This feels like a miracle. Or at the very least, an answer from Saint Anthony.

The other morning, I woke up full of determination to look into the other side of Mom’s family.

The Cassidy side.

Surely there must be someone out there who was also a great-grandchild of Patrick and Annie who wants family stories preserved and shared. Right?

I started with the youngest of their seven children, worked my way to Marcella, and put together a story about her ready-made family. Then it was back to Ancestry.com to look for clues about who else was on that branch of the tree.

Marcella’s older sister, Ethel, was next in line. When I traced over to her memorial page on FindAGrave.com, I noticed there was something missing. Each page is meant to show that person’s gravestone and Ethel’s was not there. Often there’s a quick solution, though: the Request Photo button. Click on it, and the crowd-sourced group of volunteers who live near that graveyard will be notified of the need.

But someone had already clicked the button, and a pop-up box told me who it was: Richard Hungerford. Given that Hungerford was Ethel’s married name and I knew her husband’s name was Richard Sr., chances were decent this was Richard Jr., my second cousin. Right?

A quick email later and I knew I’d hit the jackpot.

Yes, I’d found my second cousin and yes, he is into genealogy.

In a big, big way.

Rich (may I call you Rich? it’s been nearly 24 hours since our first email exchange, after all) is the founder of The Hungerford Family Foundation, Inc., a non-profit designed to build a world-wide family tree with all Hungerfords and those related to them.

Talk about your treasure trove! Armed with my login, I tiptoed around and soon found an amazing story about Grandpa Cassidy‘s mother, Anna Elizabeth Reilly Cassidy. She and Patrick were both Irish immigrants in New Haven. They married on July 11, 1892, and had seven children. But in 1917, Patrick died, following an intestinal operation. Then youngest daughter Ginny was stricken with polio. Oh, Anna …

Years later, her granddaughter Jean Hungerford Sutherland wrote down her memories toward the end of her own life.

We descendants of Patrick and Annie are forever in her debt:

The two doors stood side by side. The one on the left was Aunt Marcie’s ground-level apartment. The door on the right opened to the steep staircase to my grandmother’s house. It was the home to which Patrick Cassidy took his bride and the house in which my mother grew up. At the time of my visits, it was the home of my grandmother and my mother’s unmarried siblings: Chris, Walter, and Virginia. The two brothers had sleeping quarters in the attic.

It had two living rooms; the first being a formal parlor and the one beyond being more a family room where they gathered to watch television. Grandmother’s bedroom was off the family room and Aunt Ginny’s was in back, off the kitchen. A large full bathroom sat between.

The kitchen had a large table nestled next to two large windows. It was airy, but it always seemed to have the aroma of age. There was a covered back porch off the back of the house from which laundry would be hung. Sheets and underwear would dance in the sunlight in a direct line down to the eave of the detached garage in the back.

I never really knew the real Annie Cassidy, the woman who raised seven children and maintained her large two-family home by herself as a widow. What I saw was a tall woman, somewhat raw boned. In her youth I’m sure she was considered handsome. She wore her gray hair in a bun and her coke bottle eyeglasses made her eyes immense. In later years my own mother’s eyes would also become as large behind her glasses following her cataract surgery.

My grandmother was a presence not only because she was tall, but also she was always surprising. When she forgot to put her teeth in her mouth, she looked just like a newborn baby.

She had dementia.

My grandma could remember things way back in her youth, but the recent years were lost to her.

She never knew who I was. When I would tell her I was her daughter Ethel’s daughter, she’d say, “Gawd luv ya, darlin’. And how many children is it that you have?” Usually I’d be good and tell her I was only a child and didn’t have any; to which she would respond, “Gawd bless your innocence. I had seven and none of them died from the want of care.”

I would then tell her how wonderful that was. But once in a while, temptation would get the best of me and I’d tell her I had eight sons – WELL – “A blackguard, a blatherskate you be, lying to an old lady like me. Gawd have mercy on your soul and shame on you.”

That tirade would always get me in a bit of trouble with my mother, but Aunt Marcie loved it.

Very often our visits took place in the summer when girls my age wore shorts. Perhaps this was something of which my grandmother disapproved because she would always find a way to sit next to me and pinch my thighs. Then she would proceed with the puzzle, “long legs, short ties, little head, and no eyes. What is it?” At this, I would hone my acting skills as I pretended I could not fathom the puzzle, but after having been posed any number of times over the years, I knew the answer was a clothespin. I imagine that my grandchildren don’t know what they look like. No one hangs clothes out anymore.

… only a memory of my bygone days.

My mother was the third child and eldest daughter. The loss of her mother’s awareness was hard on her. But the siblings who lived there seemed to accept and even enjoy her escapades. Aunt Marcie (Marcella) was the one who had day-to-day care of the “old woman.” She and her husband moved into the apartment on the lower level of the house when it became obvious that help was needed. However, to my grandmother, Marcie was that busybody from downstairs.

I think I learned the phrase “who do you think you are?” from my grandmother. Not a word of thanks, but scoldings. Marcie delighted in her. Now there was a woman with great love and humor. Her laughter was memorable, wonderful – it could shake the house. She thought her mother was a pip.

Grandma would occasionally escape when the Good Humor man played his bells. With stolen money, Grandma would buy several ice creams and hide them in her dresser drawer for later. It would be Marcie who found the brown globs when putting away the laundry.

Oh, the joy of little surprises.

It was Walter who would calm the waters when Grandma would obsess about going home to Ireland to see her parents and her sweetheart, Barney. The talk of Barney always smacked my mother like a family scandal. Who was this Barney?

Well anyway, Walter would put Grandma in his car on a Sunday afternoon, and he would drive her out to the country.

Once she saw a green field and a cow or two, she was content.

The day my family met my future sister-in-law explained how this woman kept hearth and home together for all those years from the time of my grandfather’s death when my mother was seventeen and the baby Virginia suffered polio.

Bobbie came to my brother Rick’s graduation from prep school, following which we had a party at our house. At some point Bobbie realized that a $20 bill was missing from her purse. Now that was a fair amount of money back in 1947. She reported her loss to my brother, who immediately told Mother. With no hesitation, my mother walked over to my grandmother and asked her to step into the kitchen at which point she had to almost struggle to get grandma’s purse open.

The $20 bill was sitting there, pleased as punch.

Oh the embarrassment! Well, Mom took Bobbie and Rick aside and explained that it was my grandmother’s habit to take her children’s income to use for food and the maintenance of the home. She never hesitated to go into purses, pockets and wallets. So now we know the secret of this brilliant businesswoman. Simple thievery!! Bobbie’s graciousness about the incident won over my mother’s heart.

I was about fourteen when my grandmother passed away. I experienced my first wake – an Irish one at that. Old friends, family and neighbors. There was lots of talk and memories and I almost caught a glimpse of the earnest provider, the woman who eluded me. But I’m glad my memories are of the child who wanted Good Humors and a ride home to see her parents and to be with her sweetie, Barney.

I can understand my mother’s sense of loss, but I relish Marcie’s amusement and humor. I really loved and enjoyed the one person I experienced as my grandmother. She was a pip.

Thank you again to Jean for writing this for future generations. And for her nephew Rich for sharing it with us.

Rest in peace, Annie and Patrick. We’ll keep gathering and telling your stories.

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