Pelosi Remarks at Funeral Mass for Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro III

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Pelosi delivered a eulogy at the funeral mass for her brother, Former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro III. Below are the Speaker's remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. When we were little, everyone called him, ‘Young Tommy,' as opposed to ‘Big Tommy,' my father. And always Tommy remained ‘Young Tommy' up until the end.

Now, we know he's thinking there, he's thinking, ‘Thank you all for coming here today.' He would say to me, ‘Be funny. Be brief. Be seated.'

[Laughter]

So, I will see how funny I can be.

But, he would also want me to acknowledge that every one of you is a valued guest here. But, I have to acknowledge my own [colleagues] in Congress, led by Steny Hoyer, who is here, Steny Hoyer. And let me see, Dutch Ruppersberger – Dutch Ruppersberger, John Sarbanes, Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, Rosa DeLauro, David Cicilline, did I say John Larson, Barbara Lee, Nita Lowey. So – many of my colleagues from the House. And from the Senate, used to be in the House, Ben Cardin, now Senator, Senator Chris Van Hollen and the great Barbara Mikulski, who is here as well. And in that vein, he would say – and former Senator Chris Dodd is with us as well.

Now, in this room, if I said, ‘Mayor,' ten heads would turn because we have had so many mayors here. But, thank you Mayor, Mr. Mayor, for joining us and honoring us with your presence today and last night, as well. Governor O'Malley was one of his mentees. So, thank you all for being here.

So, when he was young in his – he was always young in his thinking and in his ideas, and in his enthusiasm for life and his love for his family and sports and golf. Any golfing pals here?

He was always young in the idea of how much he loved Margie, from the very first moment he saw her until, until now, and for eternity. He loved Margie so much. Margie, to you, to Tom and Kathy, to Nick and Erica, to Dominic, to Gregory, where's Gregory, and Christine, to the entire family, to Patty – he called her Patty Cakes – Patty Cakes and Danny, to all of them and the grandchildren, who I will reference in a moment, as well.

So anyways, he was a person of great faith, as Father Watters said. By the way, Father Watters was one of the people in the world that he admired most. So, it was so beautiful that he provided – thank you for your beautiful words about him.

He was so grounded in his faith, and so that's why it was so beautiful that the Gospel of Matthew was the Gospel today because he lived his life in that vein. It is, he did in the spirit of the Gospel of Matthew, just always was working on the side of the angels, and now he is with them.

Again, as we were growing up, Mommy and Daddy raised our family, with plenty of church, as the father referenced, to be devoutly Catholic, deeply patriotic, proud of our Italian American heritage and staunchly Democratic.

When Tommy was born, we are told later, she told us, he was the most beautiful and dear child ever. Thanks, Mom. She treasured and recorded everything he did.

One day when I was little, I was rummaging through her bureau, to see if there were any secret gifts that were impending and I found something she treasured: a box of blond curls that were Tommy's first haircut. Now, she treasured that, and she, she just loved it so much. He returned the love by being such a supporter of IND, and I know IND is really represented here today. The Institute of Notre Dame, because that's where she went to school, my mother.

The love and confidence that our parents bestowed on him, he passed on to the rest of us. To my brother Franklin, who's family is here, to Nicky, whose here, to Hector, and Joey and to me. He was always passing on that love and confidence to his own children and to his grandchildren. And let's just acknowledge them, Young Danny and Lindsey, Mica and Dominique, Matthew, Mark and David and Alexa, Isabella and Amelia, who came here from Beijing, finding out that Pop Pop had passed away, came all the way from Beijing. I would say they probably came the furthest to be here.

Here today, we have lost our patriarch. He was our patriarch in name and in deed.

After Mommy – Tommy and Margie were married, which was one of the most exciting weddings anyone had ever seen, except Daddy said since his marriage to Mommy all those years before. He was just so in love with her. And then, he became a father.

He glowed with pride with the births of, again, Tommy John, Dominic, Nicky, Patty, Patty Cakes, and Gregory. And of course, the grands.

Some years later when my first baby was born, my husband, Paul, and I brought her to Ocean City to see him, down the ocean. Our daughter, Nancy Corrine, who's here. I put her down to sleep, she was crying. And he said, ‘The baby is crying.' And I said, ‘I know, she is crying herself to sleep.'

He said, ‘We don't do that.' He jumped up, went and got the baby and said, ‘We always rock our babies to sleep.' So, I got my first – Paul and I got our first, I got my first lesson in motherhood from a patriarch. Couldn't stand that. So, but any of that.

All of us knew him – who got him, got our lessons in the love of our country from him.

For him it was about patriotism, and it was personal to meet the needs of the American people. The Gospel of Matthew. And when necessary to advance his agenda, it was political.

In all, he was successful, respectful and masterful. And he thought he was funny, and sometimes he was. Will you ever forget his laugh? Especially at his own jokes. It was about the humorous stories he kept telling over and over again, as if we were hearing them for the first time. That's what's so wonderful about grandchildren, a whole new audience for your stories.

