I was looking back at some pictures I have taken in the past, and there is always one the draws me back to it time and time again.
Is it beautiful, NO. Is it bursting with color, NO. Is it one that every one will love as soon as they see it, NO. I just call it
"grand-ma's window."
It is actually my GG-grandma's window. There were but three small windows in the old stone house in Ireland.
Yet, at the tender age of 12/13, I can not help but wonder how often my g-grandma would have gazed from this very window as a young girl, with dreams of young suitors, and far away ventures!! She left her small townland of Knockballenary in the County of Tipperary, Ireland to come to America when she was only 14/15.
After g-grandma left for America, (where the streets were said to be lined with gold) along with her two older sisters, and two older brothers I wonder how many times my gg-grandma looked out this very same window and wept for her children, never to see them again.
So you may think this is just a dark old, unclear, "so what" photo....but to me it is Grand-ma's Window, and I was lucky to have looked through this same pane of glass as they did many, many years ago.
You can click on the photo to enlarge, I actually took this though the window in
front of the house, looking out to the back window.
Is it beautiful, NO. Is it bursting with color, NO. Is it one that every one will love as soon as they see it, NO. I just call it
"grand-ma's window."
It is actually my GG-grandma's window. There were but three small windows in the old stone house in Ireland.
Yet, at the tender age of 12/13, I can not help but wonder how often my g-grandma would have gazed from this very window as a young girl, with dreams of young suitors, and far away ventures!! She left her small townland of Knockballenary in the County of Tipperary, Ireland to come to America when she was only 14/15.
After g-grandma left for America, (where the streets were said to be lined with gold) along with her two older sisters, and two older brothers I wonder how many times my gg-grandma looked out this very same window and wept for her children, never to see them again.
So you may think this is just a dark old, unclear, "so what" photo....but to me it is Grand-ma's Window, and I was lucky to have looked through this same pane of glass as they did many, many years ago.
You can click on the photo to enlarge, I actually took this though the window in
front of the house, looking out to the back window.
This is a picture of my g-grandmother(seated) along with her sister Johana taken in Portsmouth 1894.
7 comments:
'way way cool
It's her sister Johanna..not Norah.. And Margaret came when she was 14 not 16..
Patsy, the family fact checker!
Whatever the specific age our great grandparents who emigrated from Ireland. It was damn young. Can we, with today's wealth, imagine that crushing poverty? Their despair and that the only hope most had was to get on that boat, in steerage, and leave? And leaving in those days, it meant forever. No jet planes home for family reunions or facebook to link us together. Those left behind, they mourned a living death didn't they? A family cleaved apart, never seen and most often, forgotten. All that remains is a birth record in the local church - if you are so lucky.
The Irish have been coming here for years
Feel like they own the place
They got the airport, city hall, concrete, asphalt, they even got the police
Irish, Italians, Jews and Hispanics
Religious nuts, political fanatics in the stew
Living happily not like me and you
That's where I lost you...New York
U2
Krista
I can't imagine the heartache of a mother with her children across an ocean, never to see them again. It just rips my heart apart. You're very fortunate to have gotten to see this.
I had the same reaction as VV. That's a heart-wrenching version of empty nest.
My daughter lives 1100 miles away and I thank God every day for webcams, blogs, emails, and cheap long-distance rates.
Sorry about that Krista (and Maeve). It's the genealogy thing.
It's even more sad to think GG Margaret came at 14, with her 2 older sisters, then both sisters got married. What did she do? No one knows for certain. We assume she lived with one of them until she got married in 1894.
I have to admit its not just any old window. Its part of you and your past with a past of its own. Its in your memories. Its like when my gg grandparents came from Finland. They were married already but they started with very little and died with little in MN.
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