Ancestor Stories

We have some colorful ancestors.  In County Cork they like to tell how the family estate was settled.  In 1601 the Cahalanes were among the cavalry who had come down from the one of the northern Counties with the army of O’Neill and O’Donnell to throw the English out.

The Irish and their Spanish allies attacked the English at Kinsale but were defeated.  The Cahalanes escaped to the west towards Skibbereen.  They were followed and harassed by some English cavalry.  Finally, after many hours, they grew annoyed with by this constant English nuisance.  They turned back towards the English at the brow of a hill about 40 miles from Kinsale and “with one stroke of his mighty sword” the Chief of the Cahalane Clan slew three, four, five (the number varies depending on who is telling the story) of the English and the rest fled.

The brow of the hill where this occurred was a place called Maulatrahane.  The Cahalane clan thought their victory was a good omen and they have lived there since.

Another unusually colorful ancestor is Henry Branch, my Great-great-grandfather.  Harry, as he was known, was the son of Irish immigrants.  They initially came to Canada but moved down to Horseheads, New York where, a few years later, in 1853, Harry was born.

Shortly after the Civil War Harry decided to run away from home to join the circus. And he did.  He worked as a trapeze acrobat for a few years until he fell and seriously injured himself in Greenville, Ohio. He was nursed back to health by the family of Joseph Townsand and then, to repay his debt, he worked for them as a servant.

He planned to eventually rejoin the circus when they returned to the area.  But he met a young Greenville girl named Synthia Walker.  They married and moved to Bradford, Ohio where they raised a family.  Harry worked as a baker in the Ogden House. He eventually started his own bakery.

The Black & Tans

In the early 1920's the Irish were growing impatient to be free of British rule. They wanted to run their own affairs.  The Brits weren't ready to allow this and to keep it from happening they reinforced their Irish police forces with the "Black & Tans."

Actors portraying "Black & Tans."

One evening during this period several of my Great-Uncles from the Meade family went to a dance near their home in Shronebeha.

On their return they were stopped by a group of Black & Tans.  Uncle Jack suspected that they were stopped mostly because their group included a number of attractive young women.

Uncle Jack tried to stay in the background and avoid drawing attention to himself as they interrogated the group.  He had good reason for this behavior -- he was working with the IRA (although he was still only in his teens, he would become one of their primary bomb experts during the independence struggle).

Jack’s younger brother, Uncle Ned, however, wasn't trying to be inconspicuous.  Possibly to show off for the ladies, maybe because he'd a had a few nips at the dance, or maybe it was just his nature, Ned, only about 15 or 16, decided to confront the "Black & Tans."

Uncle Jack Meade & his sister, my Grandmother,
 Johanna Callahan (née Meade) about 1975.

Almost the instant that Ned smarted off to them they took him into custody.  The others were released and Uncle Jack and the rest hurried home to alert the adults.  Ned’s Mother immediately went to the Banteer Police Station.  They claimed to know nothing.

The family spent all the next day searching and inquiring about Ned.  They enlisted the help of the Parish priest, all to no avail.  No British Official admitted any knowledge of his whereabouts or circumstances.

Late the following morning the family heard a large truck driving up the lane.  They looked out and saw an Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC) vehicle stop briefly near the home and then continue on.  The family went out and found Ned staggering up to the house.  He was beaten and bruised.  Several of his fingernails had been pulled out.

The family said that Uncle Ned never really recovered from this.  Before he’d been a bit wild, but mostly good-natured, but afterwards he was argumentative and belligerent.  His temper was short and he always seemed to be “looking for a fight.”  He never married.

Presidential Hand Shakes

Dayton Airport and Vandalia about 1954

I’ve mentioned the notable people my Grandfather and I met here, here, here & here.

I haven’t yet mentioned the two well-known people Mom shook hands with.  Both of these "celebrities" were politicians (and Irish!).

Both of these meetings happened at the same place.  The Dayton Airport (the same place my Grandfather met Orville Wright).  At the time of all these meetings the Airport Terminal was on Dixie Drive.  This is the area that is now used for the Dayton Air Show.

JFK

The first person Mom shook hands with was John F. Kennedy.  During his Presidential run he had a campaign stop in Dayton.  It was announced that he would spend a few minutes at the Airport for a "meet and greet."  Mom, Dad & Aunt Norma went.  For some reason he arrived quite a bit later than expected and not many waited.  Both Mom and Aunt Norma really wanted to shake his hand and they hoped, with such a relatively small crowd, that they’d be able to.

Dad was helping both of them get up to the “rope line” and Mom got close enough to touch his fingers, although she said that she wasn’t able to really shake hands.

