Almost every Nashuan probably knew at least someone in the large Sullivan family – six boys and a girl who came of age in pre-World War II years in the big house on tiny Middle Street.
And as the dark clouds of war began gathering, even before the U.S. was officially drawn into the expanding global conflict the day after the one that will live in infamy, many began empathizing with Dennis and Mary Sullivan Sr., who faced the strong possibility that they could soon be worrying about maybe two, perhaps even three or four, of their sons all at once.
Indeed, while plenty of families in Nashua and across the nation found themselves suddenly bidding tearful farewells to a son, brother, uncle, dad or the occasional daughter, sister, aunt or mom, the Middle Street Sullivan boys were eagerly joining the military one after the other, until one day, Dennis and Mary Sullivan suddenly realized all six of their sons were somewhere overseas fighting for their country.
Remembering Nashua’s Fighting Sullivans, as is most appropriate with the approach of the solemn 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, almost always brings to mind the far more famous but equally as unfortunate Fighting Sullivans, the five Waterloo, Iowa, brothers whose tragic simultaneous deaths at sea in 1943 are often tied to a robust surge in war-bond sales and a renewed home-front effort to support troops in every way possible to rid the world of the festering evils in Europe and the Far East.
“We were kind of associated with them sometimes,” Daniel “Dixie” Sullivan, the lone family survivor, said of their namesakes. “Overseas, the guys we were closest to knew there were six of us (in the service) and we talked about it a little, how lucky we were and how tragic it was for them.”
Sullivan and his brothers chalked up to fate and luck the fact that their good fortune continued through the war’s end and into adulthood.![]()
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