This blog category includes stories about the Regan family, who emigrated to America from Northern Ireland in 1888.
Pop and Gram settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where they started a family and a business. They had 11 children, nine of whom survived to adulthood.
This blog is written by one of their great-granddaughters.
This poem of Mom’s caught my eye the other day, just as Farmer Gary and I were reminiscing about the bittersweet work that goes into clearing out a long-loved house and finding another family who will make it home. In 2002, Dad was executor for Mom’s uncle Pip’s estate. Her cousins and even some of their children gathered to help clear out the home that for decades served as a gathering place for four generations of family. May and Pip…
Once again I bring you a bit of undated prose from Mom’s collection. It’s handwritten on lined paper, with a teenager’s neat, round penmanship. Maybe it was a school assignment. Nowadays they’re called “prompts.” For example: Write, in first person, about a conflict involving at least three other family members. I wish I knew more about my great-grandmother’s personality. Maggie Kelly married Joseph Malachy Regan in Belfast in 1888 and then sailed for America. That tells us she was courageous….
We moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I never got attached to any particular home or community. Not attached enough, anyway, to consider any of the houses a homestead. In these past several years as I’ve sifted through generations of family photos, I’ve seen my maternal grandmother’s handwriting referring to her parents’ New Haven house as a homestead. That was technically correct, as the Lombard Street property included a house, a barn, and (if memory serves)…
Isn’t it amazing how a sound, a smell, or a taste can spark a memory from long ago? Mom was 68 years old when she wrote this poem. Green olives, it seems, didn’t just awaken her taste buds, they ignited a spark that took her thoughts happily back many decades. Study Alone with olivesfour on a gold plateI think of sun and trees and comfortand my Aunt Maywho loved them They make me laughtouting their red tonguesfor teasing tastingour Harry…
“What do you think this is? A candy dish or an ashtray?” My younger brother was looking at a small copper tray that was among mementos our late mom had tucked away long ago. Measuring not quite 4.5 inches by 5.5 inches, it was certainly intriguing. When held at a certain angle, Dad noticed, it looked like there was etching on the surface. Words, certainly, in a delicate font. He slipped it into my hands, “Take it home. You’ll figure…
Mom wrote this poem just days after the last of her uncles passed away. She greatly appreciated their place in her life growing up in New Haven. Uncles We never owned a carso uncles drove us placesto picnics weddingssometimes a collegebuses and legs were everywherefor shopping movies doctorsdates and family visitswe never took taxis and rarely trainswe needed uncles to drive a distanceand teach us how to ride a horseplay pinochle or tell a storytake us for ice cream across…
Oh, Mom. The paper clips you used to hold your school stories and essays together are now rusty and leave a jagged stain on the notebook paper. But they still hold strong. Even so, I’ve replaced them with shiny new paper clips. For the next 70 years. A story titled “Hoss Feathers” caught my eye. Mom wrote it while a high-school student at St. Mary’s Academy in New Haven, Connecticut. I’m pretty sure the uncle character she quotes is based…
This really shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but one gratifying side benefit to building a family tree is “discovering” living relatives you didn’t even know existed. It’s an extra bonus when that person is also interested in discovering and sharing family information, stories, and photos. Since I joined a Facebook group for Ancestry.com members a few months back, it’s been amazing to see the many ways there are to delve into the past. Some use multiple platforms, others create…
It’s been exactly 155 years since a wee fellow named Joseph Malachy Regan was born in Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland. Although I’ve blogged about him several times already, it seems only right to let his youngest daughter, Cecelia, have her say. Grandma was crazy about her father. She was the only one of the Regan girls to marry, and he gave her away in full regalia: Thanks to my middle brother, Dave, who was working on a…
I have a feeling this is going to bug me every November for the rest of my days. I can’t find the recipe card Mom sent me with the simple instructions for pie crust. Forty years ago as a young bride, I asked Mom to send me some of her favorite family recipes. We talked on the phone at great length and built our list: Meatloaf, Potato Salad, Surprise Pie, Mayonnaise Cake, Banana Bread, Three-Bean Salad, and … pie crust….