Me and those Irish...and then a shock.
Long ago, in an old stone chapel far, far, .....no wait, it stands right over there on the BWU campus, about 5 blocks from where I sit..... a lonely bearded flooring guy married a beautiful young lady. One of that lady’s charms, among many, was her family...a huge Irish-Catholic throng based primarily in the western suburbs of Cleveland. In the three years we dated, I got to know well her mom & dad, her three sisters and three brothers and their big dumb Afghan hound, and even many of their neighbors. And it wasn’t long before I was invited to meet Gramma K, the matriarch of the family.
Gramma K was pure Irish to the core, a little old lady with a strong jaw and twinkling eyes, who had a photo of the Pope over the couch, an old picture of President Kennedy (“The bloody philanderer!”) and his wife Jackie (“Ahh the poor thing!”) still hanging over the tv, and the lilting brogue of Westport, County Mayo, that was so pleasing to American ears.
Gramma had come to America as a very young lady through Ellis Island during the depression, and somehow ended up in Cleveland, working as a maid on the John D Rockefeller estate called Forest Hill, 700 rolling and green acres with a sweeping view of Cleveland and Lake Erie, in East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights. There she met a young man, Mr Rockefeller's chauffeur, who had also recently emmigrated to the States from Ireland, and to make a long story short, they eventually married.
Gramma and Grandpa K had seven children, and most of those also had housefulls of kids. One of those is who surely caught my eye.
Not long after we started dating, we were invited over to Gramma’s for tea. When we got there, along with Gram at the table were 4 or 5 aunts...apparently they were the “investigating committee” brought in to check me out. I was offered tea -- I come from a family of coffee drinkers, we didn’t have tea in our house growing up, I don’t like tea -- but I took a cup. As everyone stared, I took a nice long gulp and tried not to wince. There was a moment of silence, and one finally said, “You drink it black??”
Much later in the evening, after one of the aunts made us both blush by proclaiming about M that “she’s surely a fertile one, she is”, Gramma offered me a beer. Being a hot summer evening, I accepted, and she reached down to the little space between the fridge and the wall, and produced a warm bottle of beer from the floor. The aunts must have seen my face, because after the laughing stopped, Gramma told me that that was the way it was drunk in the old country when she was a girl, because there was no refrigeration. She told me that her daddy would send her into town with an empty metal bucket to take to the pub to be filled with beer, which she then carried back home, where it sat on the table. To this day, many of the men in that family drink their beer warm, but forever after, Gramma always kept one bottle of beer hidden away in the far back of the fridge just for when I’d pop in to say hello, and she’d always produce it with a great flourish and a huge laugh.
The extended family was a grand group. Every married couple had multiple children of their own, many enough to field a freckle-faced softball team, and Christmas Eve and the annual summer family picnic drew chattering hordes of aunts & uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins by the dozens, sisters and brothers and babies and nuns and now & then a priest or two. Attendance could easily top 100. Get there early, or park many blocks away.
And I was enthusiastically welcomed into this grand family with open arms and hugs by the score. Everybody called me Jonesy, and the kids called me Uncle Jonesy, one niece mispronouncing it as Apple Jonesy. (On our wedding day, at the back of the chapel as the organ started the processional, moments away from becoming my father-in-law, her dad turned to me and whispered, “Hey Jonesy....What the hell IS your first name?”)
And they wore their Irish heritage out in the open. I loved everything about it...the music, the accents, the slang, the history, the stories, the weddings, the legends. I felt a connection to these people and their heritage. I mined Gramma for her stories. I attended Celtic festivals and sought out Irish bands.
And then, a shock.
About ten years ago, I discovered that I had been adopted. As you would imagine, it took a while to get used to the idea...the magnitude of it, but after a few months of thinking and reading and some rather necessary counseling, I joined Adoption Network Cleveland, a support group that works with adoptees, birth parents, and those wishing to adopt. I was curious as to where and who I came from, and why. With ANC's assistance and encouragement, we spent several months searching, and finally came up with results. (Long story, but for another time.) One important bit of info concerned my actual heritage. Over the years, I had been told I was Slovenian on my Dad’s side, German on my Mom’s, and at times Welsh because, well, a famous singer of the time was Welsh.... no, not Grace Jones.....Tom Jones.
But my original birth certificate, and the documentation I got from the adoption agency that had handled my case a half-century earlier, revealed that I was actually Irish on my birth-mother’s side, and English and American Indian (possibly Cherokee) on my birth-father’s side.
Suddenly it all connected! I loved all things Irish because... well, I was Irish! And it so happens I've always had an interest in the English and Native Americans as well.
I cherish my Irish heritage. You can find me at the huge Dublin Irish Festival near Columbus Ohio almost every August. 100,000+ people spread across over 30 acres of shady rolling parkland, enjoying Irish food and drink, and Celtic dance and music of every type at eight stages. I love it.
I come from a very small family, and have only a few living relatives left. Unfortunately, I lost most of my “other” family in the divorce and the aftermath. I tried not to, but I guess it was sort of inevitable. I miss the weddings, the picnics, the birthdays, Christmas Eve, the babies, even the wakes. After Gramma K died, a lot of the get-togethers began to fade, and some ended. Many of the younger families have scattered to other states, some have also, like us, divorced, and some of the older ones have died. I saw the gang twice shortly after the divorce 7+ years ago.... I was invited to the 75th birthday celebration of an uncle, and months later I attended the funeral of one of everyone’s favorite aunts. In spite of the sadness of that occasion, it was so moving to be greeted and embraced by so many of the people who had accepted me into that huge family 25 years earlier.
So I'm a "rescue". And it's a good thing. The original birth records indicate that I came into the world in rather grim circumstances, and the fact that the Joneses - My REAL Mom & Dad - picked me out of a crowded orphanage, made a bigger difference in my life than anything that has - or could ever - happen since. Everything that I am has rippled out from that very moment.
St Patrick’s Day is special to me, now more than ever. Not for the parade, or the green beer, or the corned beef and cabbage. It’s important to me because it’s an annual and personal celebration of the connection between me and my heritage. A heritage I always wished I had, and which I discovered that I had all along.
A grand lady.
Gramma K at her 75th birthday party, 1994.