I haven't done much with the Irish side of the family lately but I recently got some exciting new leads. As is often the case, I stumbled on this kind of accidentally. There is an organization called TIARA. Ryan says I joined it because I liked the name, which is true BUT in addition this organization has access to some interesting records. TIARA stands for The Irish Ancestral Research Association. TIARA is alot more fun.



TIARA offers access to the records of the Massachusetts Order of Foresters which was a fraternal organization formed by Irish immigrants to offer life insurance to its members. Never heard of them before but when I checked their records I saw some names I found intriguing: Mary Ryan, James Ryan and John Handran. TIARA offers to send you the insurance files for their members--since this was for life insurance, these records are related to the insured's death.



Saturday I received a lovely fat envelope containing several sheets of paper for each of these names. Pretty quickly I was able to determine that Mary Ryan is not one of "our" Ryans; I'm still working on James but John Handran is probably an ancestor--not in our direct line but one of the long lost cousins. I'm still working on putting all the pieces together but the papers are fascinating and contain their health interview for the insurance as well as death records. They contain details I've never found in other kinds of sources.



This image is one page from John Handran's record. He drowned in 1885 just 3 years after his marriage in Gloucester. Three years and 3 kids left behind with his widow Sarah. The part I found most interesting on this sheet was the description of the drowing incident: "washed from the deck of the vessel + sank after a few moments of struggle". A little additional research showed he had been aboard the Schooner Cleopatra and was one of two or three in total who drowned the day after Christmas 1885. The remaining crew were rescued and brought to port in Philadelphia.



I have a great deal more work to do to place him properly in our tree but such interesting papers certainly give me the inspiration needed to learn more. I hope you find it interesting too.

Provenance Part II

I hope this picture does justice to this item. Someday someone surely will be wondering why this is in my jewelry box, but I'll bet you recognize it. If not, you certainly would if you saw it in person.

Weenie must have preferred these nylon socks. My memory of course relates to playing Hearts for half a penny a point (or something like that). I have many many memories of playing cards with Mom, Dad, Nanny and Weenie. Until I was a parent myself I'm not sure I realized that perhaps not everyone would have approved of this family style gambling, but it was such fun. We were very lucky to have that experience. I still have a sock tied up with a few pennies in the toe from those days.

But this particular sock tells the story of an even greater chapter in our lives. It was tied to Mary Jane's bed railing in the hospital. They were escorting Kathy and I from the room and getting ready to move her when somehow I remembered that silly sock was there. I knew if I didn't get it back I might never see it again so I asked the staff to bring it to us. It meant a great deal to me at the time and still today. I think Mary Jane must have had it tied to her bed rail because it brought her comfort and that's why I sometimes carry it around in my pocket.

On this first day of fall, here's to Mary Jane and Weenie!

September 11

I was upset with myself Friday morning when I realized that I had forgotten it was September 11. A few days earlier, I was very aware that Friday was September 11 in part because the 8th grade history teacher across the hall was preparing her now-annual first lesson "What September 11 Means to Me". And I found myself wondering where was the tipping point on this event for our students...these current 8th graders were probably in kindergarten on September 11 2001. Did they have a memory of that day and would they be able to effectively express what it means to them? I'm guessing not. I'm sure the teacher makes it meaningful to them, but the bottom line is that this event probably doesn't carry personal meaning to them or any students coming up behind them.

This fading of event trauma is normal and likely healthy. One of the blogs that I like to read recently did a very nice post along these lines. The Occasional CEO wrote "9/11 and the National Memory". I strongly encourage you to read it. He puts historical events in our lifetimes in perspective in an enlightening way: such tidbits as when a mouse used to indicate a 4 legged critter rather than an electronic extension of our fingers.

