A Couple Of Ancestor Journal Entries....

I missed posting for a couple of days, so reading down:


October 7, 2008

They were a brave lot, my Folk. In some ways, brave to the point of Stupid. But I am proud of that, anyway. I have a little story to tell about today's ancestor, in the regard of being brave. Seems my father's family had a knack for being Irish at all the wrong times....Let me explain. My great-uncle, Francis Emmett Duffy, always called Emmett, was a rather large man in stature. His mother, through the years, has become famous within the family for often telling people, "I had thirteen children, and Emmett!" I suspect that might have made some kind of a difference to him throughout life, because from my father (who was born on his Uncle Emmett's birthday), I have always heard that Emmett was rather a quiet, gentle man, who collected bugs and butterflies, and who sang in a sweet, high tenor voice in church...But who, because of his great size, was seen as a threat by smaller, lesser men, and was always having to prove himself worthy of being the biggest man in whatever room it was. The incident of which I am thinking happened when Emmett was just 19, at a craic being held in one of the pubs in Lake Placid, the largest city close to where he lived in Saranac Lake, New York. There was a huge Italian population in Lake Placid, and most of the drinking establishments were owned and operated by members of Little Italy. So, since it wasn't home, the people who frequented the pub didn't know Emmett, and since it wasn't his customary Irish-American culture, he may have felt a bit out of place. And of course, with the drinking going on, someone got a wee bit into his cups, and decided Uncle Emmett needed to be brought down a peg or two. How dare he come in here flaunting his six foot six, and daring to only have a single whisky and not even get tipsy? Not to mention having about the best voice at the craic, so that a few Italian-American beauties were apparently eyeing him speculatively. So of course, there were words. I believe the way the story has come down through the family, the assailant came up to Emmett and said something akin to "Show me what you're made of, besides stretch, you stupid big lug" or words to that effect, and deliberately spilled a drink down the front of Emmet's shirt. Apparently Emmett realized that in a battle of wits he would be attacking an unarmed man, and ignored the insult. Instead, he simply turned around and bent over, across the bar, reaching for a towel. The bully pointed at him, laughing in mockery and saying, "So, you're running away from a fight, eh, coward?" And Uncle Emmett crooked his head back over his shoulder and said, "I am simply making it easier for you to Póg ma thoin, boyo." And, thinking he had saved his honor, Emmett turned back to the bar, only to be felled a moment later by a beer mug applied directly to the back of his head. Apparently he had chosen to insult, in an Italian bar, one of the few other persons inside the room who knew enough Irish to know he had just been invited to kiss Emmet's arse. So...Uncle Emmett's on the floor, bleeding from the head, and the man who clonked him one makes an abrupt exit. No one tries to help him. And he lies there for about half an hour, before he wakes up, shakes his head, stands up, gathers his dignity about him, and simply walks out the door. His cousin, Tommy Riley, had been in the bar with him, and saw him home, but apparently hadn't chosen to say anything to the bully or take any action to help Emmett. He told the story, though, to everyone who would listen. And the next week, Emmett went back to the same bar, and found a sign on the door (not unusual in those days) saying, "No Irish here. Drink somewhere else". So....history was made. And I think Emmett won, no matter how you look at it. Cheers, Uncle Emmett. Hope where you are they are a little less truculent, and the drink is better.

October 9, 2008

I am lighting candles today for another cultural ancestor. Her name is Frances Xavier Cabrini, and she is a saint of the Catholic Church, whose name is my middle name, making her my patron saint. She was an unique woman for her time. She was born in Italy in the mid-1800's. She was the first American citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, I knew her as I was rowing up as "Mother Cabrini" because she was the founder of her own religious order. As a young woman she had wished to enter religious life, but she contracted smallpox when she was seventeen, and never fully recovered. When she tried to enter into the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, she was refused admission, even though she had potential in her, because of her frail health. She apparently was told, "You are called to establish another Institute that will bring new glory to the Heart of Jesus." She supported her parents until they died and helped the family on the farm. She and six other sisters that took religious vows with her ultimately founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Mother Cabrini composed the rules and constitution of the order, and she continued as its superior-general until her death.

She lived in New York City where our family lore said that she met my grandmother, Mabel Fennelly, because Mother Cabrini was involved with charity to the poor, whom my grandmother also taught. she obtained the permission of Archbishop Michael Corrigan to found an orphanage, which is located in West Park, Ulster County, NY today and is known as Saint Cabrini Home, the first of 67 institutions she founded. She was naturalized as an American citizen in 1909 even though all her life she had to deal with the same prejudice against Italians that my grandparents encountered against the Irish....Maybe because of this, she is now the patron saint of immigrants. I was always taught that she was a person to admire and to pray to, because we shared the idea of being condemned for where we came from, and my Grandmother was certain that as long as I wore the St. Frances medal she had given me, I would never be harmed by anyone just because they "Hated the dirty Micks." So, today, I honor her, because she was a strong brave woman and because emulating her in my childhood has helped me to grow up the person I am.

And then there's today:

Dear Derek Bell, harper extraordinaire for the Irish band, The Chieftains, until his death in 2002. I had the privilege of meeting him several times, and was so honored that he ever remembered who I was, but he did....both times I spoke to him after the first time. His music was extraordinary, his singing and speaking voice both bespoke the bardic craft handed down through his heritage, and I do believe he was a good and gentle and loving man the world will always sorely miss. In any case, I miss knowing he is in the world. Slainte, Derek, and may wherever you are be a place where the harp is welcome.

Just A Nice Day, And My Ancestor....

