Joseph Kane Obituary

Hi, folks
I wasn't too sure that I was going to say anything in memory of Bud - Joe Kane, as I was both physically and chronologically far removed from him. However, if my late mother, Mary Ann, was around, she would definitely have her words of praise. So, I decided I should speak in her behalf.

My name is Cliff Culpeper, a cousin from San Francisco - specifically, a 2nd cousin once removed from Bud, and as he quipped when I mentioned that fact when I answered his phone call as a teenager, "not removed far enough........ is your mother , there?!?!"

A short family history is necessary - My mother's mother, Catherine, and Bud's mother, my Aunt Babe, were sisters. Aunt Babe's real name was Mary, and her mother's name (my great-grandmother) was Mary, but she went by the family nickname, Ninny or Nin. If this sounds like one of those Shakespearean plays you had to read in high-school to keep track of all the Henrys, Edwards, Marys, and Catherines - you're not that far off.

Great-grandmother Ninny did not want to have her eldest daughter, my grandmother Catherine, to do the traditional Irish naming of the first daughter after the grandmother - in Ninny's case, "Mary". Of course, grandmother Catherine didn't heed that request and decided to name my mother Mary anyway. Ninny was beside herself when she heard the news - by the way, since all of this happened way before I was born, I got this information from my mother when she lived as a young adult in Chicago with Ninny in the 1950s and was told of the family shenanigans of yesteryear.

However, technically, my mother's first name was not Mary, but Mary Ann - Ann is not a middle name. A Chicago friend close to Ninny suggested a compromise - instead of calling her new granddaughter baby, Mary Ann, how about switching the names to Ann Marie. Ninny like that very much. But, young 2-1/2 year old cousin Joe Kane had trouble with his "m"'s at that age, couldn't say Ann Marie (the N and M so close together is a problem for many young kids) and accidentally nicknamed my future mother, "Ree", which has stuck since.

OK - that's it for family history and one of Bud's long-lasting positive influences.

Now the reason I need to talk on my late mother's behalf - the Family history I just mentioned is pretty much well-known to Bud's kids - what follows is probably not known or perhaps vaguely.

Bud and my mother were never "kissing cousins", nothing romantic - partly due to mom growing up in Detroit while Bud was in Chicago, about 300 miles away - and before the 1955 Eisenhower Highway Act with interstate freeways, top speed on the roads was about 30-35 MPH, took forever to go between those cities by car (trains were the transport of choice then). However, both my mother and Bud liked the theater (both live and film) and museums - and Chicago had way more of both compared to the Motor City.

There was one instance where a young Joe Kane was quite gallant and protective of my mother. I told this story to Mike-Rob-and Lisa when those 3 were able to come out to San Francisco for my mother´s funeral service in 2018.

My grandmother Catherine and Bud´s mother, Aunt Babe, had an elder brother - our great-uncle Eddie, whom I was able to see for the last time in March of 1993 before he passed. Well, he apparently was a major tease whose antics could get close to being mean (the few instances when my sister and I as kids visited Chicago and saw him in the 1960s, he was a fun-delight).

When my mother was 10, Bud was almost 13 - both of them visited Uncle Eddie at his house - this had to be summer vacation of 1942 as mom would normally be in school in Detroit. Uncle Eddie was teasing my mother so much that she started to cry - young 12-1/2 year old Bud took an ashtray from a table and threw it hard at Uncle Eddie, shouting "you leave Cousin Ree alone" - it hit a wall but I never knew if Bud threw it purposely at the wall or if he just missed Uncle Eddie. Found out afterwards when everyone was grown to adulthood that Uncle Eddie was both taken off-guard at Bud´s reaction and at the same time admired him for defending his cousin (of course, Uncle Eddie could never admit that publicly to a pre-teen boy!!)

After my mother, as an adult, moved to San Francisco, which had its own revolutionary avant-garde art and comedy movements in the late 50s into the 60s, she started her family a few years after Bud and his late wife Dolores started theirs - and mom and Bud would stay in touch via phone on both family matters and cultural trends.

However, by 1970, mom and dad got a divorce. She would raise both my sister and me (I´m 10 at this time), get some child support from my father, and get to keep the house, but she needed some cash to "even things out". $30,000 worth of cash support, in 1970 dollars when gasoline was 29 cents a gallon (well, in California at least). Multiply that by 8 in today´s dollars (yes, I checked the inflation rate) and you get a quarter of a million dollars for today.

Mom couldn´t go to the banks for a loan/mortgage as she had no credit history - everything in the husband´s name. Though there were federal and Calif state laws forbidding financial discrimination to women, they weren´t aggressively enforced back then - one of the reasons I found out decades ago why my mother, after the divorce, went by "Mrs. Clark Culpeper" on all official documents, checking accounts, etc. until the 1980s - if a woman couldn´t hold onto "her man" in marriage, how could she be trusted to pay back a mortgage, was the thinking??

Luckily, Bud had no problem in trusting mom and that he had enough to loan her even with his large family in Naperville - 6 children at the time, I think. And finally the best part was no loan interest - great family discount!!

Well, that was going to be the end of my tribute to Bud, but just a few days ago, I awoke at 2am with one more thought (well, 2 thoughts actually - first to go to the bathroom, then to quickly write down the inspiration). Some of you know of my late sister, Cindy, converted to Judaism and became a rabbi - first female pulpit rabbi of Alabama in fact. There are 2 words used in Judaism that apply perfectly to Bud´s personality: the Hebrew term MITZVAH and the German-Yiddish term MENSCH. Most people have heard of both.

MENSCH is both a formerly dormant Old English and Old German word that got revived by German Jews - meaning a person of great honor, integrity, renown - and Joe Kane was definitely in that category.

A MITZVAH is a good deed, usually beyond the call of duty. August 29th, 2005 my sister died at UAB hospital in Birmingham, Alabama - same time as Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Birmingham is slightly farther from New Orleans than Chicago is from Detroit, and though Katrina did not hit Birmingham, the strong residual winds knocked out power lines for most of the city. The Deep South - in August - humidity and heat to match - and no air conditioning. Bud got on a plane to Birmingham, reserved 2 rooms at a hotel with power, one for him and one for mom, and stayed with mom in the city for a few days while things settled down. Both mom and I really needed that "quiet" emotional support.

That´s all I have to say - while I really did not know Bud that well, mainly due to generational differences, he was paramount in helping mom keep her family intact with a roof over her, my sister´s and my heads. That has not been forgotten. Thank you.