She Never Forgot a Face

     

land near Kinard east of Dingle

On our first visit to Ireland in 1976 we were poor college students. We took a Friday train from Dublin to Dingle, the home of most of my Irish ancestors, and spent three days coming to know the town, visiting with the parish clerk, and looking up relatives in the parish books. My only living native Irish relative--Katie Brosnahan Griffin--lived in Massachusetts, and told me before our trip that all our family was gone from Ireland, or had died. So I didn’t go knocking on doors, and with no transportation, didn’t get out into the countryside at all.

In 1990 we returned to Dingle Parish, this time with more knowledge, and a vehicle. My first stop was to visit the same parish clerk. He asked if I had yet visited my cousin Peggy Flahive who runs Flahive Pub down on the Quay. “Who is she?” I asked. He looked incredulous that I hadn’t heard of my own cousin. Off I went to the pub and found that Peggy was a distant cousin on my Ashe side.   She had written down some of our genealogy years before, details that an elderly Ashe relative used to spout off when he was comfortably primed with grog.

Then Peggy asked if I had been to see my cousin Mary Ashe Griffin out at Kinard. No, I had never heard of her either. She gave me directions and off I went. Kinard is the historical domicile of the Ashe clan. My 5th great-grandfather once owned it all until the English stole it fair and square. He repaid them by running a smuggling business right under their noses. I followed Peggy's directions to Kinard, a few miles out into the country and knocked at Mary Griffin’s, one of three houses there. We talked awhile, I met her son, then I asked her a silly question. “My cousin Katie remembers the Ashe family—James, Greg, and Frank—living together in the old family house at Kinard. Where was the house located?” She looked at me dumbfounded and said, “This is the house.”  I was sitting in  my great-great grandfather's small house with its three-foot thick whitewashed walls.  Mary explained that a hundred years before, when the house was very full of Ashes, straws were drawn to determine who had to find a new place to live.  The family that drew the short straw--John Ashe and Catherine Prendiville and their 14 children--sent some children to Australia, the rest to the US.  A descendant of this clan is the actor, Gregory Peck.

Mary Griffin asked if I had visited my cousin Hannah Farrell out at Ardamore. I had never heard of her (surprise). Mary gave me directions to the Farrell’s dairy farm. Once at the property I drove past an old rock shed, a barn, and then up to the house. Hannah answered the door. I told her my name and that I was a relative from America. She warmly invited me in and began to talk, and then briefly whispered something to her daughter Anne. Anne disappeared into the cellar, then returned carrying a large box. Hannah never paused in the conversation and simultaneously fished through the box, whose contents I couldn’t see. After a couple of minutes she handed me something from the box. It was an old black and white photo. The photo was of a group of children posing with a very old woman. And, drum-roll please—the two-year-old girl in the photo was me! What the heck? I had seen this photo in my mom’s collection, taken in 1957 at 27 Taylor St. in Holyoke, Mass. It was probably sent to Hannah Farrell by her Aunt Katie who was present that day at 27 Taylor. I remember the day the picture was taken because I had fallen down the wooden staircase, and the old ladies had given me some chocolate to get me to quit wailing.

Craig’s comment about my visit with Hannah was, “Imagine making a visit to a foreign country--a remote area in that country--to a farm way off the beaten track--to visit a person you had never heard of until a half hour before, and not only do they know right off where you fit in, but they pull out a photograph of you!"

 This is the photo that Hannah Farrell showed me.  That's me in the plaid skirt on the left; the other children are 3rd cousins of mine and the elderly woman is Katie Doyle Sullivan, my great-grandma's younger sister.  She is holding my brother. My cousin standing on the right, Mary Sullivan, was killed in a car accident two years later.

"Nine for Nine!"

Yesterday this blog was about Flight 93 which went down north of Somerset, Pennsylvania on 9/11. Curiously, less than one year later, masses of media and the world’s attention focused back on the same area when nine coal miners were trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine, not 10 miles from where Flight 93 went down 10 months before. For over three days the world was at the edge of our collective seat around the clock, waiting for news of the trapped men.

The anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania, and the bituminous region of western PA combined have experienced an astounding 51,000 deaths from coal mining since 1877.  That's 32 deaths every month when averaged over a 130 year period, shocking numbers for only one US state.