Unfortunately just as Aunt Norma got her chance, he turned away.



Éamon de Valera



A few years later Éamon de Valera, a leader of the Irish Independence movement and eventually President of Ireland, visited Dayton.   Mom & Dad were among the crowd greeting him at the Airport.  This time the crowd was much smaller than the one greeting Kennedy and Mom was able to shake de Valera's hand.

Tismixt!

Dad & I at Cobh Railway Station

In April of 1994 Mom, Dad & I went to Ireland.   We visited the old family farm of Mom’s mother in Shronebeha near Banteer.  Among the relatives who went with us that day was a young boy, Owen (not sure of the spelling, but that’s how it was pronounced).

Owen was telling Mom about his school.  I guess he was about in the 1^st grade.

Mom asked him, “Is your school all boys or are there girls too?”

His reply, in a (to us) thick Irish accent was, “Tismixt.”

Mom, Dad & I looked at each other with confusion and astonishment.  What did that mean!?  Was that Gaelic?

Mom replied, “You mean just boys?”

“No,” Owen assured us, “tismixt.”

Well, this conversation wasn’t going anywhere, so Mom changed the subject.

Later that day we left Banteer and headed to Cork City.  As we were driving along, Mom suddenly said, “It is mixed!”

Dad & I had no idea what she was talking about.

“That’s what Owen was saying.” she explained, “Tismixt.  'tis mixed.  It is mixed.  His school has both boys and girls.”

Mom solves another mystery!



Shronebeha is at the teardrop "A"



A Very Short Lesson in Irish Plant Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of plant identification.  In April of 1994 I went to Ireland with Mom & Dad.   There was a shrubby plant, three or four feet high, with pretty yellow flowers that we saw almost everywhere.

When we visited the old family farm of Mom’s mother in Shronebeha near Banteer there were many of these flowers.  As we looked at the remains of the old home I decided to ask an elderly relative who was accompanying us about them.

Standing about 15 feet from one, I pointed and asked, “What do you call this plant with the lovely yellow flowers?”

She looked very closely at the plant, and took a few steps toward it.  I could see the wheels turning as she searched her memory for its title.  After a few more moments of careful thought, she turned to me and said, “Bush.”

To this day, I’m not actually sure what this plant was.  There are a number of plants that match the general description, Furze, Whins, Gorse, Broom and probably many more, but which one it might have been will forever remain a mystery.

My Accent & the Chelsea Boys

Even though they speak the same language, often people who live in different parts of a country have regional accents which differentiate the way they speak.  Often residents of one part of the country are amused by the accents of those from elsewhere.

When I was a kid and we visited Massachusetts the people we talked to there often commented on our “accents.”  Of course we Ohioans all thought that we talked “normal” and that they were the ones with accents.

Here is a story that my Mom tells about an accent-related incident that occurred in Chelsea when I was about 10.  I don’t remember this, and actually might not even have been aware of it when it happened, but Mom was there and witnessed it.

There was a boy who lived right across the street from Daddy Con for several years.  He was in the house on the northwest corner of Clark and Webster.  I wish I could remember his name because we became pretty good friends and I remember being sad the summer when we came for our visit and discovered that his family had moved.  Of course, I never saw him again.

Anyhow, one day this boy was playing out in front of his house with a local friend of his.  I was across the street on the sidewalk near Daddy Con’s house playing with some toy soldiers.

The boy said to his friend (Mom heard), “See that kid over there?  He has a really funny accent.”

“He does?” the friend asked.

“He sure does. Listen,” then he called out, “Hey Tom.”

I looked up and said, “Huh?”

The boy turned to his friend and said, “See!”

In the Trenches With Daddy Con

Daddy Con served in the US Army in WWI.  I’m not sure exactly what motivated him to join, but he was able to gain US citizenship by doing so.  He was in Company C of the 321st Regiment of the 81st Division.  To get a good idea of what his experience was like, I recommend reading Fix Bayonets by John William Thomason, Jr., which he wrote just after the War.  Thomason’s book is about the Marines, but the Marines and the Army had very similar experiences and assignments in the “Great War.”

Some of the soldiers in Company C were from Massachusetts and some called it the Massachusetts Company.  Although there were men from all over the US in these all of its units, the bulk of both the 321st Regiment and the 81st Division were made up of men from North Carolina.

When the Division was put together in the Spring of 1918 they trained at Camp Jackson, S.C.  There is a stream nearby called Wildcat Creek. During their training they created “Wildcat” shoulder patches so they could identify each other quickly in combat. When they went to France in August 1918 they called themselves the “Wildcat” Division.  With a few short breaks they were in combat from that time until the war ended on November 11, 1918.



