Mom’s cousin Patty sent me a wonderful photo via email this week. The (unfortunately) undated photo shows their Aunt Marguerite (a nun my generation knew as Sister Amabilis) outside with a group of children, looking at a birdhouse. No doubt they were her students, as Sr. Amabilis taught first grade for 58 years. (That’s right – nearly six decades!) Mom adored her aunt, and wrote to her regularly. Sr. Amabilis saved the letters all those years and they were eventually…
To know her was to love her. Sister Sylvia reminded me so much of my dear great-aunt Sr. Amabilis. It was uncanny. Both teachers, deeply religious, tiny, and loads of fun. I met Sister Sylvia about 30 years ago at a tourism meeting. She was smart, kind, and sort of sassy. Her home was on the hill in Ferdinand, at the Monastery Immaculate Conception. She was their Minister of Hospitality. A few years later, we built a big new roller…
As odd as this year’s Christmas will be (given the pandemic), it’s not the first time history has gifted parents with holiday challenges. For example, wartime. I can only imagine how my grandparents went to extra effort to keep those Decembers jolly for their young children. In 1943, staples such as sugar, meat, and coffee could only be obtained via food ration books – and even then, only when the items were available. Even after the world war was over,…
Farmer Gary sets an annual goal for himself: Complete the harvest before Thanksgiving. Yesterday, he finished combining ‘beans and today he’s planting the last of the winter crops. And all without a scarecrow. I can’t help but wonder if “city folk” would even know about scarecrows were it not for The Wizard of Oz. (As an aside, it still makes me laugh to remember Harry’s high school story about sitting in a quiet classroom, taking a final exam. The silence…
Have you ever felt a sense of grace while going through a really hard time? Have you found something to smile or chuckle about through your tears of grief? Mom called this “a sense of holy laughter” in a recorded interview, below. She was referencing how she and her siblings managed to laugh as they stepped cautiously through the final weeks of their father’s life in the spring of 1982. A sense of holy laughter. Grandpa loved a good laugh….
As a young girl, Mom had a pen pal, her Aunt Margaret Regan. Known to non-family members as Sister Amabilis, she was only 16 when she entered religious life. It was September 1943 and Mom was 13 when she wrote this to her aunt, who wasn’t permitted to visit her family very often. It was September 1943; her older second-cousin Eddie was on furlough from the Army during World War II. Eddie wrote on the back of the photo, “Quit…
My great-aunt May Regan was a wonderful woman. She was kind and fun and caring. A good cook, too. May was also Mom’s godmother. May grew up on Lombard Street in Fair Haven. In later years, May lived with her brother Pip; together they were like a bonus set of grandparents to us. On June 12, 1989, Mom presented the eulogy she wrote about her godmother May at her funeral. Here it is: In Praise of May She was our…
This story isn’t about my brother Billy, but the gentleman he was named after, our mom’s uncle Bill Regan. Since Mom’s passing last November, Bill Regan’s daughter Patty and I have been in touch via email, as we piece together stories about Grandma Cassidy‘s side of the family. Little Billy, the second youngest of Joe and Maggie Regan’s 11 children, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1908. He lived to be 96 years old. Patty sent me the following…
Here’s something I never expected to find in our family’s archives: A letter from a princess. The letter is undated, but I’d guess it was written toward the end of the 1980s. Written on the back of the folded blue stationery, it clearly states: Important. Do not throw away. I recognize that handwriting. Grandma Cassidy added the note to make sure this treasure wasn’t swept away and lost by someone with too little curiosity. The letter from the princess was…
Earlier this year, while sifting through the 240 gallons of books Dad shipped our way, this one caught my eye: Petals is a work of poetry and verse compiled long ago by the Sisters of Mercy in Connecticut for their Reverend Mother. Mom’s collection of poetry books included this copy, signed by her aunt Margaret, Sister Amabilis. As I flipped through the pages, the first several poems credited to Sister Amabilis were already familiar. But toward the end of the…