TRACE

Where Did My Great-Grandfather Drown?

For years I'd been given to understand that he'd drowned at sea off of New Bedford.  But while I was in Massachusetts this past month, my father's cousin said that their grandmother used to talk about preparing her husband's lunch, walking down to the pier, and knowing, because of the flags flying at half mast, that he was gone.  This was in Boston, though.  For him to have been fishing off of New Bedford and been able to come home for lunch would have been a miracle.  On the other hand, maybe that's why there are no records of his death in New Bedford.

More Mapping

Have spent the last dregs of summer researching as much as I can about the Howards in Baldoyle, circa 19th c.  The Dublin Library has some great maps online including Griffith's Valuation, so I've started to block out the places, but will probably not get  back to things any time soon. 

A friend of ours who was in the Coast guard for many years confirmed what I'd suspected about my great-grandfather's fishing voyages--that they were long, and that the time back home was short.  I've been able to work some of that into the poem draft, which, like the ocean has blips of possibilities and waves of words that pull back before they reveal their meaning. 

Our friend also suggested that I research commercial fishing records for any "non-returning vessels," instead of trying to find vital records for my ggrandfather's passing. 

I was taken by the idea of "American Wakes" --parties that were held when a family moved to the U.S. since there was  no certainty that anyone would return.  Can't remember where I read this though.

End of the Summer Report

I've continued to research old maps of Boston, city directories, books and libraries about shipwrecks and about the Irish fishing industry in Boston.  Also, I'm nosing through all of my poetry books (guides, that is) in search of a poetic form that would allow me some repetition of line, to mimic the pattern of the waves, the stiffness of the clothing, and the drag of the trawl. 
The first two zero-drafts of the poem tend towards umm, blarney, if you will.  Too sentimental, too .  It's hard to imagine an ancestor of whom  I know very little.  Since he was lost at sea, there is no obit, and I'll need to travel to New Bedford to really dig in and research shipping records.  That's a task for next summer.

This summer, I scanned (in the old sense of the word) the LOC and the National Archives, which, though they are in DC, are a bit of a trip for a researcher.  I am going to use both as a long-time aid, and hope to set things up via email before I get there.  I've researched records at the Archives before, and simply would rather research from the comfort of my computer than travel downtown.

Two stories passed down:  The family came back and forth during the Civil War and before S. H. and wife settled in Boston.  Sometimes I wonder if the fact of their firstborn's having been born the day before they married wasn't impetus to gradually leave Ireland.  It took them about 13 years to move, so who knows.  The children's birthdays are between May and early September, and I wonder if that doesn't account for the fishing season on either side of the Atlantic. 

The other story concerns my grandfather's reaction to having lost his father.  He shrugged his shoulders, said "oh" and went off to play.  Grandfather H. was about twelve at the time, and it has always been pointed out that he didn't really know his father, given that the man was always out to sea. There is supposed to have been a small newspaper article about the shipwreck, but the scrap is long gone.

Netflix and Celtoi

I resuscitated my netflix account now that school is out and am in the middle of watching "The Celts: Rich Traditions and Ancient Myths: Vol. 1," a documentary by BBC. 

And I'm embarrassed to say that I have had huge gaps in my knowledge of the Celts (taken from "celtoi," Greek for "stranger.").  My narrow frame had them spilling forth from somewhere into Europe and settling in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales only to disappear quickly.  What I'm learning from it all is that there were Celtic settlements in Germany (where the beautiful bier of the king was found) as well as Brittany. 

I'm going to take notes the next time that I watch--this writing from memory is not really sufficient to help me.

I was struck with the fact that Catholicism in Ireland and Methodism in Wales were seen by a scholar as being the same kind of reaction to the status quo, that is, the Church of England--which puts more of a political rather than theological cast on religion (that's not news.).

There's a Celtic warrior woman who lived in England whom I want to find out more about.  She seemed fierce.

And I'm taken with this idea of migration of strangers coming to other lands and being defined by the residents at that time.  Reminds me of a net cast to sea flowing out and back.