81st Division Shoulder Patch

The Division participated in the Meuse-Argonne & Alsace-Lorraine campaigns.  A short book about Daddy Con’s Regiment – The History of the 321st Infantry: with a Brief Historical Sketch of the 81st Division, was written by Clarence Walton Johnson just after the War.  Daddy Con’s name is on page 167.  This book is still in print and available for purchase.

Company C's most intense day of combat was November 11, 1918.  The Armistice wasn't assured and the Army's attacks went forward as planned.  Just before dawn, the infantry of Company C prepared to go "over the top." Knowing nothing about the armistice, they climbed out of the trenches and attacked the Germans at 6:00 A.M. The advance had scarcely begun when the Americans were met with heavy machine gun and artillery fire.

“We were lucky that morning. . . . ” many soldiers of the 81st Division recalled. “They would have killed us all if it had not been foggy.” Under intense fire, they attempted to run forward a few times. But every time they started, the Germans “cut weeds down around us” with machine gun fire.

The men of Company C were having a difficult time, “We were taking machine gun fire and we were crawling on the ground. The shells were bursting overhead and the machine gun bullets were hitting all around.”

The soldiers of the 81st Division endured five long hours of combat. Then, all at once, everything stopped. It was exactly 11:00 A.M. no one knew what to do. Some remained on the ground until they saw officers walk out in front of them. One officer hollered, "It’s all over, the war is over, it’s all over and you can go home now!" They started getting up pretty fast after it got quiet, and some of the boys were hugging each other.

*******************************

Map of 81st Division travels
after landing at Liverpool

Daddy Con told several stories about his time in the trenches.

There was a Sergeant who made it obvious that he had a great dislike for Daddy Con and a few other soldiers in their squad (Daddy Con suspected that this dislike might have been triggered by their penchant for filling their canteens with wine instead of water.).  One day the Sergeant selected a group of men to go on a "night raid" -- a patrol to reconnoiter enemy positions and to capture a prisoner (for interrogation) if possible.  Everyone knew that these were dangerous and that it was possible to run into a great deal of trouble. 

Here is how one WWI combat veteran described these raids: "[A] raiding party with blackened faces and armed with wire-cutters, grenades and bayonets would crawl across no-man's-land to its assigned target...  once the raiders reached the target they would charge [the enemy] and immediately bring back as many prisoners as survived."

While they were on the patrol Daddy Con realized that all the soldiers sent on this assignment were men that the Sergeant had expressed his contempt for.

As it turned out, the patrol was uneventful and no prisoners were taken.  Daddy Con and another soldier reported in to the Company HQ afterwards to give their report.  While they were reporting to the Company Commander, the Sergeant who had sent them walked it.  Daddy Con said his face showed obvious surprise to see them. Daddy Con believed that the Sergeant had expected/hoped that some of them would not come back.

81st Division Infantryman

+++++++

During an artillery shelling Daddy Con and another soldier were huddling together in one of the trenches.  The shelling was noisy and frightening, but they’d been under fire before and felt pretty safe as, unless there was a direct hit, the trenches offered pretty good protection.  Some of the shells the German fired were “airbursts.”  They exploded while they were still in a the air, a set distance above the ground, sending warhead fragments (shrapnel) down on the target, spreading out much like shotgun pellets (only much bigger and traveling faster).

Moments after one of these “airburst” explosions, the rifle (an Enfield M1917) Daddy Con’s companion was holding across his lap broke into a thousand pieces.  A piece of shrapnel had hit the rifle, destroying it.  Neither of them were injured, but they both knew that if the fragment had followed a slightly different path, they could have been seriously wounded or killed.

+++++++++

One day during WWII Daddy Con showed Mom a picture in the local paper of a French town recently liberated by Allied troops.  Daddy Con told Mom, “I was on that street during WWI.”  He pointed out a restaurant in the picture.

During a time when his Company had been pulled out of the line, some had been given leave in this town.  Daddy Con wasn’t given leave – he was put on Guard Duty.

John with M1917 .30'06 Rifle like
the one Daddy Con carried.

“My job,” he told Mom, “was to parade (march back and forth) in front of that restaurant and not let any soldier get in there to get a drink.  I didn’t feel too good about that as I thought, after what we’d been through, that if a man wanted to wet his whistle, he ought to be allowed to.  But I didn’t want to get sent to the stockade for disobeying orders either.

