Proud of their country and their new house, Lawrence and Blanche Faron hosted the Faron family's first July 4th clambake at their home in Millbury, Massachusetts in 1941. Lawrence's grandfather Peter Faron (Fern) had emigrated to the United States as a boy with his mother and six siblings from Kileary, County Armagh, in May 1853, six months after his father, Michael. Michael … [Read more...] about Photo Album: As American as Apple Pie
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Photo Album: Happy Valentine’s
1916: Timothy & Mary Etta Caulfield, Ohio. On April 3, 1916, Timothy and Mary Etta Caulfield marked their 50th anniversary. The day began as befitting the occasion with High Mass at St. Joseph's Church in Dayton, celebrated by pastor, Rev. Father William Hickey. Timothy Caulfield, after the death of his father, emigrated to the United States around 1860 from Ballymalone, … [Read more...] about Photo Album: Happy Valentine’s
Christmas was Magic and Magic was Mother
One Christmas was so much like another in those years, to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas. Mother, who celebrated every feast day with aplomb – Shrove Tuesday with specially prepared pancakes, Halloween with monkey nuts (peanuts in the shell), bobbing for apples, and Barmbrack – saved her most elaborate plans for Christmas. And I do mean saved. We had a farm but money was far … [Read more...] about Christmas was Magic and Magic was Mother
Photo Album: On the Town
Cigarette in mouth and mates by his side, Corporal James L. O'Brien stands on a street in Paris in 1918. O'Brien and his friend, Pat Donovan (far left) joined "because we felt it was the right thing to do. Quite a few of our friends had been drafted." Assigned to recruitment duty in Washington D.C., O'Brien and Donovan would put up their friends who came down to enlist. "At … [Read more...] about Photo Album: On the Town
Photo Album: Gracie’s Crossing
Grace Boner was born December 10, 1904 in Altmore near Burtonport in the Rosses, County Donegal, Ireland. She married John Conaghan from nearby Crickamore. John went to America looking for work, leaving Gracie with two children, John and Celia, and a child on the way. Gracie, left to raise her family in a small one-room freestone house, thought she would never see her … [Read more...] about Photo Album: Gracie’s Crossing