Why is ‘Frasier’ (hopefully) coming to my teeny-tiny farm town?

A Part 2 on the connection between Hollywood and my hometown

So, I have to share some Hollywood gossip with you because I know that’s what you come to your Davenport, Iowa-based Substacker for!

For the sake of clarity: I write this blog as a resident of the aforementioned river city in Iowa, but I grew up in west-central Illinois, on a farm just outside Carthage, population 2,441. I lived my entire childhood there, came home and worked at the grocery store every summer and Christmas break of college, and still return semi-often to visit my parents.

So when I write about Kelsey Grammer having been scheduled to appear in “my” town this weekend, note that I’m not talking about Davenport, (population 100,000ish). He’d been slated to give one performance, but after tickets sold out, agreed to do a second, at the Legacy Theatre—a restored facility which had been part of the former campus of Carthage College, by the way, which left town and was relocated to Kenosha, WI in the 1960s.

Back then (and until not all that long ago), Carthage was almost impossible to reach from any direction without long stretches on a bumpy two-lane highway. Today, there’s one (unnecessary) stoplight at the four-way stop, where one can find the dining trifecta of DQ, Hardees, and Subway—and if I walked in to any one of those right now, (most likely the DQ), I can guarantee you I’d run into someone I know. (And I could list off all their relatives for you.)

So yeah, it’s not the kind of town where a big-name celebrity is known to visit. (Unless you count Mormon leader Joseph Smith [cymbal crash!], who happened to be murdered in our county jail.) So it was really cool and exciting news when, almost a year ago, it was announced that Grammer would be coming to town to perform.

I had started this post to write about the upcoming show, leading with an apology that you can’t attend. But I still simply had to tell you about it, because when it feels like there’s a kind of spotlight being shined on a tiny dot on the map—one that barely gets local news coverage, let alone national—it makes you feel like something truly historical is happening.

Was he going to be in a play? you might be wondering. And how many hours away from Chicago did you say this town is? (I didn’t. It’s like, four-plus.)

But no, not a play. The show was billed as a tribute to his Must-See TV co-star and onscreen father, the late John Mahoney.

As I shared back in late 2023 when I first wrote about why locals had chosen the name “Mahoney’s” for their new coffee shop, there’s a cool Carthage connection to the actor who played Frasier and Niles’ father.

a “Martin Crane” bobblehead greeting customers at the coffeeshop

Mahoney was actually British, but came to the U.S. as a young man to visit his sister Vera, who had ended up in rural Illinois. (And who I, as a teenager many decades later, would wait on at the grocery store for years without ever having a clue! )

My initial story focused more on why something as simple as the opening of a coffee shop created such a sense of excitement, but if you’d like to get a better sense of Mahoney’s Carthage connection, which you totally should, duh), I’ve copied and pasted the text from the framed item in the center of this wall in the coffee shop. I snapped a pic of it when I was back a few months after the shop had opened:

THE STORY OF MAHONEY'S COFFEE SHOP

Rita Angela Mahoney was born on July 12, 1932 in Manchester, England to Reginald and Margaret (Watson) Mahoney. She had 7 siblings. One of her older sisters, Vera, was a war bride; she married Grant Jones and moved to the United States. When Vera was pregnant with her third child, Rita came to America on the Queen Elizabeth II to "visit" Vera and her family. Vera and Grant's son, Steve, was born during that visit, and Rita was to be godmother at his Baptism. They needed a godfather...and the local priest suggested “one of the Sullivan boys" from his parish. William and Edith (Arnold) Sullivan lived in Carthage and had 6 boys and one girl. The story goes that the two youngest sons, Louie and Don, were vying for the godfather job, in hopes of getting to know Rita better... and Don won! The rest, as they say, is history: Rita and Don started dating, eventually became engaged, and got married on September 30, 1950 at Immaculate Conception church in Carthage.

Rita and Don lived in Colusa, Macomb, and Nauvoo, where they raised their 11 children, and in 1976 moved to a home on the River Road in Hamilton, where Dan & Kacey Sullivan [coffee shop owners] now reside. Rita and Vera's younger brother, John, had also emigrated to America as a teenager. He attended Quincy College and Western Illinois University before moving to Chicago and joining the theater group, Steppenwolf. John Mahoney was an actor and was in many plays and movies, but is most remembered for his iconic role as the dad, Martin Crane, on "Frasier." (Remember this line to Niles in the fictional coffee shop, Café Nervosa: "Coffee, just black….and don't put anything fancy in it!")