“But I knew that they couldn’t punish me if someone snuck in when I wasn’t looking.  So I’d march down the street.  When I got to the end of it, I’d stand there, with my back to the restaurant, for about 30 seconds. Then I’d turn and march back to the other end of the street, and again, I’d stand with my back to the restaurant for a time before turning around.  I never saw a single soldier go through that door, but every man who wanted a drink managed to get one.”

++++++++

This website has some good information about the 81st Division.

SS Manchuria - the ship that brought Daddy Con back home from France.  Also the ship that brought Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) back to England from Shangri-La in the movie Lost Horizon.

After the war Daddy Con returned to the Boston area.  He mostly worked as a “fireman” tending the steam engines that powered the equipment in the textile mills in the area.  He was working for Maverick Mills when the company decided to relocate to South Carolina (this was probably in the 1950’s) to be closer to the cotton growing areas and to take advantage of cheaper labor.  The company was happy with his work and wanted to employ him in a similar position in the new location.   Daddy Con decided not to go.

His decision was at least partly based on his experience in South Carolina when he was training there during WWI.  He didn’t like the way the people there treated Blacks and Catholics.

Daddy Con & the Red Sox

Daddy Con in about 1925

I’ve always loved baseball, especially when I was a kid.  Back then I knew the starting lineups of just about every team, where they were in the standings and where they had finished in prior years.

Before I started High School we used to go visit my Mom’s family in Boston every summer.  Daddy Con was an ardent Red Sox Fan.  He’d sit at his chair by the back door looking out over his yard and Broadway listening to the games and smoking his pipe. Boston was usually losing in those days and I can remember him standing up and saying, “I think I’ll get another bottle of beer.  Maybe that’ll change their luck.”  He’d go down to the basement for a bottle of Old India Pale Ale, but I don’t remember it ever changing the Sox luck.

During our visits Daddy Con and I frequently argued (good-naturedly) about which team was better – my favorite, the Cincinnati Reds or his, the Boston Red Sox.  My argument was that although Boston had some good players (Ted Williams in particular) they were losers, as, during my short life, they usually finished each season near the bottom of the standings.  Although I didn’t realize it, looking back, the Reds weren’t much better during that era.

Now that I’m older I realize that about the time Daddy Con, a teenager or very young man, moved to America and settled in Boston, another young man (only six months younger than Daddy Con) was also just beginning life in Boston.  That man was Babe Ruth.

Ruth warming up for the Red Sox
at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1914.

Yeah, that’s right Daddy Con and the Babe are almost exactly the same age.  While most connect Babe with the Yankees, he spent his first five years in the Majors with the Sox.  He was a great player right from the start.  And those early years with the Sox were Daddy Con's first years in America

It’s easy to see how Daddy Con became a Red Sox fan.  I’m not sure exactly when he came to America, but the Sox were very successful around that time, winning the World Series in 1912, 1915, 1916 & 1918.  It’s easy to imagine a young man, eager to “fall in love” with his adopted country, being swept up in the excitement of rooting for the Sox, especially with a charismatic player like Ruth on the team.

Daddy Con never mentioned ever attending a game, so I don’t know if he ever saw Ruth in person.  In 1961 Dad, Uncle Johnny and I attended a game at Fenway.  They played the Cleveland Indians (and since we were from Ohio I rooted for them).  We sat in the right field stands and Ted Williams hit a homerun that came right towards us although it landed many rows in front of us.  Jimmy Piersall also played in that game, for the Indians, and hit two homers – one of which cleared the screen above the “Green Monster”.  I was very impressed by that.

In 1993 I was in Boston.  Mom & Dad were there too.  We decided to see a Sox game and went to see them play the Twins.  As we talked we realized that, for all three of us, it was the second game we'd seen at Fenway.  The game Dad & I had seen with Uncle Johnny was our only other time in Fenway.  It was nearly 32 years previous.  Mom couldn’t remember what year she'd seen her previous game, but she did remember that Lefty Grove pitched for the Red Sox.  Grove’s last season with the Red Sox was 1941, so it had been at least 52 years since Mom’s last time in the Fens!

Now to change the subject a bit – Babe Ruth was of German heritage.  So are we on my Dad’s side.  In fact, the maiden name of one of my Great-great-grandmothers was Ruth.  Ruth is not a common surname, so there is some chance that we might be related.

Daddy Con & the Passing Ship

My Grandfather, Daddy Con (Nana’s Father), was born in 1894 and grew up in southwest County Cork, Ireland, near Skibberreen, not far from the ocean.  One of the ways he and his boyhood friends used to pass the time was to climb the nearby hills to spots overlooking the ocean and watch for large ships passing by the southern Irish coast.

