FATHERS TRUE

Make no mistake; my father was an original. I have always admired him for what he accomplished. His parents were Charles F. Mansfield and Anna Lowndes, whose surname was common in London, England, which I happened to notice when I lived there in the late 1970s. (The origin of the Mansfield surname is discussed below.) Born in Manhattan, raised in the Bronx and later a resident of Brooklyn where the first four of his and my Mom’s six kids were born, Dad graduated from Brooklyn Prep, had his Fordham University education interrupted by World War II Army Air Corps service in the South Pacific campaign against Japan, and went on to serve as president and chief executive officer of Marine Midland Bank of New York and later as chairman and CEO of Continental Copper and Steel Industries, later known as CCX Corporation. His biography is all the more remarkable when one considers the facts that his mother passed away when he was just eight, and his father died when he was 13. His family then consisted of his stepmother, Alice Kirkwood Mansfield, whom he came to love deeply (based on letters he wrote to her during WW II, which I have), and his half-sister, Alice Mary (Lissemore). By any contemporary measure, Dad was obviously a successful public man. But I can tell you from the heart that he was a great father. He enjoyed the important things of this world—his family, his homes (in Garden City, N.Y., and Stuart (Hutchinson Island), Fla.) and his friends. Although, in the tradition of men of Irish heritage, he rarely showed his emotions, he was a man of deep and abiding love. Moreover, he left this world with a clear heart and a clean soul. At the time of my father’s death, friends and family alike made some remarkable statements about him. One recurring theme is that it seemed unimaginable that he could be dead, for he was such a strong, even intimidating figure. One of his friends affectionately called him “The Bear” and, upon learning of his passing, told me that my Dad “really had the brass ones.” I believe such characterizations may be common but, as many of those who knew him well also understood, much of his persona was a self-defense built in his early youth when, as aforementioned, both his natural parents died prematurely. Their deaths inevitably scarred him for life; they are the reasons he avoided hospitals and funeral parlors, unless he absolutely had to be there. In the spring of 1961 the board of Garden City’s Experiment in International Living chose me to represent the village and Chaminade High School, where I was a junior, in a European country for that summer. My wife Mame, then my secret high-school sweetheart, was also selected as Garden City (GC) High School’s representative and spent three months with a German family in Bielefeld, Westphalen, Germany. While there she actually witnessed the beginning of the erection of the Berlin Wall. My selection was a great honor. Nonetheless, I had little interest in leaving home for the entire summer because it would mean missing Chaminade varsity double-session summer football practices and possibly sacrificing a position on the ’61 Flyer eleven. This was a risk I could not and would not take. (Author’s note: That squad was chronicled in the 2021 book, THE PERFECT SEASON: The Untold Story of Chaminade High School’s First Undefeated and Untied Varsity Football Team, by my classmate and teammate Tom Kiley and me.) Stand by. When I told Chaminade’s powers that be that I would not accept the exchange-student honor, a firestorm erupted! Next, the school’s administration dispatched two Marianist brothers to my parents’ home to implore them to drive some sense into their errant son who was about to walk away from the opportunity of a lifetime for a high-school student. They were the same two good men who later visited my folks to recruit me for the Society of Mary (a.k.a. Marianists). As I eavesdropped on the conversation between the brothers and my parents, I was worried at first but soon soothed when I heard my father say, “Brothers, I understand your concern and Chaminade’s position but the right answer is to let Chuck make his own decision, one way or the other, for he will have to live with it.” I was elated, and that was the end of the meeting. Thanks, Dad.