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Meself

Then...

I was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, in the year 1949, as was my brother Thomas in 1951, to Donald and Louise Goonan, who were also born there in the years 1927 and 1929 respectively.  Many of my Goonan family branch were born and lived in New Hampshire.  The New Hampshire Goonan families go back as far as the 1880's. 

In the early middle 1950's my father Donald graduated from the University of New Hampshire with his electrical engineering degree and went to work for the General Electric Company.  After few years he was transferred to  Chicago where he would eventually "bring good things to life" for the next thirty or forty years.  Away we went.  Westward Ho! Well, not that far west.  We eventually settled in a place called Steger, Illinois after a few pit stops in Pittsfield, (pun intended) Massachusetts, Schenectady, New York, Homewood and South Chicago Heights, Illinois.  I think we moved from Homewood to South Chicago Heights because the landlord sold the property to make way for a Jewel grocery store.  I spent the third grade in two different Catholic grammar schools.  The first half at St. Joseph's in Homewood and the second at St. Liborius in Steger.  I think it should of been named St. Laborious.  It was a labor to get through it all believe me.  But that's another story.  God bless those Sisters.

I grew up in the Village of Steger, Illinois, some forty miles due south of Chicago.  A few my friends used to say my folks talked funny.  That was because of their New Hampshire accent.  You know the old "pahk the cah" thing.  I have the distinct Chicago accent and folks here say I talk funny for a native son.  Ironic.

Steger was incorporated as a town in the late 1960's when the population reached about ten thousand I think.  When we first moved there it was still listed as a village with a population of around three thousand or so.  When the sun went down so did Steger.

Steger was one the far outlining suburbs of what is known as Chicago land.  Past Steger was the village of Crete after that there was farm country for the next few hundred miles.  We lived at the southwestern edge of the town and bordered farm land and wetlands.  We had dirt road access for the first five years or so.  In the middle of the 1960's the farm land and wetlands across the road in front of us was sold to developers.  The wetlands were drained and backfilled, and subdivisions with hundreds of typical sixties style suburban middle income ranch and split level homes were built, all jammed together.  Instant population boom in two years.

Suddenly me and my brother Tom's world of swamps, wildlife, woods and adventure was gone and the rest of our world was getting a lot smaller.  Not only with the encroaching development, but there were more siblings who had arrived.  Three of them, Rosemary, Stephen and Kathleen, 1955, 1959 and 1967 respectively.   It was decided to expand and remodel our house and to build a garage.  Three rooms and another bathroom were added to make room for our expanding family.  A two car garage was built to accommodate our newly transformed two car nuclear family. Mainly it was for the kid and school taxi service which was operated by my Mother.

The early Steger I grew up in and knew was a place that had a downtown with a Rexall drugstore that had about a twenty seat soda fountain and juke box with coin boxes in the dozen or so booths.  Classic stuff.  It was the place to be after school.  Steger had a locally owned 5 & 10 with a creaky wooden floor and two New England style textile mill factory buildings.  One made kitchen cabinets and other furniture and the other was the Mamma Mia Spaghetti plant - I had a part time job there once, packing products on pallets for shipping.  Nasty job.  They also made the famous "Hamburger Helper" there.  Steger was also split in half East and West by four sets of Central & Eastern Illinois  Railroad tracks, and there was a classic old-time train station for passenger service a block off the downtown area.  That's one thing I miss in New Hampshire - there are hardly any trains here anymore.

The downtown was the intersection of Rte 1, also named Chicago Road, and 234th Street, also known as  34th Street or Steger Road.  34th Street or Steger Road was also the Cook and Will County boundary line.  South of 34th Street was Will County.  North was Cook County.  We were south of 34th Street on the southwest corner of Carpenter Street and 36th Street.  I planted two black walnut trees there.  Today they are huge and feeding most of the neighborhood squirrel population.  Actually as of this date, 10/30/2005, they are gone.  The people who bought the house and property have cut them down.

Every little town has one and Steger was no different.  The local Grocery store.  Mr. Hartmann owned and operated the local grocery store in Steger and it seemed to me like he was always there.  I think he lived there.  The guy would bag groceries and help you carry them to the car.  He was also the  butcher and he had a reputation for having the best meat around.  And there was the old Laundromat across the street from Hartmann's grocery that had a soda machine that was known to dispense more than one soda for a dime and a strategic smack in the right place.

We had a Catholic church, a Lutheran church, a Congregational church, and for a time, the "Holy Rollers" took over the old town theatre before it was torn down in the late 1960s - a little urban renewal project.  With the theatre went the Rexall drug store to make way for a strip mall style Seven Eleven convenience plaza.  The factory that made kitchen cabinets across the street was also torn down and a K-Mart plaza and a corner Mobil Gas station was built.  Incidentally, that furniture factory was once the Steger Piano Manufacturing Company.  They made pianos back in the 1920s and 30s I believe.  There are still a few Steger pianos around.  My brother Tom saw a Steger upright piano in an American Legion Hall in Utah a few years ago.  However, it was not for sale.  I might of made a bid if it was.

I entered Military service with the US Army after High School and served in Vietnam in 1968-69. After completing my three years of military service honorably I attended Wilbur Wright college in Chicago and studied some general business and business law.  Simultaneously, I studied 20th Century Music  Composition and Theory at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago for four years.  I worked in the Chicago and Midwest area in the music industry, in retail sales and management, and also worked as a professional musician for the next fifteen years in various area groups.  I also did a short road tour as bassist with the re-formed 60s group the "Spiral Staircase". They had a major hit in 1969 titled, "I love You More Today Than Yesterday".

Now...

In 1988 I had the opportunity to embark on a new career.  I moved back to New Hampshire and I am currently living in Manchester.  I work for the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services' Division for Juvenile Justice Services, as an Operations Officer at the Youth Development Center in Manchester.  This is the State's residential facility for court committed delinquent youth.  A most satisfying job, and I love my work.  And, at this late stage in my life, I went back to school and earned two degrees.  I earned an Associates Degree in Corrections, Parole and Probation and I earned a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice from Hesser College in Manchester.

My curiosity about my family history started back in 1986 a year after my grandfather Thomas Goonan died.  It was then that it struck me... I know just about nothing about my roots.  I began asking everybody questions and it just took off from there.  Of course the family history is far from complete.  I very quickly found out it is nearly a full time job doing this.  I don't have, nor do I devote as much time as I should, to doing research but hey, there are only so many hours in a day.

In addition to this genealogy project I have a other interests in the Arts.  I have been honing my calligraphy, water color, and pen and ink skills the past few years.  This is something I have always had an interest in, but didn't have the time to really pursue.  And of course, I spend a lot of time both outdoors in the woods and at the seacoast.  This is one of the treats of living in New Hampshire.  I have a small home recording studio where I work on my own music when the Spirit moves me.  For what... I'm not sure, but it keeps me sane.  And I can't let all that school work at the Conservatory and practice go to waste.

But, the really big deal in my life is, that I became a grandfather for the first time June 24, 1999.  My daughter Annemarie, and her husband Kevin Huyer, brought their first child - my first grandchild, Evan Alexander Huyer, into the world. And as of April 1, 2005, they brought into the world Molly Elizabeth Huyer - my second grandchild.