Kevin: Alright, Nana1 thank you for doing this. Uhm I guess I just for posterity obviously I
know your name and when you were born. But for future people lookin’ at this what is your
name?
Mary Cooney: Mary Cooney
K: And what, when were you born?
M: Cross..?2 When was I born?
K: Yup, when
M: September the 13 1928
K: And where?
M: In a small town in County Mayo, Ireland. Called Crossmolina.
K: Alright, um, we’re gonna start with…I wanna hear about your childhood and what it was
like to grow up in Ireland. In Crossmolina. And I guess, do you have any recollection, what
would you say were your earliest memory was?
M: Well now, that’s a problem…well I guess when I was very young…I was born on a street
in Crossmolina, Chapel Street they called it and we played there. I remember playin’ you
know with other kids and uh different altogether to now y’know?3
K: Right.
M: So, uh and so uh my earliest memory I say would be before I went to school, when I
went to school I went to school probably, the school was on our street. So I went around 4
or 5.
K: Right.
M: Yeah, and uh..what else? What else do you want to know?
K: Yeah, sure.
M: So that was, we went to grammar school. What you’d call grammar school.
K: Right.4
M: We went up to seventh class
K: Ok. Uhm, I do wanna talk about school but I guess one of the first things. One of the first
things I really wanted to know is when you were growing up. Your household your home
life. Can you tell me about your parents, what your parents were like.
M: My parents were wonderful. My father had a business. I say that? A bar business?
I interviewed my maternal grandmother, Mary “Maureen” Cooney. For my entire life,
beginning in childhood I referred to her as “Nana” and my maternal grandfather as
“Granda.” These terms are used frequently throughout the interview.
2 Born in the town of Crossmolina in County Mayo in Ireland these verbal half answers
were common throughout the interview where she would taper off or begin one thought
and then either realize what I had asked or move on to another thought.
3 In earlier conversations for as long as I have been interested in my family history and the
study of genealogy I found this was a common topic of conversation, what she did “when
she was my age” or when she was a kid.
4 I find in my own interviewing of her that my interview style is a bit interruptive. The
primary reason for this being that she was initially very excited about the interview but
when told that it would be committed to public record became quite a bit more anxious.
Typically in conversations with my Nana there is a lot of back and forth to encourage her to
continue speaking or to alleviate awkwardness. That was my primary goal in my responses
but feel in hindsight that it may have detracted from the final product.
1
K: Yup
M: A bar business and my mother helped. She reared the family really and my father was in
the bar business. And uh..
K: What was the name of the bar?
M: Thomas Geraghty
K: His name was Thomas Geraghty and the name of the bar was..
M: Thomas Geraghty5
K: Was Thomas Geraghty. Ok.
M: There was big sign out on the front of the house. And I, we had a wonderful childhood. I
had a brother who was three years older than me.6
K: Mhm.
M: And I had a sister, Sally and a sister Geraldine7 is that, is that the names?
K: Yup. Yeah those are all their names.
M: (laughter) So uh..
K: And your brother was Michael right?
M: And my brother was Michael, that’s right. And so we had a great time, we always played
and we did most what every kids do yknow? Play. And we always had enough of food and
everything like that cause my father had the business and then my my8 when we went to
school we went to the national school they called it.
K: Ok
M: And then my brother went on to col..to secondary school.9 He went to a college in Ballina
and stayed with my aunt, who had a bar also
K: In Ballina?
M: In Ballina, Garden Street, Ballina. Then he put in five years at that there, then he went on
to college to become an engineer at Galway University.
K: Ok.
M: And then my sister Sally, she went to help, we went to grammar school on our street and
we had secondary school that was the Convent of Jesus and Mary, and it was about a mile
outside the town. And she went there, I went there for 5 years, my sister went there, Sally
went there, and my sister Geraldine.10
A common business practice in Ireland, especially in small towns at the time Thomas
Geraghty owned and operated his bar was to just have the bar be the name of the
individual.
6 Who she has spoken of quite fondly throughout my life. He died relatively young and
“always looked after her”
7 Both still living and who she keeps in regular contact with.
8 Repeated words also show up often throughout the transcript. Often when she was trying
to gather her thoughts they serve as a sort of filler. For the most part I have decided to keep
them in the transcript as I feel they accurately portray her character.
9 She would often alternate between the American and Irish versions of different
institutions which could be a bit confusing.
10 At the time the better schools were run by the church such as the convent referenced
here.