I am making plans to spend time in New England researching nineteenth century fishing practices among the Irish immigrants. Also, I'm going to spend time at the Houghton Library at Harvard looking up information about bookbinding.  My great-uncles were rope makers as well, and I'm taken by the constant mixing of text, textile, texture and  life.

   

update

I've been doing little writing on this project as I've been busy teaching poetry--but one thing I have done has been to write to Houghton Mifflin about bookbinding in the early 1900's, as my great -aunt was a bookbinder there.  When I was growing up, we had some very old HM textbooks, geography ones,  I think, which I always thought had belonged to my grandmother.  It wasn't until I saw Aunt Mary's naturalization papers that I realized that the books had probably been ones that she'd worked on.  Later in life, she worked for the phone company, and I suspect that this part of her story was simply forgotten along the way.

Houghton Mifflin directed me to their archive at Harvard, which I will try to get to sometime this summer.  Little by little, I chip away at this project.  Little by little.

Rethinking My Rant

Why I felt that the Kennedy's and Bulger's had to be the representation of all things Boston Irish, i don't know.  I was feeling crabby, I guess.  Of course there are plenty of examples of fine Irish-Americans in Boston.  Sheesh.  I'm related to some of them. 

But I will own up to the rant and the nasty tone of it.  I think that in both cases, the families represent the claustrophobia that I've always associated with the negative side of Boston Irishness--a competitive, clannishness that steamrolls over anyone in its way.

But not every Boston Irishperson is that way.

"Boston Irish"

are the words on a tee-shirt my husband gave me a few years ago when we spent the week in downtown Boston for our wedding anniversary/vacation.  I wear it for yoga class, but not out in public.  Frankly, after I did some research on the Boston Irish, I thought it was a kind of pugnacious, and unneccessarily so, move on my part.  I'm no big fan of the Kennedy's, and the other prominent Boston-Irish clan, the Bulgers, isn't much to be proud of either.  In short, the t-shirt logo reminds me of the "I'm with stupid" one, only in this case, the wearer is signifying that she or he is stupid.  I am eager to learn about positive examples of the Bostonian Irish. Where are they?

Irish Music

I don't think I can take another genealogy website that has tinny Irish music a'blarin.  It sounds like the old music files from 1999, is invariably loud and drives me crazy.  I'm Irish, but there are certain parlors that I don't want to enter, to paraphrase an old song.

CyberHowards

I post the new TypeList, "CyberHowards," on this page for several reasons.  Yes, there is a certain curiousity to see the variety of Howards from around the world who have blogs.  I'll admit that.  There's also this:  working on this poem has pulled me back into the past, to the different times and places that my Howard /Irish /British ancestors lived.  Reading the blogs of modern-day Howards reminds me that life has gone on since those days, and that ireland, England and the U.S. A. reflect the present moment as well as the past.  And that idea is emerging into my feelings for the overall structure of my poem.

Notes on Aunt Mary

Beautiful white hair, thick, pulled up in a bun.

Same face as my father's. the Howard nose, long straight and ending in a bulb--bright eyes--don't remember the color. Gentle smile same sinewy boned hands like Dad.

Photos of the two of us on my christening day.  I was in a diaper (hot, pre-airconditioned days), she was in a dark dress.  She lived with us during my first year, then moved to her brother's house in East Boston.

I remember visiting her there--she had a little black change purse, and she would ask me if I wanted a nickel or ten pennies.  I went for the ten pennies all the time, and I remember her smile at me--and now that smile seems to be the same as the one on my elderly father's face.

She was a bookbinder at Houghton Mifflin for years.  She wanted to be a nun, but her mother wanted her to stay at home and help support the family, her older sister having married and left home, and her younger sister sick.

I have a dessert set that belonged to her--pink roses on the white china, and embossed around the edge are three leaf clovers, ringing the rim.

When Aunt Mary died, I remember asking my mother if she had been assigned a star to live on. I also remember thinking that she would go back and be a baby again--start life all over.  I was only three.