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The best known
grandchild of the Captain’s second family is Christian William Kirkman IV, the
only son of CWK III and Edith Foster Kirkman, born Aug. 31, 1906 in Manhattan,. He was a
cancer victim at age 39. Called Buster by his father and Christy by his mother, CWK IV was raised by his mother in the Flushing, NY home of his grandfather, hardware store owner Edward Foster. A handsome devil, Christy maxed out at a hefty 5 foot 10 and 230 pounds, was an athlete (baseball and basketball), man’s man, and a likeable guy with loads of friends. |
| Christy was well known in New York City’s Queens County as an amateur baseball player and manager. In 1923, while playing for Flushing High School, he hit a home run into the left field stands of newly opened Yankee Stadium. It made headlines: "16-year-old homers in the House that Ruth built." During the 1930s, Christy was center fielder and manager of a baseball team in the Queens North Shore Alliance, a sandlot league that produced several big league players. He also managed QNSA all-star teams.
Because he dropped out of high school at age 16, Christy was condemned to menial jobs during the Great Depression: cab driver, cab dispatcher and milkman. In the mid 1930s he was a leader of an abortive attempt by New York’s cabbies to form a union. Goons hired by the cab fleet owners broke his right arm and the cab owners blacklisted him for several years. In 1927, Christy had an across-the-street romance and married Hazel Clark, a tiny, pretty girl who recently had moved into his neighborhood. They had two children: Donald, born several months before 1929's Stock Market Crash, and Edith (1935). Tragically, Christy contracted Hodgkin’s Disease (cancer of the lymphatic system) in 1940, and was rejected by the Marines when he tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor. He died on April 19, 1946 (age 39) and was buried in Flushing Cemetery. Christy had a sad, short life, but was adored by his children and enormously popular with his many friends. |
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