# Philip Joseph McKenna II - "My first confession" audio transcript note

Date processed: 2026-05-13

Source audio: `raw/Philip Joseph McKenna II - My first confession.m4a`

Wiki audio copy: `wiki/assets/audio/philip-j-mckenna-ii-first-confession.m4a`

Length: approximately 28 minutes 47 seconds.

Processing note: The first approximately 22 minutes are Philip Joseph McKenna II reading Frank O'Connor's published short story "First Confession." Because that portion is a copyrighted literary text rather than original family testimony, the wiki preserves the audio and context but does not reproduce the full story text. The transcript below begins when the recording turns to Philip II's own first-confession memory.

Transcript generated locally with `mlx_whisper` using `mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo`, then lightly cleaned for punctuation, paragraphing, and obvious speech-recognition errors. Speaker labels are inferred. The priest's surname is heard/transcribed as Father Divine, but it may be Devine and should be checked against St. Vincent's Chicago records.

## Family-history extract begins at about 22:18

**Interviewer:** I've got to wipe my eyes. I've got tears. Could you carry on from here and tell us about your experience and your first confession, and your friend who went to confession?

**Philip II:** Father Divine.

**Conversation:** No, don't do that. Why? Because you have to do that thing. Is it going, John? Yes.

**Philip II:** When I started grade school, I went to the public school in the first and second grades. And then my parents thought that I should go to the Catholic school, St. Vincent's, which was quite a distance away. I had to go by streetcar.

**Interviewer:** Which year was this?

**Philip II:** This is about 1905 - no, about 1907, something like that. I was about seven or eight or nine, something like that. We didn't make confessions early in those days. We had to prepare for confession for a long time. But at any rate, we had our confession in the Catholic school by the nun.

Now, when I got over to St. Vincent's school, I was a total stranger. I was out of my neighborhood. I didn't know anybody. But I did make friends with a boy whose name was Clarence Kelly.

I used to get my 15 cents or a quarter for my luncheon. He taught me how to go to a bakery and get a loaf of bread. Then he showed me also one time to get a can of kidney beans. We took them and sat under the elevated tracks in Chicago near the school and had our own [unclear].

But Clarence and I became good friends. His parents weren't very rich, I guess, or wealthy or well-to-do. They lived in a poor neighborhood. My father's house was the nice one over in Lincoln Park. One day I brought Clarence over, and my mother came to open the door. Just as I was about to introduce him, Clarence said to my mother, "Excuse my appearance, ma'am, but my appearance are poor." Well, that was Clarence.

I liked Clarence very much, but he was kind of backward - not backward, but reticent. He didn't like to speak out to himself.

One day we were having this instruction in class, and Father Divine came in. Now, Father Divine was the instructor for our group. He was the boss of the catechism group. He was a man, I would say about 50 years old at the time, and he was short and fat.

Can you imagine a great big sack of potatoes, about two feet around, a couple of feet sticking out at the bottom, and a pumpkin on his head, and this rope tied around his middle? That's the picture I have of Father Divine. He never smiled. He was a complete grouch. We were scared to death of him, and so was the nun.

Now, this morning he came into the classroom, and we all had to rise and say, "Good morning, Father." Then we sat down. He just stood in front of us and said, "How many of you were at Mass last Sunday?" All hands went up. I was in the fourth row; Clarence was in the front. All hands went up except Clarence's.

"Stand up. Why weren't you at Mass last Sunday?"

"My mother was sick, Father."

"When was the last time you were at Mass?"

"Thanksgiving, Father."

That was about two weeks past. He took his hand and put it on the side of Clarence's face, and poor Clarence went to the floor. Well, one was scared to death of him.

Anyway, we continued with our instructions, and the next day or two we had to go to confession in St. Vincent's Church. St. Vincent's Church is one of the old kind of churches. It's very big inside. It was like a cathedral, all stone. You walked in the church and it was cold. You felt chilled. It was dark and dank. The confessionals were something like the little boy told in the story. The boxes were built into the wall.

I got into the confessional and my turn came. When the door slid back - the slide went back - I said, "Bless me, Father, this is my first..." Then I stopped.

"Go on. Tell me your sins."

"I swore, Father."

"You swore. What did you say?"

"I don't remember, Father."

"You don't remember? Then get out of here and come back after you've examined your conscience."

That was the end of my story. I went out, and I went back later on.

**Interviewer:** What about your friend?

**Philip II:** Oh, my friend wasn't any part of that story. Clarence Kelly, I haven't heard of. I don't know where he is. Except Clarence Kelly is the name of who now heads the FBI. He's not the same one. Oh, no. I don't have any recollection of Clarence after that. Then the next year we moved to Rogers Park, so I didn't see Clarence anymore.