[Laughter]

He would tell his stories to grandchildren that it was in the football record book – whatever that was, nobody knew what that was – the football record book that he was the only person who had thrown a 100-yard pass and ran and caught it.

[Laughter]

Is that not right kids? You've heard that story. Football, baseball – you name it, he was there.

He would also tell them not to worry when they went into the ocean because early in the morning, early in the morning he would swim out to the horizon and fight with Moby Dick –

[Laughter]

– fight with Moby Dick and the sharks to make sure that the water was clear for them.

So, he always was giving people confidence that they too could throw that pass and catch it and they could swim without worrying about Moby Dick or whatever that had to do with that. But, I'm sure the grandchildren heard those stories over and over again.

One of his earliest public offices was when he was Supervisor – Supervisor of Elections, when Daddy – when Daddy was one of the only Maryland leaders to be for John F. Kennedy for President. He and Joe Tydings. The two of them were the two JFK leaders in Maryland. So, when John F. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy was in Baltimore, Tommy was there and he introduced him. He introduced him to Senator Kennedy, he said, ‘My son is the Supervisor of Elections. This is young Tommy, he is the Supervisor of Elections.' To which, Tommy said to Senator Kennedy, ‘Yes, Senator, I'm going to give you a good count.'

[Laughter]

To which Senator Kennedy said, ‘Tommy, I want better than a good count.' And Tommy said, ‘Well, that's up to Daddy, to get out the vote.' Getting out the vote was always what Daddy was about.

Tommy would tell this – he learned a lot – Tommy and I both learned a lot from Daddy about getting out the vote, at his knee. Tommy enjoyed telling the story when he was a boy and Daddy was running for Mayor of Baltimore for the first time, the morning – the night – the morning of the election, very early, still dark, in the morning, he took Tommy to the roof of our house and he said, ‘Let's see what's happening.' They went to the roof of the house and Daddy said, ‘If the cars are coming' – ‘Let's see if the cars are coming.'

When they went up there, they saw all of these headlights converging on headquarters, where people were coming to pick up their get-out-the-vote materials to take back to their precincts. And, that was really – he was thrilled to see that, so much of them. So, Tommy said, ‘Daddy, does that mean you are going to win?' And he said, ‘It means that we are going to give them a run for it.'

So then, later that night, Dad became the first Catholic Mayor of Baltimore. I was six and he would still be Mayor when I was in college at Trinity College. That Tommy – Tommy John, we'd call him – Tommy John, Tom mentioned.

Years later when I was running for Congress, my Dad sent Tommy out to [San Francisco] to check up on my campaign. After seeing our operation, he called Daddy, and Daddy said, ‘I want to know about the field operation. What's her field operation to get out the vote?' And, he said, ‘Dad, she is true to her roots.' And he said, ‘Does that mean that she's going to win?' He said, ‘No, that means she's going to give them a run for it.'

[Laughter]

And so we did. So we did.

He was very proud to say that when he ran for Mayor, he carried every precinct in the city of Baltimore. Did anybody ever hear him say that?

[Laughter]

Daddy and Mommy were always a big influence, and they always encouraged us to be our own person. So, it was not unusual that Daddy – Young Tommy and Big Tommy did not always get along. They did not always agree. One example of this that was in public display was in 1968 at the Maryland Democratic Convention, endorsement for President convention.

Grandpa, Big Tommy, was for Hubert Humphrey, and Young Tommy was for Robert Kennedy. They fought back and forth. Tommy making the message of education and the future and my father – Tommy was the Mayor of Baltimore at the time, but Daddy had the votes.

[Laughter]

So, Hubert Humphrey was endorsed. But, after that, after that big public fight, they went out to dinner in Little Italy and that was on to the next thing.

Tommy was always proud to be standing up for the future. His son, Tom, just talked about his interest in education, education, education for everyone.

When we went to Chicago for that convention, he was so heartbroken over the loss of Bobby Kennedy. When we went to Mass – of course, we always go to Mass but when we went to Mass before the convention – he was holding back, he was holding back tears for all of that Mass.

On a happier note, another young leader that he pitched his faith in was Governor Jerry Brown of California. There was a time when – Ted Venetoulis and Tommy were Co-Chairs of Jerry Brown when he wanted to run for President of the United States.

And, I just tell you this story because Tommy wasn't that much older than Jerry Brown, within ten years, but generationally it was a big difference. So, one – one place that this is manifested is Tommy arranged – introduced him at the University of Maryland gymnasium – the University of Maryland College Park gymnasium packed in there – Steny nodding along – packed in there, you know that gym Steny, packed in there to the gills. People were practically hanging from the rafters campus, so excited to see this Governor of California, this new, young champion for the environment.

