Updating the Past
I'm undoubtedly addicted to Facebook of late. I see many who once graced the pages of Livejournal have now turned up on Facefool, doing the ironic trivia rounds and generally taking part in the efforts to minimize the terms upon which we communicate with one another.
I am guilty on all accounts. Or perhaps not...
During my time on Facebook, whilst continually engaging in throwaway rants about my rendition on the state of the nation (or many nations at once), I have also been conducting my real business and playing out my real life beneath the radar. Relationships and drama in real time, full of disheartened and cadaverous disappointment, as well as moments of teeth-tingling everyday inspiration. The stuff of ordinary life in other words.
Part of this life beneath the radar has been the conducting of a great deal of research (primarily, although by no means exclusively, of the desk bound variety) into the life of my late great-aunt, Norah Meade Corcoran, 1889 - 1954.
Born in Dublin in 1889, Norah was a precocious and scholarly young woman who first made waves as a young student activist (with an admittedly matriarchal / conservative disposition, arguing against co-ed education - but primarily because she passionately believed that women deserved their own colleges in order that they could excel and surpass male achievements, certainly not tread in their wake) before moving to New York in 1912. She rose quickly through the ranks of journalism, qualifying from itsy-bitsy stories about fashion and celebrities of the day to becoming a respected literary critic and essayist. She became the first female journalist hired to write for Joseph Pulitzer's The World newspaper (New York). She also worked for Herbert Hoover and his American Relief Administration, as a coordinator of relief efforts and PR, which led to her being stationed in Russia for over a year during a time of enormous suffering and death (much of which she documented in various reports for the ARA, which are now held in the Stanford University archive, as well as through several articles for the New York Times). She worked too in London during this period, frequently crossing back and forth across the Atlantic in order to cover her various roles and responsibilities suitably in that age of limited but aspiring communications.
She had married her fellow Irish man Austin Patrick Corcoran in New York in 1917. Austin had served in the British Army during World War I and was something of a writer himself, authoring one book in particular (The Daredevil of the Army) that is still widely available over the internet. Austin was an interesting fellow that had traveled the world, having worked as a rancher in Bolivia and a hunter in Africa. It was off of these adventures that he plied his literary wares for the rest of his life.
I've tracked his movements as far as a trip to Bermuda in 1928, for reasons unknown - he returned home to New York shortly thereafter and died there in March of the same year. He was buried in Calvary cemetery (the same cemetery depicted as the final resting place of Don Corleone in Godfather).
I am not entirely sure yet as to where Norah was living at the time of his death (as in, was she still on assignment in London at the time or had she already returned permanently to New York), but I do know that she certainly spent the majority of the rest of her life in New York (she finally became a naturalized US citizen in 1943 - see image below).
She never remarried and eventually returned to Dublin in the early 1950's, where she continued to write for Irish newspapers and also did some radio work. It was during this period that my father met her for the first and only time. His recollection today is so vague as to be almost worthless in detail, but I can say that he is the only living person that we know of who ever met her.
She was admitted to Grangegorman psychiatric hospital in the winter of 1953, and she died on the 23rd January 1954, aged 65. Her obituary in the New York Times mistakenly listed her age as 62.
My father's father, Norah's brother, had died a few years before that and my grandmother was not very close to Norah. It is perhaps because of this that my dad does not recall news of her passing - perhaps this distance of relationship can also help to explain the fact that Norah's grave (which I have only recently tracked down) remains unmarked to this day.
I will be travelling to Dublin in 2 weeks and during my trip there I will be viewing Norah's medical records from Grangegorman (access obtained through a stringent reliance upon the all-too-often sloppily applied Irish Freedom of Information Act). This record contains the only known photograph of Norah - taken in a time of rapidly declining health and while suffering from an as-of-yet undisclosed mental disorder. (Incidentally, the skeleton of the Grangegorman hospital - long since in ruin - is due to be pulled down at last in the not too distant future).
Grangegorman:
My father and I also intend to begin the process of securing a gravestone for Norah. She is buried fairly close to Michael Collins, in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. It's ironic to think that this woman, who was a friend of the revolutionary Countess Markievicz and who corresponded with Emma Goldman (I obtained a copy of their letters from the Berkley University archive), who became a trail-blazing pioneer for Irish women in academia and journalism, who travelled the world and saw times of great suffering and human anguish, who married an adventurer and lived through World War I and who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Lusitania, among many other mighty ocean liners, now lies forgotten in an unmarked grave.
The story cannot end like that. I refuse to let it.
The record of her Lusitania trip (on her first voyage to New York - click to enlarge/view):
I have accumulated between 70 and 80 documents and photos pertaining to Norah's life. They are copies of original records, dating back to her childhood, student years and adult life, spanning several countries and decades, tracking her life as she criss-crossed the oceans with a frequency that few others could have expected to enjoy in those days. I have delved into dozens of archives and came back to the surface clutching the dusty prize of her journalism, as published in such papers as the New York Times and the Boston Globe. And I have just today managed to purchase an archive copy of an original 1915 New York magazine in which she is published (which I intend to frame).
I hope to continue accumulating evidence of her life and to continue piecing her story and persona (a persona that is admittedly still elusive) together as fairly and honestly as I can. I have talked to various historians and archivists and I intend to visit New York soon and find out more first hand (including locating Austin's grave in Calvary Cemetery). I will stand at her grave in Dublin in a few weeks and it will feel good to know that she is not forgotten.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to introduce the fact that I will begin publishing copies of the documents / facts I have already unearthed about Norah here on my journal, in chronological order, in the coming days. I thought about using a standard family tree software suite, but I realized I wanted more space to roam around the page and I also wanted it online. So here it will be, back in the home of my old online haunt.
