CITY SET TO ACCEPT CLOCK GIFT

A TRUE GRANDFATHER CLOCK DESTINED FOR CITY HALL

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne

Michelle Holly, the granddaughter of Cornelius L. Corcoran, who served as Third Ward alderman for 43 years, has donated his tall case clock to the City of Milwaukee. "It truly is a Grandfather's Clock," she told milwaukeeworld.com when we called to ask about Common Council File 080032 authorizing the city to accept this "beautiful and valuable furnishing that will serve as an elegant artifact and bring Milwaukee's great history alive for residents and visitors and to connect the city to its past."
The Charles Jacques Clock Co. Monastery Clock, c. 1900, is 93" high, 21" wide and 14" deep, according to a fair market appraisal by David Barnett Gallery of 1024 E. State St., Milwaukee. Barnett figures the clock, which is in excellent working condition, to be worth $16,000. He charged the city $450 for his appraisal, conducted on April 12th, 2008 in Oshkosh, where the clock is located.
However, for many decades the clock was just two blocks west of Barnett's shop, in the hall of Corcoran's home at 802 E. State St. (at N. Cass St.), where Corcoran lived with his wife Agnes Murphy Corcoran. She bequeathed the clock to her daughter Agnes Corcoran Toal, the mother of the current owner, upon her death in 1957. Mrs. Toal and her husband Patrick Toal, a General Electric employee, toted the huge timepiece around the country during his career with the firm, according to the current owner, who received it from her mother at her death upon promising to never sell it.
"I was wondering what to do with it," said Michelle Holly, sixty-ish, speaking from Oshkosh. "I have four children. How do I give it to one, and not to the other three?
"I went to Marquette University, and thought to give it to Marquette. Then I thought about the Milwaukee County Historical Society, which received other of my grandfather's personal items.
"And then I decided to call City Hall. I guess you could say the decision came to me."
Cornelius L. Corcoran was born in the Third Ward in 1864 where his father owned a feed and seed business which his son continued throughout his legislative career, which ran from 1892 to 1935, a record unsurpassed in the city's history. Corcoran spent 30 years as council president. An amusing episode in his career occurred in September 1910 when former President Theodore Roosevelt came to Milwaukee. [And, no, this was not the time he was shot. This was two years previous to that.--Ed.]
Mayor Emil Seidel, a Socialist, refused to greet the former president, as protocol would tend to indicate, and setting a pretty good precedent for later mayor John O. Norquist. In a quandary to find a suitably distinguished personage to greet the Rough Rider, city officials hurried to the Third Ward where they found Corcoran in his overalls slinging feed at his store at what is now 114 N. Jefferson St. Without bothering to change his work clothes, the Council President hurried to the train station to greet Roosevelt, and a major protocol disaster, brought into play by the boorish Socialist mayor, was averted.
[A Note on Terminology: Although the colloquial "Grandfather Clock" is a term known to nearly everybody, professionals tend to cringe when they hear it, preferring "Case Clock," "Tall Case Clock," or "Hall Clock." As a child, your correspondent once used the "G" word to describe an horological specimen at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, D.C. and was roundly chastised by the doughty docent there for profaning her ears.--Ed.]

DEY AINNA NO EXCUZZA TO A MISSA DISSA SPICUZZA

"Landscape With Cows"
Francesco Spicuzza (1883 - 1961)

This charming and atypical painting by one of Milwaukee's finest artists has never before been seen. Offered for sale by its Minnesota owners, it is on display now at DeLind Fine Art, 400 E. Mason St. and carries a $9,000 price tag. Michael Goforth of the gallery likens Spicuzza's treatment of the large hill in the background to that of Cezanne's renderings of Mont-Sainte Victoire, and he has a point. The composition practically screams "W.P.A.," and it could be reasonably dated to the Depression era. For once Spicuzza is painting something other than children frolicking on a beach or a pile of peonies in a pot.
If anything screams "Wisconsin," it would be this 3' x 2.5' painting, which should be gobbled up and donated to the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
--Michael Horne