Frank Leahy: The Swing Vote

June 12, 2021

Ithaca Times

By Marjorie Z. Olds

ITHACA, NY -- Growing up on Staten Island in the ‘60s, Frank Leahy had eight siblings. The Leahy family lived in a small, sparsely populated village surrounded by farmland. “We lived in a close-knit neighborhood and all the grownups watched out for all the kids as we walked to the park and to each others’ homes.” Most of the time, Frank had a sister or a brother nearby.

Frank’s father worked three jobs to support their family — New York City fireman, occasional dock worker, and truck driver as needed. “At home we didn’t have a lot of family rules, but we all helped with baby care, and generally pitched in to see that chores were done…Still we had plenty of time to play unsupervised, so we had many adventures.”

When Frank was 5 his parents bought an older farmhouse with land in Virgil, New York, where the family of 11 stayed each summer for the next 10 years. “My parents wanted to be amongst the high hills outside the city. We would drive from Staten Island in our huge International Travelall, plus our station wagon, towing a U-Haul. Our father worked three days straight as a fireman and would commute to Virgil for four days each week throughout the summer. We would always visit the Cornell gardens, check out the pheasants, the experimental grasses and other favorites. We loved to swim under the Taughannock Falls, watching out for each other, and then barbecuing in the park. Sometimes we would make lean-tos on the land and camp out, like we learned in scouting.”

The nine Leahy kids all walked to Elementary School PS 26. Frank had older and younger siblings in attendance and his school memories were happy. “Our Village school was small, flexible and supportive. In second grade when I expressed an interest in gardening, the teachers said I could start a school garden. And so, I did. They gave me free rein, found a bunch of tools for me, and I grew peanuts.”

Even as a little kid Frank always wanted to “make things.” A 90-year-old neighbor recalls Frank as a preschooler: “You would come over and make the most beautiful things.” Most of all Frank lived to “make art.” He loved all the containers in which his elementary school teachers stored scraps of paper and material. At 8, his teachers gave him a key to the art closet so he could make arts and crafts after school. “I loved the art closet and felt so free to create. There was no supervision and a few kids and I would invent things…In junior high, teachers selected seven of us kids to ‘do art.’ We were allowed to leave our regular classes and work in the art room, in an area which became our own art studio.

Intermediate School required two bus rides to a larger, more populous area.  “There I got to know a wide array of kids of different nationalities, races, religions.” For high school all nine Leahy kids tested for, applied to, and then attended parochial school.

During Frank’s pre-teen years he started saving money from his paper route. As a teenager he was hired to work at Lasker Pool in Central Park in Harlem. “This was a big deal, since I was eligible to join the city’s payroll and get union rate and benefits. The pay was great for a kid… The downside was the two hour commute each way: bus from the village to the ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan and then the subway to 110th Street. Saving up money so I could go to college, I often biked to and from the ferry, 10 miles each way.” After two years of lifeguarding at Lasker Pool, Frank was rewarded with a job at Midland Beach on Staten Island.

Frank stayed on at Midland Beach, every May-September until he was 22, paying for college that way.

“I felt pulled in two directions: I loved art, but knew I was a natural caregiver. I felt an affinity for caretaking, and was counted on growing up to bring groceries and meals to my grandmother near our home. Weekends I would clean and straighten up her apartment. I also cared for each of my parents in their last years. But Cornell nursing was not receptive to male applicants. So, after considering nursing school, I picked Potsdam College as the smallest state school, as far away as possible from NYC, where I could pursue art…Boy, was that North Country on the border of Canada cold!” In those days Frank wrote home to his family. Kids didn’t have phones, but he wasn’t homesick at all, and was busy learning new things. He enjoyed his classes and delved into his art.

Stay tuned to see where Frank’s art and his gift for caretaking led him after Potsdam. In the meantime, we share some of Frank’s art, which you may have seen on permanent exhibit around Ithaca. https://frankleahy.wixsite.com/frankleahyart

https://www.ithaca.com/opinion/columnists/community_connections/frank-leahy-the-swing-vote/article_8f8ed920-cafd-11eb-91ca-bbf7d4375b09.html