He likens this shift to a snake shedding its skin. Out with the old and in with the new. Regrowth. Renewal. I was reminded of Amy's experience at the zoo this summer. Apparently boa constrictors need some extra help shedding all their skin--especially around their eyes. So she found herself helping the staff remove old skin from around this constrictor's eyes. Huge "Blecch" factor aside, it's not unlike how such memories get lost. There is some natural fading and shifting but we (society) assist that fading and shifting in many ways. We are picking the skin away so new skin can grow when we forget or fail to pause and remember. A survival technique, yes but it seems criminal to let that day go by without some remembrance.

I was 7 when President Kennedy was shot. Most definitely the defining event of its time. I vaguely remember seeing the funeral on television but have no other specific memories of that day in school or the days that followed. Eight years later I certainly could not have written a meaningful essay on "What President Kennedy's Assassination Means to Me". Present tense. Still meaningful. But I feel certain my teachers could have. And my parents. So perhaps today's 8th graders see September 11 not as video-like memories running through their minds but more as how it is commemorized today. And I'm afraid they did not see much evidence that we remember. Neither did I on the following anniversaries of the President's assassination.

A number of articles in the paper the next day talked about how some places held remembrance events and others did not. Specifically it mentioned that no recognition was given at Ryan's football game in Bainbridge. I was grateful the game wasn't in Harpursville or I'm pretty sure we would have been in the same boat. I guess this puts me in the same camp as those campaigning to have September 11 be marked as a Day of Remembrance. Because it affected me. Because it's still vivid in my memory. But I forgot Friday was September 11 until well into the day. I guess I also helped peel away the dead skin of that day.

Happy Birthday Mom

I guess it's a big day today--9/9/09. Happy Birthday Mom. It would have been her 76th. That's kind of hard for me to picture, although I wish with all my heart I didn't have to be wishing I knew what it would be like.

When I was thinking about what I was going to say about her today, I came across a cool website (http://www.wolframalpha.com/ ) You can put in something like weather and the date/location and it will tell you what the weather was like on a particular day. From this I learned that Mom was born on a Saturday. True, I could have figured this out another way but this was much more interesting. No weather report for Olean the day she was born, but I did find out that the weather outside was pretty miserable the day Amy was born--I had no real clue about that!

I have to say I find it amusing that Mom was born on the weekend! The newspaper that day reports it was "generally fair and somewhat cooler". Nanny and Weenie were living on Irving Street at the time. It also seems like Weenie was spending quite a bit of his free time playing center field for the Nationals, which I believe was a semi pro team in the area.

I see quite a few of us in this picture! I will be thinking about her today, as I often do. I hope 9/9/09 brings you a great day.

Provenance Part 1

In many ways, our possessions define us. I'm not talking so much about our cars, homes, clothes, electronics etc but more about all those little things we have around us that make us smile just to see them sitting there. We all have possessions that are not particularly valuable in a monetary sense but are very important for the stories they carry or memories they evoke.

Remember cleaning out Mom and Dad's house? We'd find things and wonder ..... why is that still here after all this time? You know it must have had meaning for Mom or Dad and you'd love to know its story. Well, at least I would like to know those stories. I might still put it out for the yard sale, but the story can still live on.

So it's important to document the stories. This is the first entry into my "Provenance" series--sharing stories about stuff that is important to me so that someday someone can say "I know why that thing is still here after all this time".

I have a picture of flowers in a vase that's in a round frame that came from Nanny and Weenie's house. I don't know why, but I've always been drawn to that picture. It might be a watercolor--no artist's name is visible. I don't know beans about the history of this thing but I would love to. It might just be a picture they picked up at the 5 and 10 for all I know but it has always given me a warm happy feeling and kind of says "Nanny and Weenie" to me.

You can see it in the background of this picture. I never felt like it really fit in that Walton house but I feel like it belongs right where it is currently in my living room. The picture above is Christmas 1990 and the one below is Christmas 1956--look at the wall behind Weenie's head.

These possessions that are so important often appear in the background--they often aren't the focus of any particular attention but think how empty our lives would be in their absence. I only came to have this picture through the loss of Nanny, Weenie, Mom and Dad. Such a heavy price helps explain its real value.