5
K: That was the Abbey we visited this summer?11
M: Yeah, that’s right. By the lake, Lake Conn, Loch Conn
K: What was the name of it?
M: Convent of Jesus and Mary
K: Right, and it’s called?
M: Gortnor Abbey, cause that was the name of the village.12
K: Ok.
M: Yeah and so then uh…
K: What type of games, you’d mentioned that y’know you’d play in the street and what type
of games did you play
M: On the street, like pitchin buttons was a big thing,
K: Ok.
M: Skippin ropes was a big thing, hopscotch was a big thing. And of course as we got bigger
there was tennis and uh what other games did we play?
K: Did the boys and the girls play together or did the girls play separately from the boys?
M: I dunno, either way
K: Yeah
M: There was a mix, football13, the boys played football, the girls wouldn’t play football. But
tennis they would play as they got older, actually when we were little it was like them other
games I should say the pitchin and those other things. So uh my uh I became a, I worked for
a store in town, at a bookkeeper.
K: Right.
M: And my two sisters went on to Dublin to try as nurses.14
K: Right, around what age do you think they left? That they left Crossmolina?
M: Yeah, they both left Crossmolina. They went to Dublin cause that’s where the hospitals
really were.
K: Right
M: They both worked at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. A big big hospital.
K: Yeah.
M: And um
K: Something else I wanna touch on, celebrations like Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day, or big
holidays, what was Christmas like?
M: Christmas was very good. Very good. We got, Santy15 Claus came for the kids. And we
would, at that time we never heard there was no Santa, we always thought there was Santa
This past summer (2013) my family traveled to Ireland for three weeks In June and July
with my Nana, we spent quite a lot of time with family and visited both her hometown and
my Granda’s.
12 Gortnor Abbey is not the official name, I was under the impression that it was which was
I was asking a leading question here.
13 Referred to as football, the game being referenced here is known in America as soccer.
14 She did no go on to train as a nurse because she never passed her “leaving cert” or
leaving certificate, which is a final exam that all Irish students at the time had to take. It was
because she had phenomenal difficulty with Gaelic, which was the language, that all of
these courses were taught in.
15 Santa
11
Claus until we were quite big. (laughter) And my mother would make all these fruitcakes
and desserts and have everything and of course we got all these beautiful games for
Christmas for packages and all that.
K: Yeah
M: And of course we’d be cookin, my mother’d be cookin’ for makin fruitcakes puttin’ liquor
in the fruitcakes to make them last y’know? It could last 6 or 8 weeks.16
K: Wow
M: Or maybe longer even. And, and plum pudding would be another thing something
K: This would all be with with the Christmas dinner?
M: Christmas dinner would be really really good. And like, especially for us cause my father
was in business so he knew a lot of people, a lot of farmers, farmers wives and they’d bring
ye in as a gift, a turkey and it would be plucked and all and chicken, chickens, even geese.
K: Oh wow.
M: Geese.
K: He was, he was an important man in the neighborhood?
M: (laughs) Yeah he was, he was people would. He was a very kind man. He would help
them out when they want. Write letters for them if they wanted to write to the County
Council or things like that. And he was a very good man. And he had, at that time there was
no cars, very few cars or anything. So like if people got sick they would come into my father
maybe even in the middle of the night to buy John Jameson whiskey. That’d be the bottle
(laughs) that’d be the medicine.17
K: Right.
M: Or maybe brandy that’d be the medicine. So he’d always get up and give it to em. They’d
throw a stone up at the window. (laughs)
K: So you lived above the bar?
M: Yes.
K: Right that was your house. What was, how many floors was it? What was the layout of
the house?
M: There was three floors. Actually.
K: Ok.
M: And the top floor we hardly ever used. We used to play up there. That was, we didn’t
sleep or anything up there. But it was like a play play play area.18
K: A playroom? Yeah
M: And especially in the wintertime. When it’d be rainin, rainin everyday, and we’d have
our girlfriends come in, and mostly our girlfriends.
K: Yeah.
M: And play, and that was a lot of fun. Like we’d have y’know we’d have, we could be nurses
or we could be..we could be anything. Anything we wanted to be we could be y’know? And
This is something that had been referenced in many conversations with older Irish
relatives about their early lives, the importance of preserving food.
17 Many of these stories are anecdotes I have heard before or that have been related to me
secondhand but as you can tell from the oral version of this interview this is the first time I
had heard about this.