In the decade before WWI there was considerable Irish immigration from Ireland to America, Australia and New Zealand.  Many ships sailing from England or other parts of Northern Europe would make a final stop in Cork City to fill their third class passenger space with Irish immigrants.

These ships usually sailed out of Cork Harbor on Sunday morning.  After Sunday morning Mass, it was a common practice for them to check the newspapers to see what ships were sailing from Cork.  If it looked like there were any interesting ships sailing they would climb a hill near their home in Maultrahane and, if the weather cooperated, they would be able to watch the ships sail by.  Often the paper would have pictures of the ships and Daddy Con and his friends would do their best to identify them.

Daddy Con in Revere, Mass.
about 1925

The interesting ships didn’t always sail on Sunday, and there was one time, it happened to be a Thursday, when he and his friends rushed home after school to make their trip up the hill.

There was a ship sailing that afternoon that they really wanted to see.  Even though this was the ship’s maiden voyage, it was already probably the most famous ship ever built. And, due to something that would happen a few days later, it would remain the most famous ship ever built.  Daddy Con was 17 and he would remember that ship and that day for the rest of his life.  He even remembered the date, April 11, 1912.

They hadn’t been sitting up on the hillside long, when she hove into view.  The day was a bit hazy, but they could see her clearly enough and recognized her.  They had the picture from the paper and the ship had a distinctive profile.  Very few ships had four stacks.

Yes, it was the Titanic, on her way to destiny.

Skibbereen is at the teardrop "A"

I should also add, the Titanic was built in Ireland at the shipyards in Belfast.  Your Irish cousins like to say, "She was fine when she left here!"

*********************

When Nana, Dad & I visiteed Ireland in 1994, Nana mentioned this story to her cousins.  Nana told them that she had always thought that this was on of Dady Con's "tall tales" and that it probably had not happened.

Her cousin Tige (Ty), who was closer to Daddy Con's age than Nana's, assured her that it very likely was true.  That, as Daddy Con had stated, ship-watching was a common pastime.  Tige took us out from his home, up onto a small ridge and pointed out the view of the ocean.  He explained that it was very common to see ships from this point.  Tige was very sure that Daddy Con's story was true.

London 1994 - Incident on the "Tube"

In 1994 I visited London. I spent a lot of my time there with Mark Dalton, a native of London, who I had met in Truckee a few years earlier when he briefly lived there.

Two young cousins of mine, brothers Conor & Cormac Cahalane, from Downpatrick, Ireland, were living in London at the time I visited. I had never met them, but I called them and made arrangements to meet one evening.

A day or two before I was to meet my cousins, Mark and I were riding on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground (which they call the “Tube” and we would call a subway). As we rode along I asked Mark if he knew why two of the Underground Stations had a peculiarity in their spellings. I had noticed that Earl’s Court Station used an apostrophe but the neighboring Barons Court did not.

Mark was mildly surprised by my observation, stating that he had never even noticed it before and that he had absolutely no idea why the difference.

Over the next while, whenever Mark would see someone he knew, he would ask them about this, and every time their response was the same as Mark’s; surprise by it, statement that they had never noticed it and lack of knowledge as to the reason.

Later, Mark and I went to the restaurant where we were to meet my cousins. I had seen pictures of the two, but wasn’t sure that I would immediately recognize them. As far as I knew, they had no idea what I looked like, and, of course, they didn’t know Mark at all. However, as soon as we walked in, two young men approached us. One (later identified as Cormac) turned to the other and said, “See, I told you it was him! And see, there’s the belt I told you about!”

Cormac and Conor explained. Cormac had been sitting next to Mark and me on the Underground when we had had our discussion about the apostrophe. He had talked to me briefly on the phone and upon hearing my voice in the Underground he thought it was me, but thought the chances of actually sitting next to his unmet American cousin on the London subway was too difficult to believe and thought it would be silly to ask. He looked at me very carefully so that he would remember me later.

When he got back to the apartment he and Conor shared, he told him about the event and Conor said, “Cormac, you’re daft [crazy]! It’s not possible.” Cormac then told Conor about the unusual belt the man on the Underground was wearing.

The belt I was wearing (and I’m wearing it as I type this) is unusual. It is made of woven leather. It has no holes as the buckle prong can slip though the weave at any point.

In closing, Conor & Cormac had been talking about the apostrophe difference since Cormac heard me mention it. Neither of them had ever even noticed it before and had absolutely no idea why the difference. There is a reason though, and you can find it if you look up either Earl’s Court or Barons Court on Wikipedia.