Boys Town

A 4-cent Great Americans Series definitive will be issued tomorrow by the U.S. Postal Service on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Edward Joseph Flanagan, whose work with abused and neglected youths led to his founding of Boys Town. First-day ceremonies will be held at the high school on the campus of Boys Town, 11 miles west of Omaha, Neb. The design of the stamp shows a portrait of Father Flanagan. Father Flanagan, who is being honored as a humanitarian, was born in Ireland and came to the United States in 1904 at the age of 18. He was ordained in 1912 and assigned to the archdiocese of Omaha.

It was one of those festive St. Valentine's Day affairs, the men in black ties, their ladies in fashionable gowns. There were roses at every table and the orchestra played all the grand old love songs. It was an evening you might expect to read about in David Iams' society column, but a young religious from Rome turned it into a showcase of love, Irish and Italian style. The guests had gathered to honor G. Fred DiBona, son and heir of the late Common Pleas Court jurist, dead now eight years.

So, he does have a shortcoming: Rep. Newt Gingrich (R., Ga.) may be the incoming speaker of the House. He may be an author with a substantial book advance. He may be the darling of the newly empowered political right. But he's no threat to Siskel and Ebert. Last night, Gingrich - who touched off a firestorm of criticism when he suggested recently that Hillary Rodham Clinton see the 1938 movie Boys Town instead of criticizing his proposal to put troubled youths and unwanted babies in orphanages - hosted a screening of the movie here.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton said House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich's idea of putting the children of welfare mothers in orphanages was absurd, he suggested she go rent the movie "Boys Town. " This is a 1938 movie about how Father Edward Flanagan, played by Spencer Tracy, founded a community for homeless boys in Omaha in 1917. Father Flanagan starts working with kids after helping to stop a scuffle in which a boy throws a rock that breaks a merchant's window. (The merchant blows a police whistle and officers come running.

Harry Levin, 92, who as a child tramped out of Russia and across Europe on a journey to America, where he opened a small hardware store that grew into Levin's Furniture & Appliance Co., died Friday at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center. A longtime resident of the Philadelphia area, he lived in Center City and also had a home in Ventnor, N.J. Mr. Levin was born in a small Russian village, where his father was a bookbinder for a synagogue. The family fled the Cossack pogroms on foot, said Mr. Levin's daughter, Cissie Vizak.

Cornelius Ward, 93, owner of the oldest tavern in Wildwood, died Wednesday at his home in Gloucester City. He was born in Ireland in 1893 and left County Donegal to come to the United States in 1915, settling in Bayonne, N.J., to seek his fortune. Though he didn't strike it rich, he did put enough aside to marry an Aggary girl, Katherine Duffy, in 1922. After a bit, he and his wife settled on South Jersey as the place to go into business, and he began his 50-year career as a tavern owner.

THIS WEEK, in honor of the upcoming Academy Awards telecast, I mounted my own personal Oscars Film Festival. With the help of Netflix, Jiffy Pop and the only non-flat TV screen left in captivity, I spent hours admiring the type of performances that lead people to say, "We like you, we really like you!" Ironically, I managed to pick films that provided eerie parallels with current events. It got to the point that I realized that Hollywood is just better- quality reality programming (better scripts, cleaner women, smarter men)

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I ducked cautiously under the low-hanging palm fronds and stepped across the stream. Discovering a winding dirt trail on the other side, I followed it through the forest to the base of a cliff, where a narrow stone stairway coaxed me upward, through a cleft in the rocks, to an overlook. The view was spectacular. A 50-foot waterfall cascaded majestically down rocks, splashing into a deep pool below. In the dense rain forest beyond, a monkey swung gracefully through the branches of a massive tree.

Camped in an abandoned railcar, his face bearded and his eyes dead, Alan Darcy is, at the opening of Shane Meadows' TwentyFourSeven, a man who has given up on life. And, clearly, life has given up on him. But it wasn't always so. Like Jim Sheridan's The Boxer, with its Belfast prizefighter trying to unite Catholics and Protestants in the boxing ring, Darcy (Bob Hoskins) sought to bring meaning to the lives of a group of disaffected British youths by having them put on gloves and knock each other in the gut and head.

Marie T. Holland, 79, founded and operated a wholesale food business for more than 40 years until her death Tuesday at home in Pennsauken. "It made her really proud - especially since she was a woman," said her son Thomas A. Holland of Merchantville. She started the business in 1952 while caring for her 2-year-old son, and ran it from her home in Camden's Cramer Hill section, and later in Pennsauken. "She did stay home and raise a family - she was a very good mother and came to all the school nights and other activities," her son said.