Ru came over today, and we had some time together....a movie we really wanted him to see, "Boat Trip", and I am so glad he thought it was funny, because Brie and I think it's hysterical. Right up there with "Miss Congeniality"....And we did some deranged business, but somehow we're always somewhat deranged when we're together. And Ru was a witness to the most recent development in my personal magical life...just ask him. He'll tell you, I really can levitate!! So we sat and relaxed and watched the movie, and now Brie and I are watching an episode of SVU that I don't remember seeing before. And it is another quiet day, just the two of us now, and dinner will be the rest of the roast beef, and we are just hanging out together and loving it. I guess I really am either getting old, or I am just waaaay the eff overextended, because I am beginning to really cherish the quiet times when nothing much is going on. A call from Sara and one from Mom, as well as a call from Jody. Lots of folks talking on LJ that I am going to be responding to. A few little bits of household stuff....oh, and I gave Ruadhan the chicken soup, because there was so much of it and we have already eaten it twice. And it is really time to take Quin to the vet to get the mats out of her hair. And I do have grapes, so I will be brewing even though I thought I had nothing to brew with. And.....For me, this was a busy, as well as a peaceful, kind of a day.

And as far as my Ancestor Journal....today, it's a cultural ancestor. Here's my entry:

"..now that I have one son and two grandchildren who play the flute (an instrument upon which yours truly can't even make a noise), I must acknowledge the breadth and depth of musical enjoyment and insight I have received from the work of James Galway, Flautist Extraordinaire. His amazing versatility and technical knowledge make listening to him a true mystical experience. I am thinking of "Annie's Song" as well as his Saltarello, and loving hearing it in my head. Sláinte, Seamus!!"

Ancestor Journal, October 4

Today, it's raining and cold and overcast and absolutely wonderful here. I love this kind of weather, and I love the contemplative, cosey, snuggled-up-at-home feeling I get in this kind of weather. And it reminds me....

My grandfather, John Kyron Fennelly, (middle name spelled phonetically on purpose so it could not be mispronounced, since no one who wasn't another Irish Immigrant knew how to say "Ciaran" correctly) was a very quiet, reserved, dignified man. I never remember seeing him outside of a suit, a white shirt, and his characteristic string tie, whose bolo was a tiny pin of the Irish Flag. I never heard him raise his voice to another person, and I hardly remember his smiling, certainly not laughing out loud. He walked slowly, and spoke seldom. We would walk together to the druggist three blocks away from his house, every time I visited him, to get the papers, my seven-year-old self listening mostly to the crunching of the pebbled sidewalks under our feet, because there was scarcely any conversation going on. I remember thinking how dry, warm, and soft his hand was, my little fist securely encircled by his fingers. He smelled of bay rum aftershave, and always had a mint in his mouth, because he did not want to offend with his breath, since he smoked cigars (never in front of the women or the children). The only time I ever remember hearing him express any emotion at all was the one situation in which I DID hear him raise his voice, and that was when, after a whiskey or two, he would argue politics with my uncles, especially waving his fists and shouting about "ROOOsevelt" (said as if it rhymed with "ruse", not "rose"). BUT....there was one thing about him. One thing that makes this his day to be my honored ancestor. He loved rain. Loved it in a way that made him become all excited when he heard thunder, and had him digging in the closet for his "wellies" and walking out in it, bareheaded, face lifted to the downpour, and squatting beside the lilac bush in the back yard to inhale huge breaths of the soaking-wet fragrance. He it was that told me there were fairies one could only see in the rain. He it was who taught me to smell the rain before it came. He it was who made me listen, really listen, to the different sounds of falling water hitting, diversely, leaf and roof and driveway and grass and car hood and flowerbed and my own outstretched hand. I had chronic sinusitis when I was a child, and for me getting a cold in the head was a disaster. But I never recall getting ill after a foray in the rain with Grandpa, because it was as if we were in some kind of a place that nothing bad could enter. Only the beauty and mystery of falling rain. And in this storm, today, I honor him. I love you, Grandpa.

Ancestor Altar and Journal

Today, I am thinking of Aunt Betty. My mother's sister, Elizabeth Fennelly. She died several years ago, and she was always an enigma to me. My mother's next-to-youngest sister, never in all the time I knew her had a man in her life, a little distant, a dedicated traveller (first in the family to re-visit Ireland), she never let anyone know her very well. She was a legal secretary and law clerk for many years, and she also took care of Gran (and appropriated whatever she liked after Gran died, to the upset of many people in the family, but she believed she deserved it). She was so unlike all the other women in our family that I never made a connection with her. Since I have been thinking about her, over the past several years, a few specific things have come to my mind. In her era, there was practically no such thing as a woman who was single by choice. I find myself wondering if perhaps she might have been a lesbian, with no way of knowing that nor any resources to become who she was. She also spoke bitterly against the Catholic Church in private, whilst scrupulously keeping to every iota of religious observance in the public eye. I wonder how she really felt about the church, and why? She is the one who taught me to read the tea leaves and to discern the weather, and answers to questions, by the flight of birds and the movement of clouds. She had a reputation for scrupulous honesty, but she also helped her sister Ellen do a spell to take away all her ex-husband's money because she thought Harry had mistreated Ellen. She was a very complicated person, and I hardly knew her. Now that she has died, I keep wondering if I missed something. I will be inviting her to Dumb Supper this year, and see if she will come and talk to me.

I will be posting pictures of the ancestor altar when I take some. On the dining room table this year, being the focus of the entire room, as I feel is appropriate.

And tonight I watched the Veep Debacle....erm, debate....and I am not at all sanguine about what might happen in November. Something is wrong when SP does not sound like an idiot. I am really afraid she cleans up too good to be as ridiculous as she really is....