For Conways, teaching lessons runs in the family

Mike Conway, former Torrington High School teacher and after that, mayor of our fair city, gave me a nice start to Fathers Day weekend. Mike is the son of the late M. Tracy Conway, the distinguished Yale man who taught for decades at THS.

No THS teacher was ever more highly respected than M. Tracy. Three times a senior class dedicated its yearbook to him. His son Mike and two of his granddaughters (Mike and Melissa Conway’s daughters) have been accorded the same honor.

M. Tracy was a popular figure in the city, as well. Decades before Fuessenich Park was renovated, during hot summer evenings, “Mr. Conway,” who was widowed, would go to the park and station himself on the back bench of the west bleachers, hard by the parking lot, under the shade trees. He considered it the coolest place in town when temperatures were sweltering. But he liked the company, too.

He would invariably be surrounded by kibitzers, some of them local umpires who didn’t happen to be working a game that night.

Mike remembered that his scholarly father, always using impeccable English, could keep up with anyone when it came to discussing baseball, and when he talked, people listened. (I have good reason to remember that, as well, having at one time or another been a part of the group that gathered in the cool breeze under the trees.)

“The Pollicks — Omar, Flash and sometimes Bummer — were always there, along with men who had a strong interest in local baseball,” Mike said, and named a few of them.

There was always an American Legion, Twilight League or whatever game and plenty to talk about.

When I spoke to Mike Tuesday, he informed me about daughters Maggie McGillicuddy and Kate Crowe. Maggie teaches freshman science at THS. Kate teaches Western Civilization at Litchfield High.

Mike Conway, the dad, taught English, as M. Tracy had, at THS for 11 years. His last year teaching, 1979, the senior yearbook was dedicated to him. Maggie received that accolade at THS this year. And over at Litchfield, Kate was accorded the same honor. It was the second time for Kate.

M. Tracy, as noted earlier, was a Yale man as was Mike’s late older brother, also named M. Tracy, but the Mike and Melissa Conway family is solidly University of Connecticut. Mike is a UConn graduate and so are the three Conway “children.” Kate got her degree in 1992, Maggie in 1995 and the son, Michael, in 1998.

Melissa is a graduate of Albertus Magnus, and that’s an awfully good thing to be, but Mike told me that his friend Harry Hartley, while serving as president of the university some years ago, said “Mike, I’m going to make Melissa an honorary UConn graduate.” It’s unofficial, but it completes the UConn-Conway connection.

Mike Conway has been a good friend for many decades. My late mother, Marjorie Canfield, was his godmother. She and Catherine were as close as two friends could be and when “Aunt Kay” died of cancer in her 40s, mother was heartbroken. After that she paid close attention to the two young boys that M. Tracy now had to raise as a single father. He did it well, and mother never forgot birthdays, Christmas gifts, etc.

Mike Conway became president of his THS class. We share the memory of a classical upset football victory over Ansonia at Ansonia on a hot fall Saturday afternoon around 1962. We never get tired of talking about it because it was one of Torrington High’s most memorable football days.

Nor do UConn sports teams have a more ardent backer than Mike Conway. And family.