With a steady stream of immigrants lined up for available jobs, miner’s lives were pretty cheap in the early days. My great-uncle George was killed in 1908 in a slate-fall in a Stockett, Montana coal mine. My own grandfather was crushed in slate-fall at the Colonial #3 mine at Rowes Run, PA, in February 1951. If a miner survives an injury he is typically gravely hurt. Grandpa should not have lived, but he pulled through, spending the next seven months in a body cast and another few months after that in the hospital, then two or three months in rehab learning to navigate his paralyzed self on crutches. My Dad said that in the early days of mining the companies took no responsibility for a miner’s injuries. They threw the injured in the bed of a wagon and left them on their doorstep for the wife to patch up. The work went on.

So why is it that with personal challenges and suffering in our own lives, we can suddenly find ourselves praying for total strangers, or sending messages of hope or condolence to people we don’t know in relation to an event that has nothing to do with ourselves? That’s what happened when Jessica fell into the well, and it happened at Quecreek in 2002. I think it is partly the inherent goodness in people. We stretch our capacity to love and care for others. Someday it could be our turn to need the best wishes and compassion of folks all around. In Somerset County expressions of faith and hope were heard from the families and friends, rescuers and reporters, and the governor.  Marvelous miracles happened such as when a broken drill part was tooled and replaced in three hours instead of the customary three to four days. People everywhere recognized answer to prayer when they saw it.

In this case, when the governor gratefully announced, “nine for nine!” the world rejoiced. A few months later, on the same day our family visited the Flight 93 site, we stopped at the Quecreek rescue site. My step-mother’s father once worked in this mine, and she was born here on Christmas Day 1921 in Acosta, just up the road. A few years ago a memorial to this tragic event with a happy ending--of a miner immersed in the Bible--was put in place. I don’t think we too often see memorials erected to commemorate positive events.

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Y’all know what happened here on September 11, 2001. It was a bright spot in an otherwise unimaginably terrible day—that is if you can call it a bright spot that 40 people fought the terrorists, and then hurtled to their deaths at such great speed that there wasn’t much left of them or the plane either. You know what I’m talking about though.

About a year after 9/11 Steven and I visited my folks at their home in Belle Vernon PA, about an hour drive from the Flight 93 crash site. In fact, Flight 93 had flown to its fate not too far north of their house. My Dad decided to take us over there on a wintry November day. As often happened on a George Bubnash outing, we took country roads instead of the highway towards Somerset, PA, the nearest city to the site. The hoarfrost on the trees was cracking branches everywhere. It was a magically, frosty, pretty day.

From Somerset you drive north on country roads to the site. I don’t know if Pennsylvania has a corner on unmarked windy country roads, making places difficult to find, but they do a good job at it. I’ve had the experience of taking an hour to find a place three miles away. Even locals get lost sometimes. It was the same this day. Kind folks in the Somerset area though, had created these little red-white-blue markers that simply said “Flight 93” with an arrow pointing either straight or right or left. We followed those for a while but a few were missing so it was a while before I spotted the place on a hill near a farmhouse.

The hill is where the makeshift memorial is located. The crash site is in a draw in the valley below, maybe a mile away. The hand of God laid this plane down in a peaceful site away from houses and buildings. They say this was once an open-pit coal mine so that when the plane hit, it was instantly swallowed up. Down in the draw at the center of the site is a solitary American flag marking the spot. I like that. It’s a simple symbol that says much. The makeshift memorial contains homemade markers and messages received from the world over, and also some metal and stone plaques sent by other countries. You can leave a souvenir there or write a message in permanent marker on the guard rail.

I was just reading on the internet about the National Park Service memorial that will be ready for dedication in two years. It has various features that symbolize what happened on Flight 93. The site is largely outdoors. I like that. But perhaps it’s overdone. The reference below contains the drawings and descriptions of the various aspects of the memorial. The bowl with the walkway around it seems enough (minimal can convey peace). I don’t know if the concrete walls add anything—perhaps I’ll change my mind when I see it. But there is one thing that bugs and I will take the flak of being called unfeeling. There is private access for the “Flight 93 families” in the area that is basically a graveyard. I’m not sure why that is. When we go to Pearl Harbor or Gettsyburg or Flanders Fields, or any number of places where people have fought and died, we remember that they did it for their country. And so their country comes to pay them honor. In my book it's odd to be exclusive at this memorial.

http://www.nps.gov/flni/upload/Design%20presentatioN2.pdf

Rental Car Adventures

"Adventure" is not a word you want to use in the same phrase as ‘rental car’, but I’ve had a few of those. Two particular experiences come to mind, both relating to Budget Rental Car.

