75
Kay seldom spoke of her growing up years in
Wheeling, West Virginia. A humorous story she did
repeat dealt with
Prohibition. It was not a family secret that Aunt Mary
Malooly always liked a cold beer or two. When the
prohibitionists successfully closed down American
breweries, Mary considered it a personal affront. Not
to worry. A resourceful woman, Mary found a source
of barley, harvested some hops, filled the bathtub with
water, threw in some yeast and, for the duration, the
Maloolys were in the beer brewing business. How they
handled their personal ablutions remains a mystery.
When she was 12 years old, Grandpa Malooly
took Kay out into the mountainous hills that surround
the City of Wheeling and taught her to drive. As she
described it, He sat me behind the steering wheel
which I looked through rather than over and said, ‘Take
us home’. Clutch, shift, gas and go—whoopee!
Among the breath-taking thrills of learning to drive in
those hills Kay gained an uncommon skill behind the
wheel. Leaving high school without completing her
senior year, Kay worked in the office of an over-the-
road trucking company. What she really wanted to do