18 The repeating of words I believe is also a way of reinforcing for her what these places
and experiences were. To reassure herself that what she is saying is correct and accurate.
16
we’d play it out, we could be tinkers. Tinkers were, well I don’t know if ye knew what
tinkers were but19
K: Right. Yeah.
M: Yeah, but like all that. All the things, we’d have babies born, our dolls would be our
babies. It was, now goin back it seems like kind of silly but it was really great for us.
Y’know? And it isn’t everybody that had that much room. But we had.
K: And the other two floors were? So the third floor was the, almost an attic, a playroom of
a kind.
M: That’s right. Exactly. And the other floor there was a bedrooms, we had one, two three
bedrooms. And our living room was upstairs. So it was on that floor and a bathroom later
on in years we got a bathroom. We didn’t have it originally and then downstairs we had like
our kitchen and the bar area and two, two waiting rooms. Or drinking rooms.
K: Sure, right. For parties and things.
M: Yeah, yeah.
K: Ok. Education at the time. What was your favorite subject, yknow you said that you’d
gone to the national school for a time and to Gortnor Abbey for a time. What was your
favorite subject?
M: I guess English. Would be my favorite subject y’know. I guess we had Gaelic, which was
the Irish, we didn’t like that at all. It was hard, it was very hard.
K: Yeah, yeah. So as you got older you said you started working.
M: Yeah.
K: Where did you work?
M: I worked in, you could say Munnelly’s.20 Munnelly’s. Eh it was a place in town I got, I
worked there. And uh I started workin, they trained me to be a bookkeeper. So I was there
for…how many years? (counting to herself) I must be there for six or seven years. Workin.
K: Sure.
M: And I met my my husband there. Is that ok?
K: Yeah.
M: And he worked there, he was a he worked for the traveling shop. They had a big grocery
store. So he came here in later years when he was hm well I don’t know exactly what age.
He came here for his brother’s ordination.21 He was becomin a priest in Washington. DC.
K: Right.
M: And we came and we got engaged, myself and him. We were goin out together so we got
engaged.
She had explained to me in the past that tinkers were the Irish equivalent of gypsies,
communities that lived on the road, camped, and traveled from town to town, often poor
immigrant communities. The only dark skinned individual she had ever seen as a girl was a
tinker.
20 Munnelly’s has since been bought out by Irish convenience store conglomerate Centra,
we visited the Centra this summer which is why she thinks I may be confused in this
instance.
21 My Uncle Albert Cooney, a priest in the order of SMA Fathers. A respected and beloved
figure in my family who spent most of his life as a missionary throughout Africa,
particularly in Liberia. Myself and my cousins (throughout the world in America, Canada,
Ireland, and England) grew up hearing stories of his adventures there.
19
K: Right.
M: And he was supposed to come home in a year. But instead I came out here. And we were
supposed to go home in five years.22
K: Right.
M: I’m still here. (Laughs)23
K: Right, now I do I wanna talk about Munnelly’s and how you and Granda met but can you
tell me around that time when you were growing up, because I know we visited there this
summer and I saw what it was like this summer, this past summer but can you tell me what
Crossmolina was like at that time? Like I know your shop and your dad’s shop and all that
but was Crossmolina as a town was like and what Ireland was like.
M: It was a very nice town. Very nice, and we had a river, the river Deal went right through
went right through the middle of the town. And we really had everything in that church—in
that town. There was other businesses of course and there was, like we had a beautiful
church and of course we had two national schools, a boys and a girls.24
K: Right.
M: And um..what else.
K: What was the name of the church there? Do you know do you remember?
M: Hm, what is the name? St. Muredach’s I think it was. St. Muredach’s I think it was there. I
think that’s right.25
K: Munnelly’s was in..was in Crossmolina?
M: Yeah.
K: Yeah, and so you were working there and Granda, how did , Granda came to be there
because he worked on the truck.
M: Yeah, now he originally came from Cavan. I came from Crossmolina, Mayo.26
K: Right.
M: And he came here.
K: Where in Cavan?
M: Excuse me?
K: Where in Cavan did Granda come from?
M: Stradone was the name of the place. Stradone, County Cavan.27 And uh so uh, he got a
job there goin out on a truck sellin groceries and whatever, whatever the farmers would
want. Like meal or whatever they would want. He’d bring it the following week. So..
This happened several times and has happened in the past in many conversations with
her where she will skip forward quite a ways in time. In this case from her time working in
Ireland to her time in the United States. My struggle was to keep the interview on track
avoiding some of these instances while still getting enough material that it was a
substantive interview.
