While looking into Farmer Gary‘s story about “The tuberculous house” last week, we climbed a little higher on the family tree to take a look. It was there we found a tiny branch, reaching out for sunlight. We found Peter. Born on May 2, 1848, Peter was one of nine children born to Lorenz and Catherina Dilger in what is now Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Peter’s sister Theresia, who was six years older than he, grew up to be the paternal grandmother…
Farmer Gary’s grandfather on his dad’s side was George Werne. A good name. The name George means “farmer.” The farmland we live on now – and on which Gary continues to grow crops – was once farmed by George. He bought the “home place,” which was 40 acres, from his parents and later added the “back 40,” where Gary and I built our home and raised our family. George added to the property over the years, bringing the total to…
Farmer Gary and I don’t usually make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day. After all, it’s just four days after February 10, the anniversary of the day we met. That’s our holiday. Still, I wanted to make something special to warm Gary’s innards, as he’d been outside shoveling soybeans yesterday. Something that says “I love you madly,” but in a bowl. Bean soup it was. As Lent approaches, Gary and I swap “giving up” stories from our youth. Although…
There’s a basket full of school papers to go through, and it’s hard to make much headway. That’s because they’re Mom‘s papers, presumably from high school and college. Some are easy to figure out, as they retell a current event, or show the results of comparing two writers’ styles. There are news clips, too. Other papers, though, will remain a mystery. No date, no teacher’s name. But as long as Mom’s name is there – Joan Cassidy – I know…
It’s only just now occurring to me that Dad‘s love of the song “Waltzing Matilda” might be because his mom’s middle name was Mathilda. He’d sing over and over: Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabongUnder the shade of a Coolibah treeAnd he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled“You’ll come a Waltzing Matilda with me” If you’re not familiar with Australia’s unofficial national anthem, here’s a 1962 recording by Dad’s favorite folk musician, Richard Dyer-Bennett:…
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…
When I first read Mom’s poem titled “Litany for a Cold Church Made Warm,” I wasn’t sure what to think. It just didn’t seem like the style of poetry she’d written as a teen and young mom. As time has passed and I’ve dug through more archives, I’ve learned her “Litany” was used in a celebration Mass on Thanksgiving 1977 at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Indianapolis. Sadly, she wasn’t able to attend, as our family had recently moved back…
This postcard is nearly a century old. Postage was a one-cent Benjamin Franklin stamp. The cancellation mark includes not only the date, but also time of day. It was sent from Milford, Connecticut, to New Haven. A young father on religious retreat dashed off a note to his first born. The postcard was cancelled at 3:30pm on July 8, 1931. A Wednesday. On the back, Grandpa wrote this note to Mom, his toddler daughter: “Be a good girl, and be…
Another sweet surprise. This time, I’ve come across a poem written by Dad. In 1943, when his family moved from Lowell, Massachusetts, to New Haven, Connecticut, Dad was placed in Mom‘s eighth-grade class at Saint Francis School. As told in greater detail in this earlier “Angels and angles” story, Dad was kicked up to ninth grade in a different school after inadvertently correcting a nun during math class. But before the transfer, Dad wrote a poem. It was included in…
My middle brother, Dave, wove together this remembrance of family and friends returning to Madison a few months ago to honor Dad’s memory in a heartfelt Celebration of Life: On June 11, about 40 family members and friends gathered at my parents’ spiritual home, St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in Madison, Connecticut. Dad had passed away in April of the previous year, before the risks COVID posed had diminished significantly, and this had limited the number of people who attended his…