Who Was Walt McCabe?

Walt was the oldest of nine children of Walter L. McCabe, Jr. and Eva F. McCabe (maiden name, Muller).  Walter’s grandfather on his father's side was born lived and died in New York.  His parents, the great grandparents were born in County Clare and Tipperary, Ireland. His grandmother on his father's side immigrated from County Fermanagh, Ireland.  On his mother’s side, his grandparents immigrated to New Your City from their home in Amsterdam, Holland; his grandfather was Dutch and his grandmother was German.  Walter’s parents initially lived in Manhattan, NY and then moved to Jersey City, NJ where Walt was born.  Several years later bought their first house in Bayonne, NJ.  The family remained in Bayonne, where Walter and his siblings grew up. 

Walt’s Childhood.  Walter was very different than other children. He was perceived by his teachers as having learning disabilities, and ostracized by other children.  But Walt was actually highly intelligent, with an IQ of 136, bordering on genius.  He had few friends, but his siblings helped to fill the void.  His mother developed paranoia schizophrenia when Walt was age 6 or 7, and she grew progressively worse throughout his childhood.  Walt’s father worked 2-3 jobs, but there were many times when there was not enough food.  In fact, the older boys earned money by doing odd jobs, such as cutting grass in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter, and they often used their earnings to buy food.  All of the boys were given crew cuts by their dad using an electric clipper because haircuts were too expensive.  Most of the children’s clothes were bought in the Salvation Army second-hand store.  With Walt’s dad working and his mother being ill, he and his siblings were frequently left to fend for themselves.

Walt’s 9 Lives.  Walt was adventurous and fearless and survived crisis after crisis.  Here are a few of his childhood adventures.

Lost in a Storm.  Soon after his 10th birthday, on November 20, 1952, on his way home from school, Walt went to Robins Reef Yacht Club in Bayonne, NJ, commandeered a rowboat and began paddling with boards around a rock jetty in the Newark Bay.  His plan was to beach the 16’ skiff in the cove on the other side of the jetty and come back to take it out another day.  A storm was brewing and some other boys from Walt’s school had followed him and began throwing stones at Walt as he reached the tip of the jetty.  Walt was swept out in the rowboat into the bay and the other boys went home.  When Walt did not come home from school, his parents were frantic and notified the police.  That night, Walt’s parents talked to the parents of his classmates and learned to their horror what had happened.  A rescue operation was launched.  Helicopters searched the Newark Bay during the night but could not find the small rowboat in the storm-swept waters of the bay.  Weather conditions were treacherous.  Walt later recounted seeing helicopters hovering above his rowboat, but they couldn’t see him.  Eventually he spotted land, but had lost his boards and couldn’t row the boat.  Se he took a wooden rafter from the deck, threw it in the water, jumped on top of it and tried to paddle it like a surfboard.  He then lost consciousness.  Walter woke up to find he was on the shore lying in the mud.  He got up and walked through endless tall weeds, jumping over muddy ditch after ditch and eventually got through the marsh lands.  The next morning (18 hours after his boat was swept into the bay), a state trooper found him walking on a highway in Newark, NJ which was on the other side of the mile wide bay from Bayonne.  Walt still had his school books in a World War II gas mask bag strapped to his back.  He was admitted to the hospital, and except for exposure to the cold November waters, Walt was fine and he fully recovered.  His hospital photo made the front page of the New York Times.

Explosive Mischief.  A few years after the rowboat incident, Walter and his brother, Chuck (who was 2 tears younger), were scrounging for scrap metal in an auto graveyard that they could sell to a junk yard.  They had separated, and suddenly Chuck heard a loud explosive “whoosh.”  He looked for Walt and found him staggering and holding his hands over his face.  When Walt took his hands away, his face was completely covered with small beads of blood.  Walt had thrown a match down the fuel filler pipe of a car gas tank and the residual gas fumes exploded shooting particles of dirt and rust into his face.  Walt suffered no permanent damage, except for having some particles of dirt permanently embedded under the skin of his forehead.

Quicksand:  As young teenagers, Walter and Chuck were constantly seeking excitement.  One day they came across a large drainage pond at a new construction site that was filled with watery mud.  Walt noticed a large metal cement mixing trough and though and would make a nice boat.  Walter got into the “boat” and ventured out onto the pond.  The boat sunk into the mud and Walt began sinking with it.  Several boards thrown to Walt provided a lifeline to enable him to safely pull himself to solid ground and avoid sinking into the quagmire.

Motorcycle Accident:  One evening when Walter was driving home from a hard night drinking, he came to a T in the road, but failed to see it in time, he crashed headlong into a tree breaking his helmet broke in two.  But Walter emerged with little more than a headache.

How it feels to be shot:  On day Walt’s younger brothers Neil and Bill ventured upstairs into their older brothers’ apartment on the second floor of their house.  Walter decided to see how powerful his 30-06 Rifle really was.  He setup a chair between the windows in the front of the house.  He propped several thick boards and a telephone book up against the back of the seat.  He fired the rifle into the boards.  It went clean through the side of the house.  Bill remembered his mother yelling up the stairs about the explosion; they told her they dropped something and she was satisfied.  Then Walter decided to see how it felt to be shot.  He took a shell from his 20 gauge shotgun and removed half of the powder and all of the buckshot.  He donned several shirts and sweaters and put his leather coat over the top.  He cajoled Neil into aiming the shotgun at his chest and pulling the trigger.  Bill was terrified thinking his brother was going to die.  The shotgun blast impaled unburned pellets of gunpowder into Walters Jacket and face.