23 Delivered in a very deadpan style. This is her style of telling jokes.
24 The national schools being the state run schools. Separated by gender.
25 St. Muredach’s is a church in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland. Not in Crossmolina. The
confusion may stem from the fact that this is where her sister Geraldine now lives.
26 County Cavan.
27 From the town of Tierlahood, Stradone is the townland and Cavan is the county. The
Cooney family has lived in Cavan since at least the early 1800s (as far back as I have been
able to go so far with my genealogical research).
22
K: Right. Do you remember when you saw him for the first time?
M: (Laughs) Oh my god. I never took any notice of him really yknow! I don’t think I took any
notice of him. And then as time as time went on cause I was there about five years, five
years I’d say?28
K: Yup.
M: So we started goin out together and we got engaged before he came here as I told you.
K: Mhm.
M: And so anyway..
K: Do you remember what your first date, do you remember what your first date was.
M: We went to the movies in Ballina.29
K: What movie did you see do you remember?
M: Ohh no I don’t remember.
K: No, yeah.
M: No I don’t remember it was such a long long time ago.
K: So I guess when did you, so you were goin out for a little while.
M: Yeah, a few years.
K: Yeah.
M: And then like I said, he came here. To America. And it wasn’t my intention to come to
America but he wrote and said it was so good and he was makin great money in the, on the
buses. Did I say he was drivin the buses?30
K: Not yet, no we haven’t gotten there yet. No.
M: Sorry.
K: No, no that’s fine. So you were goin out for awhile. And I guess not when did you decide
to leave for America, because you’d mentioned that he was coming for, was it Father
Albert? Yeah, Uncle Albert’s ordination.
M: Yeah.
K: And so I guess when he was preparing to leave for America, do you remember what that
was like? Before you left, but when he was preparing to leave what that was like.
M: Like how do you mean?
K: Like, he thought he was gonna come back.
M: Yeah, he did. He did think he was gonna come back, he thought he was only comin for a
year. He wanted to make enough money to pay for his passage yknow? Like he’d be here.
And then go back. And then he got the job I already said he got the job on the buses.31
K: Right. I know that you had mentioned a story um a long time ago, not too long ago but
with the boat. With the cousin, the guy who snuck on the boat.
M: (laughing) Yeah!
She didn’t take any notice of him because they were twelve years apart in age my Granda
being born May 14th 1916.
29 The larger town in the area. Where any larger or more important shopping purchases
were made. Where the annual farmers fair was every year and the local seat of government.
30 My Granda drove a bus in Manhattan with many different routes over the years including
his favorite that passed by Columbia University, his favorite because “he was picking up
people that were trying to better themselves.”
31 This was common at the time and in fact how his boss, Munnelly had made the needed
money to open a brick and mortar shop and hire trucks for the road.
28
K: Can you tell me that story again? Can you tell me that story again?
M: Well, the dock, we came out of the water, it was all boats that time.
K: And where was that? And where was that?
M: From Cobh, County Cork.32
K: Ok.
M: And uh, so uh
K: It was a long trip?
M: It was a long trip, yeah. Long trip, it was probably almost a full day. Goin down there,
from Mayo to uh Cork, County Cork is in the very south. And um so um. So anyway, so the
bosses son now, he was a relation he drove us down with his wife, and I went down and
Vincent went down. And so you had to go on a tender they called it from one boat out to the
big boat. So my, the guy that drove us down he got on the tender. He wasn’t supposed to.
But he got on the tender and he went out and he was lucky he wasn’t kept or whatever.
Yknow you’re not supposed to go out there.
K: Right.
M: And yknow I forget what else.33
K: I remember you said Granda was very Granda was very nervous.
M: Yeah, he was he was afraid that he might be dropped off.
K: Right.
M: And yknow he was lucky, the guy was lucky he wasn’t jailed.
K: Right.
M: So anyways.
K: But so, so Granda came across on a ship.34
M: Yeah, exactly. It took him (thinking) ehhh, it took him twelve days, which was a long
time.
K: Wow.
M: The weather was bad. The weather was bad and uh, and yeah, it was like a very rough
voyage.
K: Right, and he wrote you letters I guess when he got to the United States? Or on the boat?
M: Yes, yes. All the time, and I wrote him letters I had more news than he had. Y’know.