Vera Mahoney Jones died in 2009 and John Mahoney in 2018. Rita lived 19 years after Don, who died in 2002. She died in 2021 in Macomb, Illinois, just a few months shy of her 90th birthday.

Mahoney's Coffee is named for this side of our family. While Rita loved her hot tea (served steaming hot, please, with milk and sugar...the proper British way!) she also very much enjoyed a good cup of coffee. Her favorite teas were an Irish tea, Barry's, and an English tea, Yorkshire Gold. Rita would be thrilled to have this shop in Carthage, named after her family. We imagine her sitting in here, by the fire, reading, and sipping a hot cuppa... but most of all beaming with pride at her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren running a coffee shop!

So there you have it!

While I was able to provide the scoop about Mahoney’s opening in my initial post, I haven’t made any calls or visited with any hometown connections to find out how Mr. Grammer was contacted and convinced to come to Carthage, or how exactly he was going to pay tribute to his co-star. I’m assuming by storytelling, and singing some songs. I do know, however, that it was seriously exciting to have tickets, as my parents did/do. My sister surprised them with a pair as soon as she heard that the event was happening.

So a few days ago as I was trying to decide what my column should be about this week, I Googled the event to see if there were any news features I could link to (nope). Instead I landed on the theatre’s event page saying the show had been postponed, but that all ticket sales would be honored.

The announcement said that another acting commitment had come up, making the timing impossible for him.

I texted Mom to make sure she was aware. (Yes.)

My sister and I texted about how, darn it, it had almost seemed too good to be true. Why, after all, would he agree to come to Carthage?

Then, yesterday, and probably because of the fact that I’d Googled about Grammer, look what popped up in the headlines on my phone, (and which, note, I am choosing to withhold comment about — but by saying that, obviously I’m kinda commenting)

Hmmm, acting commitment, eh?

(Okay fine, be a good husband and actually be there with your wife! But dangit, everyone was looking forward to this show.)

So I rewrote my headline about Grammer blowing off the people of my hometown.

But then, tonight as I was about to put this post to bed, I went back to the Legacy Theatre site to get the link and saw that a new date had been added: Nov. 1.

I texted my sister. Did an email go out about about a reschedule? (Yes.)

Yay!

So, all hope is not lost!

The new dad will be there with bells on, hopefully.

I’m excited for my ticket-holding parents, and for my hometown, and I wish I could be there to hear what he’d say about Mahoney. Maybe I can get a report from my parents and fill you all in in November. And how cool would it be if he stops in to Mahoney’s to get a cuppa?

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Also:

Price Watch, vol. 2:

New music from Margo!

As I mentioned in my recent post about current things happening that are not abysmal, the amazing singer-songwriter (and rural Illinois gal done good!) Margo Price has released a new song—and now we have a new album title as well!: Hard-Headed Woman, out on August 29th!

The title and subject of the song, “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down,” is of course an “evergreen” topic, (but…is it just me or are there more bastards lately?)

In typical Margo fashion, (as I wrote here), the writing is funny and sharp. Here’s a throwaway line from the new track:

“All the cocaine in existence
couldn’t keep your nose
out of my business!”

Check it out in the video below—or if you’re not familiar with her work, I recommend getting started with Margo’s writing and socially conscious songs on Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, her debut album.

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And finally,

Kiley Reid’s ‘Come and Get It’ gets 5 stars from me

… and has some (very loose!) connections to the QC!

I loved this novel, and, coincidentally, the author (who spent time in Iowa City as a student in the famed Writers’ Workshop) happens to pepper in some Quad Cities Area references!

Even though I saw that people on Goodreads gave it mixed reviews, I tore through it in a couple of days, and I loved Reid’s mastery of realistic dialogue (as I had in her debut, Such a Fun Age.)

When we learn the backstory of one of the main characters, a college student named Kennedy, it is mentioned that she was born in DeWitt (Iowa, a small town outside the QC). Davenport is mentioned once, as is the Moline airport, woot!

But those small thrills aside, it’s actually worth reading for the observational humor and character development, commentary on consumer culture, power dynamics related to race and class, and privilege as a whole. (Yeah take THAT, you people who gave it three stars!) If you’re into contemporary literary fiction, I highly recommend.

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