James Crowley
My Life After La Salle
By far the most important experience in my life after La Salle was and still continues to be my family. The worst and most devastating experience of my life was losing my oldest son to an accidental heroin overdose. What’s helped is I have worked since then counseling high risk young addicted people as a community volunteer. I’ve helped to save some lives. By far the best experience of my life has been watching my grandchildren grow up in a happy large extended family who shower them with love as I try to do also.
At LaSalle I had good grades and got quite interested in physics and chemistry but I was still somewhat undecided about going to college since no one in my family had gone beyond high school and several had not gone even that far. I was leaning toward joining the Navy as two of my uncles had done after graduating. In my senior year at LaSalle, I had Mr. Tom Lowery as my home room teacher who became a real mentor. He finally convinced me I should go on to college.
So, I followed Mr. Lowery’s advice and ended up in premed at PC and then went on to medical school at Georgetown. There I also did well academically and got involved in research. I had an excellent mentor who steered me to Harvard and Boston for my residency in Medicine and after that and 3 years in the Navy I decided to specialize in Hematology since I had been a Blood Bank officer in the Navy and learned a lot about blood transfusion (among other things).
Enjoying research, I decided to stay in academic medicine and eventually became Director of Clinical Hematology at RI Hospital and then Director of the Cancer Center at Memorial Hospital which was affiliated with Dana-Farber.
I now am a Professor emeritus at the Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University. I’m also a Capt.(ret’d) in the US Naval Reserve with 23 years of service including over three years of service on active duty during the Vietnam Period and a short stateside deployment during Persian Gulf. I did a two-year stint as President of the RI Medical Society and received a Transfusion Medicine Academic Award from the National Institute of Heart, Lung and Blood Disease.
So, from a lower working-class family with grandparents who never learned to read or write, thanks to Tom Lowery and LaSalle I made something better with my life. Although my family did not have much education, I’m proud of all of them. They all worked hard and just kept inching forward and it was my uncles who pitched in to help me pay for my tuition at La Salle. And that’s what La Salle is still about really: giving a hand up to young men and women whose families want to help them to make a better life for themselves and for others.
Now I am happily retired. I spend a lot more time with my family and grandchildren. My wife Diane and I really enjoy going on an occasional trip to Maine or Block Island in the summer or Savannah in the winter. As I mentioned, I do some volunteer work with families with members who are addicted to opioids and also volunteer to do primary care an afternoon a week at the RI Free Clinic.
La Salle in the 1960’s essentially banned hard rockers I loved, like Chuck Berry from the Canteen’s repertoire. My favorite song of his back then is still one of my favorites now. It goes like this:
“But when Pierre found work,
The little money comin' worked out well…..
"C'est la vie", say the old folks….
It goes to show you never can tell”
Jim Crowley.
La Salle Academy
Class of 1961
James Crowley <jcrowley9802@gmail.com>
Monday, November 08, 2021 at 11:16:19 (EST)