K: Do you remember early on things that he would tell you or when he got, cause he came
into Canada right? He didn’t come into the United States immediately right? He went into
Canada and came down.35
M: Yeah I think that’s true but it was all on the one trip, he just probably stopped in Canada
and then it came down, it came into the, into the city.
K: Oh. Ok.
The city of Cobh is a small island in Cork Bay in the southern part of Ireland where most
of the Irish immigration ships throughout its history have left from. Also the departure
point of the RMS Titanic.
33 These were instances where I felt prompting was necessary. I was very fortunate that
they were stories I had heard before so I was able to help her reach the conclusion.
34 One of the last immigration ships to leave from Cobh as many shortly after traveled by
airplane.
35 I was always under the impression he got off the boat in Canada and traveled down to
the United States by land, an instance where my own biases interrupts the narrative.
32
M: In New York City.
K: Ok.
M: I forget the name of the boat.
K: We have it written down somewhere. I think. But do you remember any of any of the
letters that he wrote? Anyting that he was telling ya? That he was workin and..?
M: Yeah, well I dunno if it was if it was that interesting really but he would tell me he really
liked it and he really liked workin at the overtime and he knew a lot of other Irish. He met a
lot of Irish guys there. And actually from his own county. And actually his own neighbor.
K: Really?
M: His own neighbor Farrelly. Right. He was the one, he was the one that like, talkin to him
he figured “oh that would be good if he could get a job there.” So he did. He did get a job
there. He did apply and he got a job.
K: On the buses?
M: On the buses yeah. And so he was still workin there until he retired.
K: Right. So I guess when when you left, so you left shortly afterwards, he was there for
Uncle Al’s ordination then he wrote to you and told you to come.
M: Right, and wanted to know if I would come and it was very good and instead of him goin
home after a year that we wait five years and then come home, go home back to Ireland.
K: And you were already engaged at this time?
M: We got engaged before he left Ireland. Yeah, that’s right. And so...36
K: How did he..how did he propose?
M: (pause) Well we were engaged before, before he left.
K: Right.
M: So we knew we were gonna be gettin married.
K: When, when you got engaged..
M: Yeah.
K: Like how did he propose to you? How did he ask you to marry him, do you remember?
M: I guess he just asked me (laughter) I don’t think there was any kneelin down or anything
like that like they do now or anything. What do they do today?37
K: Well sometimes people’ll do a little thing or y’know whateve, but it was just, it was
something that you knew and he knew?
M: Yeah, because before he left we both went to Dublin for the weekend and we got
engaged in Dublin actually. Because that’s where we could get a nice engagement ring or
whatever.
K: Ok.
M: And so, but anyways, it was so long ago Kevin.38
K: You’re right it is but it’s so interesting.
M: My memory isn’t the greatest.
K: I think your memory is great. So he wrote to you and told you to come.
The initial plan was to come back to Ireland and get married which did not end up
happening as they married in the United States.
37 Not sure she really understood this question.
38 Her tone here is repeated several times throughout the interview and reflects a concern
that she had expressed in the leadup to this project, that “no one would find this
interesting” and that she “hasn’t led an exciting life.”
36
M: Right he wrote to me and told me was doin very good there and how it was very nice
and how he thought I would like it too. And that there was lots of openings for me if I
wanted to get there. Like something in the office or in the book..and that’s what I did. I
came here. And uh I started to work 414 East 82nd Street in the city.
K: See? Your memory’s fine!
M: A church, it’s a church. And that priest was a friend of my brother in laws that was
ordained.
K: Of Uncle Al.
M: Yeah, so anyway I got a job there. And (unintelligible) I got a job there.
K: What church was that do you remember?
M: St. Stephen’s of Hungary, 414 East 82nd Street. I can’t believe I remember that.
K: When you, when you left Ireland. I wanna hear a little bit about that. You left Ireland I
know that you had said that it was something that was, it was difficult.
M: Yeah, I was very very lonely leavin Ireland. I loved Ireland and I hated leavin my mother
and father.39
K: Yeah.
M: I really did. And they did not. My mother really did not want me to come. She didn’t
really want. I was, none of her family ever left Crossmolina. She was born in Crossmolina.
And none of her family ever left.
K: She was a Hegarty.40
M: She was Hegarty. And she didn’t know why, why I had to leave and yknow cause she
figured Vincent was, she liked Vincent and so did my father but they thought he’d be comin
back. And eventually we did, well, oh know we never got back. We went back on trips.
K: Trips and things.