And, Tommy kept saying to him, ‘Don't forget to tell them to get out the vote, get out the vote, get out the vote.' So, Jerry gets up there and, in the course of his speech he says to the audience, ‘When you leave here' – now, Tommy thinks that means he is going to tell them to get out the vote – ‘When you leave here, I want you to go home and put a brick in the water tank of your toilet so that you can' –

[Laughter]

– ‘so you can save water.'

[Laughter]

You were there that night, weren't you Steny? Ted was there.

So, Tommy was just hysterical. The audience went wild. They cheered, cheered and cheered. And, Tommy said, ‘I think I'm becoming a dinosaur in politics when you get a raging standing ovation for putting a brick in your toilet.'

[Laughter]

Forgive me, Father.

In any, event, he began his own public service in the army – the JAG. He loved being in the JAG, where he served – serving in uniform was always a source of pride for him.

He loved America and was an avid student of American history, especially the battles to save our democracy and to preserve the unity of our country. He not only read every book he could get his hands on about American history, he knew every aspect of the sacrifices that were made to keep America great.

One of his passions, some of you may recall, was reading about the Badlands, sort of a neglected part of history. When he was Mayor, he took a week's vacation and he went to the Badlands, and he sent a column home every day about what he saw there, the Battle of Little Big Horn, all that.

He said that he got more response, more response, to those articles in the paper – he said bags of mail would come in and people would tell the story of their families, whether someone was related to someone from the battle of the Alamo, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, whatever one – just that pride and patriotism that people took in their families' role in keeping America America.

And then, so again, as a public servant in the popular culture, he enjoyed that.

When he was President of the City Council, he was determined – as Father said, as Tommy referenced – he was determined to advance civil rights. It was his passion.

He spoke with deep reverence about his meeting with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to pass his equal accommodation in housing legislation, which led to equal accommodations in restaurants, and the rest.

But, he said he was determined to ‘root out every cause or vestige of discrimination' in the city of Baltimore.

In his insistence on ending discrimination, he met resistance. He could handle the boos he received all over the city, however, he was shaken when the same people booed Cardinal Lawrence Shehan. Last night, the Archbishop was here and we talked about that – the Archbishop has on its website that actual moment when that happened. So, again, it was a sad time, in terms of people having to transition into the future.

All of his life, he was a daily communicant, and for many years in this very church, as Father Watters can attest.

He also loved being with the Jesuits, because he was educated at Loyola High School, educated at Loyola College and he many – as I said, daily was receiving communion here and he and Margie celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary right downstairs. In the chapel, the Chapel of Grace. So, this is an important place for us all.

And he subscribed to the Jesuit tradition: ‘for the greater glory of God and the salvation of humanity.' He was a man of prayers, as Father said. Again, his faith was central to his life. He was the mentor to so many. His faith gave him strength and gentleness, which he passed on to the rest of us, again, as a mentor.

Anybody in here mentored by Tommy? I see many hands. He told us – he told me, ‘Never be offended by what your opponents say. Remember Daddy always said: he who throweth mud, loseth ground.'

[Laughter]

‘Always reach across the aisle for what you believe, for what you believe.'

‘Remember the greatness of America demands that you act in a way that is worthy of America.'

And he was a mentor. Again, I'm going to say a mentor. Over and over again.

This week, we will pay tribute to our colleague, Chairman Elijah Cummings of Baltimore. He passed away, as you all know, the same week as Tommy. Tomorrow, we will honor him as he lies in state at the U.S. Capitol.

Apart from our love of Baltimore, our Baltimore, one other thing we had in common was that we love America. Our hearts are full of love for America. So, whether it was Tommy or Elijah, or me representing San Francisco, as I'd say to them: love for us in San Francisco, means: let other versions exist. And that's exactly what Tommy did. Respecting the views of other people, be respectful of other points of view, reach out to others, build community, build consensus.

Personally, I will miss him terribly – my confidant, my mentor, my brother – but I will always carry him in my heart.

Officially, I will always be brightened by the sight of him and the smile on his face when I acknowledged him in the gallery of the House of Representatives on the day as I was sworn in as Speaker of the House. Can you just imagine?

Politically – politically, he was the finest public servant I ever knew, without question.

Thank you, my brother, for always being Young Tommy and for the love that you always shared. Thank you, Margie. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you, Dominic. Thank you, Nicky. Thank you, Gregory. Thank you, Patty, Patty Cakes and all of his grandchildren, whom he adored, for sharing him with us, but most importantly, for the love you gave him.

Let us thank God for the life and legacy of Thomas D'Alesandro III. May it be a comfort to you, Margie, that so many people mourn your loss, pray for you at this sad time, and your family.

And, so we say goodbye to Thomas D'Alesandro III. Hero, patriarch, mentor, Young Tommy. God gave him to us, Mr. Mayor. God gave us Tommy D'Alesandro, and now he is in the palm of God's hand.

Thank you, Tommy. Thank you, God. Thank you, all.