LifeTimeline
Austin Cunningham
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SEP 05
Born at high noon
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Dad with his mother Clotilde Mattingly Cunningham
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Boyhood
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A beloved father dies too early
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Growing up in "genteel poverty," fatherless
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APR
Dad becomes a clerk with the U.S. Supreme Court
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JUN
"Who is that young Byron?"
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Teen Austin starts his autograph collection
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APR
Dad makes friends among the court pages
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Dad writes newly elected FDR, seeking autograph
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Elegant Austin
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Dad was an early fingerprint clerk for Hoover's FBI
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Earns law degree, University of Virginia
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JAN
Dad enlists in the Army
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MAY
Virginia L. Threadgill's Fine Letter of Recommendation
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Brother Paul Briscoe Cunningham dies in military test flight
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DEC 31
Dad meets his wife, but doesn't immediately realize it
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Brother Streit Cunningham dies in action in Germany
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JAN
Marries Grace Jacqueline Coder Mobley
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The Great Generation
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Life is Good
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MAY 09
Kathryn born
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Dad goes to work for Magnavox
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MAR
Paul Streit Cunningham born
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APR
Baby Paul dies unexpectedly
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NOV
Amy is born and we move to New Orleans
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APR 17
Company man with time for family
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304 Melrose Avenue, Kenilworth, Illinois
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SEP 28
Austin Cunningham III born
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Oh gosh, Dad loved Barry Goldwater
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The move back south
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Called to the White House for acknowledgement of successful jobs program
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Family Reunion
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Mom has major stroke, dies in January
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The Two Austins
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Senior Years: Getting to Know the Grandsons
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JAN 26
Dies in his own bed, surrounded by loving family: "We didn't miss much."
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JAN 30
The Homegoing Service
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Born at high noon
The doctor told my grandmother that there was no doubting the time of Dad's birth. The lunch horn was blowing loudly at a nearby plant in Washington, DC, just as Dad entered our universe. He was taken home to an apartment building off Columbia Road, next door to a firehouse where the fire wagons were still horse drawn.
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Dad with his mother Clotilde Mattingly Cunningham
Washington, District of Columbia
Dad's father was a newsman working as Washington D.C. correspondent for a San Angelo, Texas, paper (at age 19, he'd traveled to Alaska to report from there). Dad's mom, as you can see, was incredibly elegant and beautiful, a fan of the formalities of the Victorian period.
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Boyhood
Washington, District of Columbia
Here he is on the porch of the house on Macomb Street, where his mother and father ran a Christian Science school for youth. When asked what he was being taught in Sunday school, Dad proudly announced "We're learning how they put Moses in the rhubarb to protect him from the Germans."
Like a lot of first borns, he initially was lonely. His imaginary friends Mr. and Mrs. Him-Ham-Ho lived in the mailbox.
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A beloved father dies too early
Washington, District of Columbia
Surrounded by family, after years of Christian Science prayer and unsuccessful tuberculosis treatment, Dad's father (also named Austin Cunningham) dies in a narrow townhome on Park Road in Washington, DC. Dad remembers being 12 years old, descending the stairs in the middle of the night his father died, hearing the cries of his mother and grandmother collapsed in grief at his father's bedside.
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Dad becomes a clerk with the U.S. Supreme Court
Washington, District of Columbia
A society columnist for the Washington Post told former president and U.S. Supreme Court justice William Howard Taft that a young Washington DC family was floundering due to the death of the head of the house, a newspaper man who, once stricken with TB had gone on to the more relaxing work of editing the newsletters of the National Red Cross. Five children remained, and an elegant widow, a staunch practitioner of Christ Science. Taft's staff brought my Dad into the court, at age fifteen, to work as a clerk. Washington DC was that small a town back then, and things just happened this way. Of course, Supreme Court paper running, for a boy still missing his dad, was transformative. It set my father up to appreciate greatness, and believe that anyone could make it.
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"Who is that young Byron?"
Washington , District of Columbia
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (who as a youth had met Lincoln) actually spotted our handsome father from across the room and asked "Who is that young Byron?" When instructed to deliver papers to Holmes's Connecticut Avenue apartment, the great old man took Dad to a cabinet that housed all his Civil War sabers! Yes, this sort of thing happened in 1928-29. Justice Holmes didn't die until 1935.
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Teen Austin starts his autograph collection
Washington, District of Columbia
Unfortunately, Dad makes a hugely important strategic mistake in the way he preserved his precious political celebrity autographs: He cut all the signatures off the letterhead they came on, making this impressive collection, absolutely worthless (to everyone but us).
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Dad was an early fingerprint clerk for Hoover's FBI
Washington, District of Columbia
At age 23, Dad got a hot job as an FBI fingerprint clerk. Among the stories: Apparently, an FBI agent once barked at him for leaving a briefcase of important documents outside the door of a men's room, and J. Edgar himself (for some some darned reason) was fond of Dad and on a first name basis with him!
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Dad enlists in the Army
Washington, District of Columbia
In an historic effort to avoid wearing the white Naval bell bottoms (which Dad detested), our father slipped out of the Navy line and into the Army queue, wearing only his boxer shorts, and holding his paperwork. His weak eyesight in far distances had disqualified him from the Army Air Corps. And he was 28 years old, pretty ancient in those times to be considering military service. Faced with a psychiatrist in charge of intake who said, "Well, it says here you have a law degree from the University of Virginia, I guess you're all right," Dad said, "I don't think that necessarily follows at all." "Well, I do," the good doctor said smugly, slapping Dad's papers on the desk. Dad rose to the level of First Lt. and later worked for the War Production Board, getting American companies to manufacture items for the escalating military efforts.