M: Trips, we came back on trips.
K: Do you remember when you first told them. Did you tell your mother first? Did you tell
your father first? How did, how did you tell them that?
M: Yeah, I just told them that, that I was going to be going to America and that my mother
did not want me to go. My father didn’t say anything. I guess he figured yknow “what’s to be
will be” yknow but anyway so I was really very lonely leavin’ my family yknow? And but
anyway I came here and then we got married and then my sister Sally she was a nurse in
Ireland and she came to Wichita, Kansas as a nurse.
K: Really?
M: Four girls, four girls came from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin and uh they came to
Wichita, Kansas.
K: To do what?
M: Nursing.
K: Oh, just in Kansas.
As evidenced here my Nana had a very comfortable life in Ireland as her family was one
who had relative means. A subject of future interviews with her will reflect my Granda’s life
which was not nearly as comfortable. He was one of 13 children living on a farm, his choice
to leave first Tierlahood and then Ireland was reflective of what he saw as a lack of
opportunity at the time.
40 Maiden name Hegarty. There are still many Hegarty’s living in Crossmolina to this day.
39
M: Yeah, yeah in Wichita, Kansas. In fact I went to visit them down there, very hot down
there. The breeze, you could see the grass blowin.
K: Right. Flat.
M: Right, and then I-we got married, myself and Vincent got married before they went back
to Ireland. And they were at, they came to my wedding in New York on their way to
K: Sally?
M: Sally, Mary Barrett, oh who was the other girls? Phil somebody. There was four of them
anyways. And uh so they loved it down there but they waited, I think they only waited a
year or a little more a little more than a year. They came, they came, they were in New York
for my wedding. Sally was my maid of honor.
K: Yeah. I’m just gonna check the camera real quick to make sure that it’s still…yeah looks
great. Um, so another thing I wanna ask you about is was almost to rewind a little bit but
you, when you were leaving Ireland do you remember saying goodbye to your parents, to
your mother and father and anything they mighta told you before you left?41
M: Will never forget it. Will never forget it. When I well I mean we did come home very
often and my kids, my sisters, by now I had, Geraldine was born.42
K: Right.
M: And Vera, Geraldine was two, we celebrated her second birthday over there and Vera
was seven months.43
K: Right.
M: And my mother used to love wheelin her up and down the street. Yknow? In a carriage,
yknow? In a little carriage. And so that was the best parts.
K: Sure.
M: Was the parts goin back home. Yknow?
K: But you said you’d never forget, I wanna hear a little about that you said you’d never
forget leaving and what your parents said to you when you were leaving and things like
that.
M: Well I dunno what they said to me. I mean they really thought. They thought I was comin
back.
K: Sure.
M: But my mother and father stood at the door. And I can still see em. Y’know. On each side
of the door. And I went down, we went down to Main Street. They lived on Chapel Street.
We went down to Main Street and then ya hit off for Cobh I guess.
K: Right.
M: And uh so I could see the two of them cryin’ at the door, and I was cryin’ too. Leavin’
y’know. That was a very sad time for me. Yeah.44
One of the downsides to using a video camera was my fear throughout the first portion of
the interview that something would go wrong and it would not record or would stop on its
own and there was no casual way of checking to see if this was the case without briefly
stopping the interview. If I had solely used a recording device this would not have been as
much a problem.
42 Geraldine LaCherra (nee Cooney) born June 11th 1958. My mother, who was present for a
large portion of the interview because of my Nana’s initial discomfort.
43 Vera O’Neal (nee Cooney) born October 9th 1959. My aunt, currently living in New
Knoxville, Ohio.
41
K: And you left and you took a plane. You were one of the first people to take a plane.
M: Yeah, I was. Vincent came he came on a boat and that was like the year before or
whatever.
K: He was one of the last ones to go by boat.
M: Yeah and they were just startin to come on the plane.
K: What was that like?
M: (laughs) That was exciting. That was exciting y’know. To be goin on a plane cause
yknow whenever we saw a plane we’d be lookin up like “ooh, plane!” everybody’d be out
lookin.
K: You had never flown before?
M: No, no not too many had flown at that time. But there would be planes goin’ probably
business planes and things like comin from Dublin, we had a lake along.. people’d come
from England. They’d be comin over there to fish or things like that y’know.
K: Right, that’s…what lake is that again?
M: Loch Conn.
K: Loch Conn. And then the mountain in the background that was?
M: Nephin. Yeah, yeah. You remember that do ya?
