OT: Irish Grandmothers (was:Origin of Names)

[Guest guest]

Her name was Mary Devine.

 

She came to Canada from Ireland in 1848,

like so many others.

 

On the ship she met a young Frenchman

with whom she shared the only language

that mattered, and they were both good

Catholics. She married either on board or

right afterwards. Her parents were dirt poor

with many mouths to feed and were relieved

to have one less.

 

She was 14 years old.

 

She ended up homesteading on an island

in the Ottawa river, and bearing 20 sons

and 4 daughters.

 

This was the kind of life where, if you wanted

a sweater, you had to first cut the trees so you

could plant the grass for the sheep to eat.....

 

Of her 20 sons, 18 went off to France in

WW I and never came home.

Only her 2 youngest sons survived.

 

When she was already over eighty the

wife of her youngest son died and left

a six month old baby.

She raised that baby till he was 6, when

his father married an evil stepmother.

 

I knew that baby when he was an old man.

 

He said: " Anything that I know that is worth

knowing I learned from my grandmother. "

 

Mary lived to be over a hundred years old.

According to her doting grandson, from the

back she looked like a young girl till the end.

 

Ien in the Kootenays

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Stop. Breathe. Smile!

~Padma ( my TV yoga teacher)

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[Guest guest]

WHAT a nice story. Thanks for telling it Ien.

K

 

On 11/3/05, Ieneke van Houten <ienvan wrote:

>

> Her name was Mary Devine.

>

> She came to Canada from Ireland in 1848,

> like so many others.

> --

> Cheers!

> Kathleen Petrides

> The Woobey Queen

> Http://www.woobeyworld.com