House Fire.  When Walt was about 12, one of his younger brothers was playing with matches and, when his mother came into the room, the boy threw a piece of paper he had lit down a hole in the wall.  The house burned to the ground and here was no insurance.  Walt and his younger siblings were housed in a local youth home for juvenile delinquents for several months until their parents obtained an apartment large enough for the entire family.  Walt’s grandparents, who had also lived in the house, took an adjoining apartment and helped the family to make ends meet.  The family never fully recovered from this setback.

Independence and Responsibility.  In September, 1964, when Walter was 22, his mother was committed to a mental institution; six months later on February 2, 1965, his father was killed in a car accident, leaving him and his eight siblings with no parental support.  Walt’s baby sister, Christina, had already been taken in by an aunt due to his mother’s illness, and the youngest boy, Peter, a mongoloid, was in a state institution.  Walt’s brother, Chuck (21) was already living on his own.  The three next youngest boys, Edmond (7), Bill (11) and Neil (12) were taken in by an aunt in California, but the arrangement didn’t work out, since the aunt had four children of her own and the challenges were just too great.  After about 6 months, the boys were sent back East.  Edmond had to be placed in an orphanage.  Walter, his younger sister and three younger brothers lived together for a while.  This was also a turning point for the older children who were suddenly faced with responsibility of caring for their younger siblings and being self-sufficient. 

Walt and His Siblings Go their Own Ways.  Walt’s sister, Mari-Ellen, at age 21, met and married a US Army officer and they moved away (they are still together).   Chuck, at age 23, was married and moved to central NJ.  Neil, at age 13, and Bill, at age 12, were placed in Boy’s Town of Kearney, NJ, where they both lived until graduation from high school.  Bill went to Newark College of Engineering and Neil joined the US Army.  Each one of Walt’s competent siblings went on to live his or her own life; and each has a unique success story.

Work and College.  Walt became a truck mechanic, and he attended classes as a part-time student at Jersey City State College.  Unlike almost all of his classmates, Walt took college courses to learn, not to get a degree.  He did not care about credentials or status.  In fact, he did not care what anyone thought of him.  He was a non-conformist and a free spirit.  Yet he cared about others and he was kind and generous.  After completing some 130 college credits, Walt decided he might as well apply for a degree, and he later graduated with a bachelor’s degree.  Walt had a motorcycle, not to be a “biker”, but to save money on gas.  When Chuck and his new wife, Marilyn, took the Dale Carnegie Course in Human Relations and Public Speaking, Walt decided to take the course with them.  Chuck was often embarrassed by the unconventional behavior of his brother, but everyone who got to know Walt liked and respected him.

The Peace Corps.  After earning his college degree, Walt decided to join the Peace Corps.  Because of his skill as a mechanic, he was sent to Liberia, West Africa for a 2-year tour, where he could repair equipment that had been donated, but couldn’t be maintained by the residents.  Walt performed his Peace Corps duties admirably despite extraordinarily difficult and dangerous conditions.  Walt and several colleagues arrived in Monrovia, Liberia just after the country had been taken over in a coup engineered by Liberian army “Sargeant Doe” and all members of the royal family had been killed by the military rebels.  The country was under military rule and Monrovia, the capital, was the political hot spot.  The soldiers carried sub machine guns and were not friendly toward Americans.  Shortly after arriving, one of Walt’s Peace Corps colleagues was raped and another beaten so badly he would not venture outside for 3 days.  Both shipped back to the US, but Walt stayed.  Walt wrote letters to his brothers regularly relating his experiences, which were usually extraordinary and often frightening.  He lived in huts with huge spiders, treated children for malaria (and contracted malaria himself), was accosted by soldiers with sub machine guns, survived an attack on his camp by army ants, rebuilt roads, tractors and other equipment, restored electricity to a high school that had been closed for 20 years due to the failure of the generator (for which he received a commendation from the governor of Liberia).  Walt loved the Liberian people, over 90% of whom had no visible means of support.  He fraternized with them and respected their culture; and they respected him.  Walt was paid once a month, but by mid-month he had no money left to buy food because he shared what he had with his Liberian friends; and they did the same for him when he had nothing to eat.  For more details, visit the Peace Corps link on Walt’s website

Walt was a unique and special person who lived his life his way.  Walt was a philosopher and a scholar with extraordinarily broad interests and extensive knowledge.  He studied people, cultures, religions, governments, science, art and nature, and could speak with authority on almost any subject.  He was a kind, gentle, caring and generous man who was loved by family and close friends and respected by coworkers and colleagues.  Walt was fearless and courageous; he made many contributions to humanity through his service in the Navy, the Peace Corps, as a civilian Army employee, as a brother, son and husband, and as the primary support for his adopted young girl and her impoverished family in India. 

To learn more about who Walt McCabe was, please visit and explore the unique website of this extraordinary man