the women`s federal prison at Van Buren and Clark (Streets) every Friday night with my daughter Patsy and another woman, and I don`t think it`s any fun to be in jail. So when I`m in a march (mostly peace marches because I`m very concerned about nuclear war), I won`t cross a line when they tell you not to; I won`t do anything that would get me arrested.
I think people are the important thing. There`s some sort of satisfaction in doing something with other people. I hate to have people say, ”Oh, aren`t you wonderful!” I enjoy doing it, so I`m not so wonderful. I mean, I love going to jail every Friday night; I really love it, and I have a good time.
Sometimes I play Scrabble, and I never play Scrabble any place else but in jail.