In Ireland in 1990 I picked up a car at Shannon Airport. The key the agent handed me was bent. When I objected hey said, “this is the only key we have.” Oh really? You run a rental car business and keep only one key per car? Long story short, the bent-key-car was the only automatic available and I didn’t want to be learning to drive on the left side of the road in a manual transmission car. Three days later I parked the bent-key-car in front of a cemetery out in the country near Anascaul, while I searched for family gravestones. I darted back to the car during a sudden squall, and the key chose that moment to snap off in the lock.

Minard Castle, near Anascaul

I hoofed the mile into Anascaul and found a garage man (Sean Evans) who said he would help me “after I finish me pint of grog.” This guy spent several hours trying to help me but he really didn’t have a plan, and neither did I until he finally stopped off at another garage to get an opinion. In exasperation I told that garage-man, Sean Moran, the story and what I wanted Budget to do. He called Budget in Dublin and in his no-nonsense voice berated them for renting a car with a defective key. He handed me the phone, and I told them I was leaving the car in front of the Anascaul cemetery and they could come get it. Furthermore, at no extra charge, they were to give my husband a comparable rental car when he landed that night at Shannon Airport, and how dare they send out a rental car with a worthless key and cause such a waste of time blah blah blah. So Craig was paged on his arrival and picked up a different car and all was well. I lost a half day of genealogy research time though.

The same year we went to the East coast for a month, flying into/out of South Carolina.

South Carolina Statehouse

I picked up an Astro 7-passenger van at the airport and headed north with my kids to my grandmother’s house in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t until we stopped for the night in Northern Virginia that I noticed there were no license plates on the car. Not in front, not in rear. Mmmm, they do things differently here, was my thought, but I should have been a teeny bit more proactive.

We drove through 10 states without police paying any attention, but I barely crossed the Vermont border before being pulled over by two cops in my great-grandparents home town of Brattleboro, on the very street where my great-grandmother was born in 1862. The officer told me I was driving illegally due to non-displayment of plates, and asked for the registration. Well, there was nothing, not one document in the car (besides my rental agreement). They really do do things different in South Carolina.

She announced that she could pull the car from me immediately, and then peeked in to see my four wide-eyed kids with our Mount Everest of gear. She decided to meet me at our hotel room, a Super 8 up the road. She kindly agreed not to pull the car but instructed me to switch it first thing the next day. She wrote an $80 ticket to the rental car company.

Whetstone Falls, Brattleboro Vermont

The next day, a Saturday, I discovered there was no Budget Rental open on weekends anywhere near where we were. Hartford-Springfield airport (BDL) was the nearest office, and it was a couple of hours away. We would be going there on Sunday (the next day) to pick up Craig. So, being the criminal that I am, I elected not to spend a good half a day and all that gas going down to BDL to switch the car. I slunk around Brattleboro for the next one-and-a-half days and was careful to avoid main streets and on-street parking. I hate being like that—it’s living a lie, but after all, this was our vacation!

On Sunday while picking up Craig at BDL, I took care of the car situation, and insisted they not charge us extra for switching cars. We had signed up for a month-long rental and by golly, that’s what we were going to pay for. They later did try to charge us for two two-week rentals but we prevailed, and they were really unhappy about not getting their car back to South Carolina. But heck, it wasn’t my idea to drive thousands of miles up and down the Eastern seaboard with no license plates!

Thanksgiving Through the Decades

What else to write about today but a few Thanksgiving memories? Or at least some short snippets. It’s a magical day. So many delicious foods. A beautiful table setting. Company is often involved.

Except for my Grandma Ashe, in my childhood our family had few relatives nearby since my folks had pulled up their Eastern stakes to resettle in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. One of my mom’s cousins lived a few hours away as did one of her shoestring relatives on the Doyle side. So from time to time we got together with these families on holidays, including Thanksgiving.

Those Thanksgivings pretty much blend together but a few aspects of them never changed: Mom cooked a wonderful dinner, and she set an elegant table. By elegant, I don’t mean magazine-fancy with towering flower arrangements and centerpieces everywhere, but she used her shiny silver, the antique platters, and the best tablecloth, that came out only on special occasions. Every dish was done on time. Dad helped. The kids helped. And our pie tradition was unique: though Gram always brought her perfect pumpkin pie, none of us ate more than our obligatory sliver--we were not pumpkin pie fans. Mom made, or had us make, a chocolate crème pie, and that continues to be the tradition in my house now.