OMAHA, Neb. - A Roman Catholic priest whose efforts to help troubled Omaha youth were made famous by Spencer Tracy's Academy Award-winning portrayal of him in the 1938 movie Boys Town has been nominated for sainthood. Archbishop George Lucas posted an announcement on the doors of St. Cecilia Cathedral last month saying the Omaha Archdiocese had begun the process of seeking sainthood for the Rev. Edward Flanagan. "We are humbled and overjoyed," said Steven Wolf, president of the Father Flanagan League, which has long sought sainthood for Flanagan.

Franklin Towne Charter used a new goalkeeper and some late dramatics to pick up its first win of the season and slip past host Bartram, 4-3, on Monday in a Public League boys' soccer game. Kelby Espinola netted the game-winner 3 minutes, 30 seconds into overtime, and Brandon McGuire recorded six saves in his first start of the season. In other Public League action, Solomon Zagar finished with two goals, including the equalizer two minutes into the second half, as host Prep Charter salvaged a 2-2 tie with Philadelphia Academy Charter.

THIS WEEK, in honor of the upcoming Academy Awards telecast, I mounted my own personal Oscars Film Festival. With the help of Netflix, Jiffy Pop and the only non-flat TV screen left in captivity, I spent hours admiring the type of performances that lead people to say, "We like you, we really like you!" Ironically, I managed to pick films that provided eerie parallels with current events. It got to the point that I realized that Hollywood is just better- quality reality programming (better scripts, cleaner women, smarter men)

Few things in 22-year-old Rudy Williams' life resonate as deeply as that spring-going-into-summer day more than five years ago, when a fellow dealer nearly turned him into another casualty of Philadelphia's violent drug world. Drugs were missing. The dealer pointed a gun at Williams' head, threatening to shoot. Williams fought back, and the gun went off, wounding another person in the room. Williams is a different man these days. He has his diploma from high school and is starting his first year of college.

On Sept. 13, Falaka and David Fattah will celebrate their 35th anniversary as directors of the House of Umoja, the first urban "Boys Town" in this city and possibly the nation. The House of Umoja - a Swahili word that means unity - is contained in 23 row homes on the 1400 block of N. Frazier Street, a narrow, West Philadelphia block. The House of Umoja is home to 15 boys from 15 to 18 years of age in a residential treatment program. The staff of Umoja numbers seven, two of whom have been with Umoja since the beginning.

At the end of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, one of those gathered around the deathbed laments that the beloved schoolmaster never had children. Flickering back to life one last time, Mr. Chips protests that he'd had hundreds of children - and all of them boys! Reminded of that scene, Sister Falaka Fattah chuckled and said: "I guess I can say something like that, too. " Indeed she can. For 33 years, Fattah has been bringing up boys - troubled ones - at her House of Umoja in West Philadelphia.

Helen F. Spiegel, 88, of Cherry Hill, a revered leader and volunteer who devoted much of her life to helping others through numerous civic and humanitarian organizations, died Saturday of congestive heart failure at her home. She was a Cherry Hill resident for more than 40 years and had lived in Camden County most of her life. Miss Spiegel was a much honored volunteer and leader in Camden County and Jewish civic and humanitarian organizations. In October 1988 after being honored with the Governor's Award by then-Gov.

Anna Campanella Bertino, 84, a Hammonton businesswoman and guiding force for the community's Kessler Memorial Hospital, died in her sleep Thursday at her Hammonton home. A lifelong Hammonton resident, she was a 1932 graduate of Hammonton High School. Mrs. Bertino founded National Garment Co. in Hammonton in 1959 and was its president until 1985. She also was president of Bertino Realty in Hammonton. She was a charter member, a past president, and a past vice president of the board of directors of Kessler Memorial Hospital.

Camped in an abandoned railcar, his face bearded and his eyes dead, Alan Darcy is, at the opening of Shane Meadows' TwentyFourSeven, a man who has given up on life. And, clearly, life has given up on him. But it wasn't always so. Like Jim Sheridan's The Boxer, with its Belfast prizefighter trying to unite Catholics and Protestants in the boxing ring, Darcy (Bob Hoskins) sought to bring meaning to the lives of a group of disaffected British youths by having them put on gloves and knock each other in the gut and head.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I ducked cautiously under the low-hanging palm fronds and stepped across the stream. Discovering a winding dirt trail on the other side, I followed it through the forest to the base of a cliff, where a narrow stone stairway coaxed me upward, through a cleft in the rocks, to an overlook. The view was spectacular. A 50-foot waterfall cascaded majestically down rocks, splashing into a deep pool below. In the dense rain forest beyond, a monkey swung gracefully through the branches of a massive tree.