The clock in front of the Warren Town Hall is broken, again. It also could use a paint job. I am sure most people riding or walking down Main Street barely notice whether the time is right or not. This letter is not just about a broken clock, but it’s about time. The time that Mary Cabral gave of herself to others.

I first met Mary at the old R.I. Veterans Home, where she volunteered. In her late ’80s and early ’90s, and weighing about 90 pounds, most of it heart, she would pull a food truck with 25 meals down two hallways to help feed old men young enough to be the sons she never had. Mary did this for years, five days a week.

Mary has been gone for some time now, but if you ever drive by the R.I. Veterans Home, or better yet walk by the clock in front of the Warren Town Hall, take some time to remember Mary and read the plaque on the clock. It says donated by Mary Cabral in memory of her husband, Joseph Cabral. Joe Cabral built and ran a very successful restaurant on Metacom Avenue, which is now Luke’s Inn.

I remember another old woman named Mary and another old clock in my life. My grandmother, Mary O’Riely Carew, who back in the early 1960s took my hand past the Sheapards clock in downtown Providence.

“Mary,” in the words of George M. Cohan, “It’s a grand old name,” and in the words of Geroge M. Carroll, “I miss them both very much.”

Mary O’Riely Carew has a great-great-grandaughter at the Kickemuit Middle School, and by the way, their clock has not worked for years, but parents don’t worry, Kaitlyn and all her classmates have their cellphones to find time. The band Orpheus had a song, “I Can’t Find the Time to Tell You.”

Warren should find the time to fix both clocks!

George M. Carroll
Warren