Watch this space, for ghosts you never knew you'd love to meet, until now at least... :)
I am guilty on all accounts. Or perhaps not...
During my time on Facebook, whilst continually engaging in throwaway rants about my rendition on the state of the nation (or many nations at once), I have also been conducting my real business and playing out my real life beneath the radar. Relationships and drama in real time, full of disheartened and cadaverous disappointment, as well as moments of teeth-tingling everyday inspiration. The stuff of ordinary life in other words.
Part of this life beneath the radar has been the conducting of a great deal of research (primarily, although by no means exclusively, of the desk bound variety) into the life of my late great-aunt, Norah Meade Corcoran, 1889 - 1954.
Born in Dublin in 1889, Norah was a precocious and scholarly young woman who first made waves as a young student activist (with an admittedly matriarchal / conservative disposition, arguing against co-ed education - but primarily because she passionately believed that women deserved their own colleges in order that they could excel and surpass male achievements, certainly not tread in their wake) before moving to New York in 1912. She rose quickly through the ranks of journalism, qualifying from itsy-bitsy stories about fashion and celebrities of the day to becoming a respected literary critic and essayist. She became the first female journalist hired to write for Joseph Pulitzer's The World newspaper (New York). She also worked for Herbert Hoover and his American Relief Administration, as a coordinator of relief efforts and PR, which led to her being stationed in Russia for over a year during a time of enormous suffering and death (much of which she documented in various reports for the ARA, which are now held in the Stanford University archive, as well as through several articles for the New York Times). She worked too in London during this period, frequently crossing back and forth across the Atlantic in order to cover her various roles and responsibilities suitably in that age of limited but aspiring communications.
She had married her fellow Irish man Austin Patrick Corcoran in New York in 1917. Austin had served in the British Army during World War I and was something of a writer himself, authoring one book in particular (The Daredevil of the Army) that is still widely available over the internet. Austin was an interesting fellow that had traveled the world, having worked as a rancher in Bolivia and a hunter in Africa. It was off of these adventures that he plied his literary wares for the rest of his life.
I've tracked his movements as far as a trip to Bermuda in 1928, for reasons unknown - he returned home to New York shortly thereafter and died there in March of the same year. He was buried in Calvary cemetery (the same cemetery depicted as the final resting place of Don Corleone in Godfather).
I am not entirely sure yet as to where Norah was living at the time of his death (as in, was she still on assignment in London at the time or had she already returned permanently to New York), but I do know that she certainly spent the majority of the rest of her life in New York (she finally became a naturalized US citizen in 1943 - see image below).
She never remarried and eventually returned to Dublin in the early 1950's, where she continued to write for Irish newspapers and also did some radio work. It was during this period that my father met her for the first and only time. His recollection today is so vague as to be almost worthless in detail, but I can say that he is the only living person that we know of who ever met her.
She was admitted to Grangegorman psychiatric hospital in the winter of 1953, and she died on the 23rd January 1954, aged 65. Her obituary in the New York Times mistakenly listed her age as 62.
My father's father, Norah's brother, had died a few years before that and my grandmother was not very close to Norah. It is perhaps because of this that my dad does not recall news of her passing - perhaps this distance of relationship can also help to explain the fact that Norah's grave (which I have only recently tracked down) remains unmarked to this day.
I will be travelling to Dublin in 2 weeks and during my trip there I will be viewing Norah's medical records from Grangegorman (access obtained through a stringent reliance upon the all-too-often sloppily applied Irish Freedom of Information Act). This record contains the only known photograph of Norah - taken in a time of rapidly declining health and while suffering from an as-of-yet undisclosed mental disorder. (Incidentally, the skeleton of the Grangegorman hospital - long since in ruin - is due to be pulled down at last in the not too distant future).
Grangegorman:
My father and I also intend to begin the process of securing a gravestone for Norah. She is buried fairly close to Michael Collins, in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. It's ironic to think that this woman, who was a friend of the revolutionary Countess Markievicz and who corresponded with Emma Goldman (I obtained a copy of their letters from the Berkley University archive), who became a trail-blazing pioneer for Irish women in academia and journalism, who travelled the world and saw times of great suffering and human anguish, who married an adventurer and lived through World War I and who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Lusitania, among many other mighty ocean liners, now lies forgotten in an unmarked grave.
The story cannot end like that. I refuse to let it.
The record of her Lusitania trip (on her first voyage to New York - click to enlarge/view):
I have accumulated between 70 and 80 documents and photos pertaining to Norah's life. They are copies of original records, dating back to her childhood, student years and adult life, spanning several countries and decades, tracking her life as she criss-crossed the oceans with a frequency that few others could have expected to enjoy in those days. I have delved into dozens of archives and came back to the surface clutching the dusty prize of her journalism, as published in such papers as the New York Times and the Boston Globe. And I have just today managed to purchase an archive copy of an original 1915 New York magazine in which she is published (which I intend to frame).
I hope to continue accumulating evidence of her life and to continue piecing her story and persona (a persona that is admittedly still elusive) together as fairly and honestly as I can. I have talked to various historians and archivists and I intend to visit New York soon and find out more first hand (including locating Austin's grave in Calvary Cemetery). I will stand at her grave in Dublin in a few weeks and it will feel good to know that she is not forgotten.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to introduce the fact that I will begin publishing copies of the documents / facts I have already unearthed about Norah here on my journal, in chronological order, in the coming days. I thought about using a standard family tree software suite, but I realized I wanted more space to roam around the page and I also wanted it online. So here it will be, back in the home of my old online haunt.
Watch this space, for ghosts you never knew you'd love to meet, until now at least... :)