Southern Cal weather was always pleasant on turkey day. Not so when I moved to Utah, Idaho and Oregon. The stupidest thing I ever did for Thanksgiving was when Deb Schueneman and I drove home for the holiday from BYU my sophomore year. She had a VW bug and we left after our last class Wednesday, so probably not until 3 or 4 p.m. Somewhere in southern Utah we hit black ice and spun out on the interstate. Then we had only two days at home before heading back.

In later years we have had many Thanksgivings with just our family, but on occasion we have invited others or gone to other homes. I would just as soon cook my own and invite others, because we enjoy the leftovers so much. In fact, that’s one of my favorite aspects of TG—that I don’t do hardly any cooking the rest of the weekend. Everybody helps on TG, then the rest of the weekend people just eat what they want, it’s all ready and waiting in the fridge! We might vary it by making top ramen turkey soup or something equally exciting ;-)

I always have a home project on TG weekend because of having so much free time not having to cook. But this year am recovering from surgery so it will be different.

Recovery

Guess I’ll just write an update about the surgery since I went to the first follow-up doc visit today. The pain has diminished a lot in the last 24 hours and it’s good to not be taking much medicine because it makes me so spacey and I forget what day it is and whether my dreams were real events or figments of my imagination.

On the x-ray today the screw, staples and straightening of the bone look real good. There’s also a very long pin in the foot that will be removed next week. The doc changed the dressing. Stitches come out next week. I’ve still been spending most of the time lying in bed reading, because if I’m up for too long the foot throbs uncomfortably. But being up for two hours for the doc appointment was just fine so I expect to be upright (at least sitting) more often now. Thanks to everyone for your positive thoughts and prayers.

Check out the photo of my foot (w/out the air cast on). That’s a self-portrait of the foot doctor wearing a Santa hat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Most Embarrassing Tourist Moment Ever

I’ve traveled to many countries over the last four decades and have done my best to blend in, discover, enjoy, and empathize, and, AND to avoid giving American tourists a bad name. This is a post about the one time (albeit unintentionally) that I did insult our hosts and probably became the poster child for bad American tourist behavior. This experience doesn’t pertain to obnoxious clothing, insufferable conduct, or put downs of another culture. What have I left out? Oh yeah, cell phone etiquette.

One day four of us set off from Bridget and Jeremy’s place in Damascus, Syria, to go to the Christian Monastery at Seidnayya. As we left, Bridget thought to loan us her cell phone so that in case of any kind of problem we could call Jeremy for help. I said, “Is it shut off?” She said, “yes.” I looked at it and there was no screen display (in mine the screen would be lit if on) so I took her word for it.

Seidnayya Monastery has been a place of worship for 1400 years, but the current buildings are mostly from the 19th century. There are two things that make it unusual: one, it is a destination for Muslim as well as Christian patrons, and two, its most sacred shrine is centered around a portrait of the Virgin Mary, reportedly painted by St. Luke. This shrine is a most holy place. It is a tiny room with no natural light, the black-draped walls of which are adorned with tributes from worshippers who have come there to beg for a blessing. The painting of Mary is not visible—it is hidden behind the folds of ebony cloth. But it must be there, because hundreds come to light candles, to prostrate themselves before it, to implore God for a child or some other miracle. Sounds of muffled weeping and chanting emanating from unseen pilgrims resonate through the inky blackness.

All I could do was stand there quietly in the back with arms folded, in awe of the devotion before me. Until I was disturbed by the chirping of . . . a cell phone! What! Who in their right mind would bring a cell phone in a place like this, let alone keep it on! Everyone was startled and the pilgrims were disturbed. Steven whispered, “the ring is coming from your backpack!” Oh my, was I ever mortified. I squeezed out of the shrine and ran this way and that way down long stone corridors until out of view, and out of earshot of anyone who had been worshipping. I was shoeless, because all pilgrims remove footwear. I was embarrassed and mortified at having disturbed the devoted’s most humble pleas.

The call was from Bridget just to check on us. Eventually Steven found me and delivered me my shoes and we steered clear of the shrine the rest of the day. Because it had been dark inside, I  am sure no one recognized me as the crass American who brought their cell phone into the sacred shrine of Seidnayya.