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Virginia L. Threadgill's Fine Letter of Recommendation
Takoma Park, Maryland
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
It has been my pleasure to have known Mr. Austin Cunningham from his early childhood. I have followed with a lively interest his unremitting toil and struggle for self-improvement under heavy handicaps.
He began working and going to night school at fourteen; was a Page in the United States Supreme Court for three years; for several years, was a faithful employee of the F.B.I. All this time he was the chief support of his widowed mother, two sisters and two younger brothers. When, through his help, the brothers and sisters were well on their way to college degrees and Austin had attained credits for three years' work at George Washington University, he took time out to go to the University of Virginia, where he was graduated in law two years ago.
He is now employed in W.P.B. (War Production Board) as a priorities expert, and, well-equipped through college debating activities and a flair for journalism, he is doing extra assignments in WPB as a speaker at trade conventions in several states.
The patriotism of the Cunningham family, and their devotion to the best ideals of Americanism, have been known since the colonial period. Austin's father, a brilliant journalist who died young, his mother and her family, people of charm and culture, have provided a goodly heritage of character and family background.
Those qualities of mind and spirit which have enabled this young man to achieve his present status must certainly be now of inestimable potential value to his country in the grave crisis we are facing. The stern self-discipline, the consistent endeavor, unfailing courage, endurance, patience, and persistent determination against endless obstacles, he has maintained through these years should commend him unquestionably for the making of a good soldier and a competent officer.
(Mrs.) Virginia L. Threadgill, 120 Albany Avenue, Takoma Park, Maryland
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Dad meets his wife, but doesn't immediately realize it
Washington, District of Columbia
At a New Years party at the Kennedy Warren building on Connecticut Avenue, Mom (wearing tight white sweater) asks Dad if he "curls his eyelashes up at night." (We guess you had to be there.) Dad takes his date home at 12:15 a.m., returns to the party to be with mom. The rest is history...sort of. They were madly in love, but were unsure of their future together for several more years. Mom, who initially worked as a secretary on the night shift over at the Australian Embassy, later said, "Because of the war, none of us knew if we'd live or die."
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Brother Streit Cunningham dies in action in Germany
Germany
Dad's second (and last) brother Streit died April 12th, 1945 (three weeks before the war against the Germans ended) trying to take the Ruhr Pocket in Germany. He was a First Lieutenant, Company E, 18th Infantry Regiment, "Fighting First" Infantry Division, European Theater of Operation, working under orders numbered 150. Natively athletic, and having played tackle on the football team at Lehigh, it always made sense to the family that Streit was shot standing up, throwing grenades into a nest of Nazi soldiers. He was awarded the Silver Star medal of honor (after his death) for heroism.
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Marries Grace Jacqueline Coder Mobley
Washington, District of Columbia
The war was over, and Dad must have been grieving the deaths of his brothers Paul and Streit. Mom issued the old ultimatum, and they decided to marry. She wore a pale pink suit and $40 (expensive) pumps for the civil ceremony. Dad later told us, "I took her to Baltimore on the train to meet my aunt and uncle, and I sat there staring at her gazing out the train window, and I was suddenly swept up by the feeling that I'd married a total stranger."
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304 Melrose Avenue, Kenilworth, Illinois
Kenilworth , Illinois
Mom called it "the worst house we ever lived in," which is odd, since it's the only home we owned that held landmarked, architectural significance. Endearingly, she just didn't "get it," and tried to repress the Arts and Crafts flavor of this great old structure, designed by George Maher, who at one time worked as a draftsman for Frank Lloyd Wright. Mom didn't like the stained hardwood floors. This was the 1960s, man. She wanted beige carpet! Her other complaint: there wasn't a good closet in the whole joint. So much for high art.
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The move back south
Orangeburg, South Carolina
My father became a regular, much beloved columnist for the Orangeburg Times & Democrat. His first columns seemed filled with Republican vitriol, but then he settled down, got real and began to write about his life, his own resilience in the face of many losses. He became an incredibly inspiring figure to many of his readers, and we're proud to this day of how he managed his "retirement" from business. Dad started something called The Community of Character, which has as an annual award now called "The Austin," for a different notable citizen each year doing important community-minded work.
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Called to the White House for acknowledgement of successful jobs program
Washington, District of Columbia
Thanks to Dad's success with the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit at his Burger King (another retirement project) in Orangeburg, Dad got to finally meet President Ronald Reagan in the flesh! A red letter day for him.
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Dies in his own bed, surrounded by loving family: "We didn't miss much."
Orangeburg, South Carolina
At age 94, he was ready to go and strongly felt that longevity was over-rated. Greatly inconvenienced by numerous mobility issues and unable to exercise on his treadmill or write, he convinced his enlightened internist to dismiss him to hospice. "This isn't going fast enough. I love you and I've said all my goodbyes," he told us some days after that, just before asking my sister Kathryn to remove all the heart medication from his pill box. Two days later, on the morning of Barack Obama's first inauguration, Kathryn and Austin III were stalwartly holding fort in Orangeburg with Dad while Amy gallivanted off to Washington D.C. with husband and kids to hear the inaugural speech. "Oh Dad, I'm in Washington with the boys and the sun is coming up and we're at the base of the Washington monument. It's so beautiful here," Amy said. "Isn't that grand? Isn't that wonderful." Dad said. He had a major stroke that afternoon, hospice team and Kathryn put him to bed. He died about a week later, happily we can only hope, and definitely on his own terms.
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The Homegoing Service
Orangeburg, South Carolina
A glorious, music-infused memorial service was held at the First Presbyterian Church. The minister knew Dad pretty intimately. The family readings and eulogies were well rehearsed. The service ended with a benediction then a jazz ensemble recess that concluded with a jubilant rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown." Folks said the service was Dad's last gift to the community. Here's the program.
