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- Charles McKenna was chief of a fraud and overpayment control office on unemployment compensation for the state of Vermont. He organized and set the unit up in 1948 and it was only the second such unit in the country. In addition to his main job, he was a real estate developer in Norwich and White River Junction. He retired in 1965.
Submitted by Charles McKenna himself
My father, Charles Marshall McKenna, Sr., was born February 23, 1904, in Lynn, Massachusetts, the eighth of eleven children, and the third son. His father’s line is traced through Anne McKeever and Francis McKenna. His mother, Bertha Marshall, was protestant; several of her ancestors came to the US on the Mayflower. Soon after her marriage to Charles William McKenna, she became a Catholic, and a devout one. It was through her insistence that her children received higher education.
Surely one of my father’s first trials came when he was five, when, to correct his wry neck, he underwent surgery and was put on a body cast for several months. Soon after, however, he became an energetic and mischievous boy, and also one who diligently saved money by selling newspapers and helping in his father’s laundry in Manchester, New Hampshire. (The family moved from Lynn when my father was two.) He learned to play the violin and was known as his “class musician” when he graduated from high school. After a year of construction work, he followed his brother to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he majored in Business Management. He worked his way through college by managing and becoming part owner of a restaurant, being timekeeper for the construction of the Dartmouth football stadium, and becoming part owner of a secondhand store.
With few hours to sleep and fewer still to study, Dad still had time during his senior year to meet his future wife, Helen Margaret Findlen, who was working nearby as a Home Demonstration Agent for the Vermont Extension Service. This was my mother’s first job after graduation in 1925 from Farmingham State Normal School where she majored in Chemistry of food and nutrition.
She was born on September 23, 1904, the eldest of eight children of Irish parents: Jane Margaret Bradley (daughter of Mary Haley & John Bradley, farmer, of Charlottetown, P.E.I.) and Edward L. Findlen (son of Mary Ellen Hale and Joseph Findlen, son of Patrick, who was among the first settlers of Fort Fairfield, Maine.) Born in Fort Fairfield, at age nine my mother moved to Dedham, Massachusetts where she grew up. Her family was rather poor, but she was a good student, worked hard, was active in 4-H, and got a scholarship to go four years of college.
After a few years of trying several types of work and managing restaurants in Philadelphia and New York City, my father returned to the country life he preferred, and to marry my mother in 1930, settled in Hanover, NH. After a year, they left for Florida to weather the Great Depression. By 1933, they were back in Norwich, Vermont (one mile from Hanover) where they started a small restaurant called the Lamp Post Grill. When the bridge over the Connecticut River was closed for rebuilding, they lost most of their business and had to close the Grill. Gradually, with the help of the Democratic Party (of which my parents were staunch supporters) my father found part-time work. My brother, Charles Marshall Jr. was born in 1935. Then the job of Postmaster of Norwich opened up. By this time it was clear that my father, who began drinking heavily in college, was a true alcoholic, a “periodic drinker”. So he was turned down for the job of Postmaster, but amazingly enough, my mother we appointed. (This was in the days when very few women held that position, even if they did very well on the examination- as my mother did.) During her thirty years as Postmaster, the Norwich PO went from fourth to first class.
I was born in 1938. In 1944, my father very courageously stopped drinking forever, and his life was transformed into one of prayer and great compassion, kindness and patience. His work had been changing from food management to investigation works, first, for the office of Price Administration, and then the Vermont Unemployment Compensation Commission, for which he set up and managed the fraud and overpayment control office.
My father also was a real estate developer in Norwich and White River Junction.
My parents joined together in many types of works. They enjoyed gardening and thus provided most of the food for our family. They were active parishioners at St. Frances of Assisi Chapel in Norwich. In response to many kinds of requests, some direct, some through the Experiment in International Living on Dartmouth College, they offered hospitality for several years at a time to many kinds of persons, and many nationalities among those India, Nigeria, Korean, Spanish, Mexican, German. My parents always hoped to have many more children, but my mother’s severe diabetes, evident just after my birth, prevented this. I think their hospitality was also their way of living out what they believed deeply: that we, as a world, need to become united through many personal bonds. Their humble efforts towards communion were, to them, what their Catholic religion asked of them. Many life-long deep friendships were found and a number of persons refer to my parents as “Mom and Dad”.
My parents both had a very lively sense of civic responsibility and (as much as their work for the government would allow) entered with great gusto into various political activities in Town. After my mother retired, she became President of the League of Women voters, President of the Women’s’ club, and once moderated the town meeting. She was active in the Peace Movement and the Anti-Nuclear Movement. My father supported her in these activities, and with her worked on the Home for the Elderly Project.
After my mother died on the Sunday after Easter in 1983, my father made a great effort to keep busy and live life to the full. He was constantly helping old single persons, both men and women – taking them shopping, or to dinner, or simply visiting with them. As an avid bridge player, he was greatly prized in different weekly card groups. A loyal son of Dartmouth, he was active in its Alumina Association to the end. Dad died on May 25, 1986 –Trinity Sunday.
At his funeral Mass his sister’s son, Fr. Placid McSweeney, OCSO, came up from the Trappist Abbey in Spencer, Mass to preside, and the parish priest as well as Mgr. William Nolan, Dartmouth’s Catholic Chaplain, were co-celebrants.
My parents took great pride in the advanced musical accomplishments of their two grandchildren, John, 19 and Patricia, 16 who are in the process of becoming professional musicians. I’m sure they were as pleased as anyone when the two children played a piece written for saxophone and violin at Dad’s funeral – a piece John had just composed for the occasion. Dad’s gift for music lives on in a very tangible way.
Submitted by Sharon McKenna, Daughter of Charles McKenna (with corrections)
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McIverPEIAncestry.ca Electronic Family Tree
1904 - 1986 (82 years)