K: Yeah, I do.
M: Ya saw Nephin all the time.
K: It was huge.
M: Mm yeah.
K: So where did you leave from, you didn’t take a plane outta Cobh, you.
M: I went to Shannon.
K: Shannon.
M: Shannon, yeah.
K: That was the main airport in the west.
M: Yeah, that was easier.
K: And what was that, when it was taking off, when you were boarding were you afraid or?
Or were you..?
M: I don’t think so..I guess I was excited because I was comin’ over to meet my, to meet my
fiancée or whatever.
K: Right.
M: And get married. I guess we were gonna get married I didn’t think. I thought we would
be goin back to get married. But that all changed.
K: Right. So tell me, when you got to the United States when you landed, where did you
land?
M: Where did I…
K: Idlewild?
M: I guess so, I guess so..
K: Airport. Yeah?
M: I guess it was, I guess it was Idlewild.
K: I guess it wouldn’t have been JFK at the time because they renamed it after..you got there
before the 19..before the early 1960s.
This portion really took me out of the interview mode and was difficult for me. I got a bit
emotional.
44
M: Yeah, well Geraldine was born in 62 right?
K: Yeah. So you woulda been there already.
M: Wait, when were you born? (to my mom)
Geraldine: 58.45
M: 58.
K: So what was, when you first got off the plane did Granda meet you at the airport or how
did. What happened?
M: Oh yeah, yeah, he was there. He was there.
K: And what was that like?
M: (laughs) Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Yeah, I dunno who was with him, I guess, I know
Ambrose46 wasn’t here at the time. I dunno, I dunno who was with him. But anyways.
K: And then you went from there, where? Did you go back to his apartment, did you have an
apartment lined up or what
M: Well he did have an apartment but I stayed with relatives of his they lived in the same
apartment house. The Sodens. And so uh, I stayed there.
K: That was in Woodside?
M: Yeah.
K: Ok. And he was living? He was also living in
M: In that apartment, he had an apartment in that house too.
K: Ok. So I guess, when you got to the United States what were your initial perceptions,
what were your, what struck you about it, I know you said the buildings were, if you can
repeat, if you can tell me about that again, the buildings were..47
M: (laughs)
K: Not that big of a deal?
M: (laughs) Yeah, not a big, I remember when Father Albert brought me down the city. And
he was so excited about these, I’d look up at the buildings and it was, what was exciting
about em? And y’know on 5th Avenue, yknow or whatever.
K: Right.
M: I wasn’t a bit excited or enthused about it yknow.
K: What was surprising to you?
M: What was exciting?
K: Surprising, what was surprising to you? I think you’d said all the people. You didn’t know
where all the people were goin?
M: Yeah. The cars! The cars! I couldn’t understand where they were comin from. And then
after I’d been, bein here two weeks I went down to Chicago, I had two aunts in Chicago. And
that was busier. Cause we’d sit out at the window at the house and the cars’d be comin and
goin, comin and goin all the time. And my aunt’d say “they’re goin to work!”
K: Which aunt? Which aunt was that?
M: Binah.
K: Binah. And who was, who was the other one that was out there?48
The “G” from here forward will represent my mother speaking.
Pierce Cooney, known as Ambrose. My uncle and my Granda’s younger brother.
47 Like the childhood games question this was one I had heard quite a bit about during my
earliest conversations about her immigration experience.
48 Her Aunt Binah and Aunt Margaret were her father’s sisters.
45
46
M: Aunt Margaret.
K: Margaret.
M: So she said…my train of thought is..
K: “They’re goin to work.”
M: “They’re goin to work” and then later on when it was after “they’re still goin to work?”
“No, they’re comin home from work!”(laughs) I thought that was funny. They’re goin in the
mornin and they’re comin home in the evenin.
K: Right.
M: It’s busy busy busy all the time.
K: Right, and you were living. So when you were living in Woodside you got an apartment.
Shortly after that with, who did you get an apartment with?
M: My girlfriend, from Ireland, Laura Walsh.
K: Ok, you’d known her beforehand?
M: I knew her, yeah.
K: Was she already here?
M: She was already here, yeah. She lived in the Bronx. And then I got in touch with her and
she came down and it was easier for her to get into Manhatten too I think.
K: Right.
M: Yeah, she was a waitress. For Shraf’s.
K: Ok, and where did you, where did you work at the time? Where were you working?
M: I got a job, I think I told ya at St. Stephen’s of Hungary church.
