St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

I stopped by St. Mary's to visit Dad's grave site after church today. Some of the leaves in the cemetery are starting to change. 

St. Mary's Cemetery Part 6

I walked over to the cemetery to visit Dad today. This mausoleum is his resting place. Photos taken 8-11-11.

St. Mary's Cemetery Part 5

The cemetery has beautiful gently rolling hills. The mausoleum in the above picture opened in 1994. It is where Dad is buried. Photos taken 8-11-11.

St. Mary's Cemetery Part 3

When Becky was living here with my nephews between 2007 and 2009 she would take them to the cemetery to visit Dad's grave. She would sometimes stop by the statue pictured above.

More from The Catholic Cemeteries web site:

"The 65-acre property was originally opened as a parish cemetery in 1873 by the Church of the Immaculate Conception (now the Basilica of St. Mary). In 1887, it became an Archdiocesan-wide cemetery." Photo taken 8-2-11.

St. Mary's Cemetery Part 1

Dad died in 2007 and is buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Minneapolis. The cemetery is located at 4403 Chicago Avenue South.

The Boulevard Theater Part 3

During my time growing up in the Tangletown (formerly Fuller) neighborhood in Minneapolis the Boulevard Theater was was a second-run theater known for it's cheap seats. Because it only charged 99 cents to see film that had already been in wide release, many neighborhood folks called it the "99 cent-er". I remember seeing a lot of movies there including A Christmas Story, Star Wars, Reds, The Verdict, The Breakfast Club, Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck, and more.

Dad took me to see Paul Newman in The Verdict in 1982. I remember it was the first movie that just the two of us went to alone since a re-release of Disney's The Jungle Book in the early 1970's. I remember a couple of women sitting behind us going nuts over Paul Newman's blue eyes during a close-up of him.

Sam, Pete and I went to see Star Wars when it was re-released in the late 1970's and Sam and I hiked over to see A Christmas Story during Christmas break of 1982/83.

I have early memories of seeing Saturday matinees for kids in the early 1970's. The Pippi Longstocking films from Scandanavia were my favorites although I also had a good time seeing those Disney nature movies as well.

The above photo is my own that I took on July 17, 2011. Although the theater is no longer there, the marquee remains.

Curran's Restaurant

More often than not our family would go to breakfast after Sunday mass. Curran's Family Restaurant got a lot of our business. I loved getting omlettes with cheddar cheese and pancakes on the side. Dad usually got the now infamous (at least in our own family lore) Cakes and Eggs which I think was either number 7 or 8 on the regular breakfast specials menu.

The following is from the Curran's website:

"The Curran name has occupied the corner of 42nd and Nicollet since 1948. That name, however, has lived on through centuries in another part of the world. The Curran family name can be traced back to seventeenth century Ireland when it was the most popular name in Tipperary. By 1901, the Irish census had counted 142 Curran families in County Kerry alone."

"The Minneapolis Currans were part of that 142. Dennis Curran was born in County Kerry in 1861; he immigrated to the United States, landing in New York City. There he met and married Honora Sullivan, an Irish nanny. They left New York and began a journey that led them to the copper mines of Michigan and eventually to Green Isle, Minnesota, where they homesteaded a farm in 1870."

"Dennis and Honora had six children - one of whom was John Curran. The fifth of six children, hohn farmed with his family until his marriage to Katie Morrin. In time John married Katie Morrin and they bought their own farm and raised six children of their own."

"Their fourth child, Mike, decided that farming wasn't his vocation in life. Instead, he operated grocery stores and meat markets. During World War II, he managed the officer's club on Waikiki Beach. Upon his return in 1948, Make and his father, John, built a 14' by 14' drive-in restaurant at 42nd and Nicollet. Curran's opened for business on May 17, 1948, and Mike operated it as a carhop drive-in until 1954. That year he added a counter with nine stools inside the restaurant building. On year later, Curran's boasted the first electronic two-way car-to-kitchen ordering system in the Twin Cities."

Curran's is located at 4201 Nicollet Avenue South.