K: Yeah.
M: Right, I got a job there. And so I was there until I got married.
K: What type of work were you doin for them?
M: In the office.
K: Office work.
M: Y’know, filing and I wasn’t typing but I did learn how to type. I went to a night school or
somethin for that.
K: Really?
M: Yeah, in Long Island City. But I dunno what it is or (unintelligible) Some place in Long
Island City.
K: And did you um, you got married around what. When did you get married? When? Do
you remember what year? No?
M: (thinking)49
K: That’s ok, I have all that stuff written down anyway. But you got married and then did
you..?
M: When did I get married Ger?50
G: Well I was born in June of ’58. So you probably got married in…
M: 57.
G: What’s your anniversary?
July 6 1957.
I had initially figured she would be relying on my mother a lot more for questions and
answers but partially because if she was particularly unsure of something I moved things
along and also because in the middle of the interview my mother fell asleep she was not
asked too many questions.
49
50
M: (thinking)
G: July 6th right?
M: Yeah
G: Probably July 6th, 1957.
K: No, no that’s fine I can look it up and we can, so then you and Granda moved in together
in Woodside in an apartment, in an apartment in Woodside.
M: Yes.
K: And he was still workin on the buses at the time?
M: Yes.
K: And what was that like, before the kids came along, those early years. Those early years
together in Woodside?
M: Well we lived up on the third floor and the Soden’s lived there also, and McCaffrey’s
lived there. So we knew all these people. Right. So it was really nice. Y’know?
K: Right.
M: And it was really nice, cause when you’d be goin up you’d see someone or goin down
you’d see somebody. And uh that ya knew. And..
K: A lot of Irish people?
M: A lot of Irish people.
K: Was it all Irish people in Woodside?
M: Well maybe not everybody, I think most of em. Gibbons’…it was mostly Irish people.
Yeah.
K: And those early years. What was, I guess what was Woodside, what was the country like
at that time?
M: Well it was a very Irish area too. Woodside, very Irish.
K: Right.
M: And the church, we were about five blocks from the church, St. Sebastian’s. And
y’know..goin back and forth for Sunday mass. Yknow we’d meet at Mass.51
K: Right.
M: You’d meet all these people from the house and other people too. But it was really nice
and there was a bake shop, we’d always go to the bake shop on our way home, we all lived
on the, the Soden’s and the McCaffrey’s they, we’d be all home together. It was very nice,
very homey. And everybody knew everybody. Well not everybody knew everybody, but
someone would know someone. Y’know it was a very friendly area.
K: Sure. Did you go out in Manhattan at all ever?
M: Yes. Nearly every Sunday we’d, there’d always be a lot of shows in there would you
believe?
K: Really?
M: Yes, Laura, she was like your Kristen.52
K: Ok.
M: She loved the shows. And there was a matinee on a Sunday. And so so we would be at
the matinee.
A topic I’d like to explore in further interviews would be her relationship with the
Catholic Church as a binding and community force at the time. It seems, both here and in
other stories she has related to me that it was a hugely important part of the community.
52 Kristen LaCherra, my sister who has a great passion for Broadway.
51
K: Yeah.
M: We’d be at the matinee every Sunday, well maybe not every Sunday, but nearly every
Sunday.
K: Would Granda come in as well? Or he’d be?
M: No, he’d be workin, he’d be most time workin. And I’ll tell ya this story I dunno if ye’d
like to hear it.
K: Yeah.
M: On, on Christmas Day he was workin. And
K: And this was after you’d gotten married?
M: This was after we’d gotten married. And..no no we weren’t married, we weren’t married
yet. But this was our first Christmas, he was workin. And myself and Laura we cooked a
turkey and we had a Christmas tree. And we had everything, everything was really lovely. I
still have the little crib that we bought that time. It was just here.53 The little crib for the
Christmas. I still have it. I hate to get rid of it. So anyways, so myself. So anyway we cooked
dinner and myself and Laura and her brother was from the Bronx and so the three of us.
The three of us what did we do? We weren’t doin anything, we finished dinner early we
went into the Christmas show.
K: The Rockettes.
M: Yeah, yeah. And so anyways, my poor, dear, boyfriend. Couldn’t get home fast enough to
Christmas Day for the turkey and everything. And he couldn’t get in. We weren’t..54
K: Nobody home? (laughs)
M: Nobody home! (laughs) and no note or nothin. He thought we’d be home by the time he
got home. And he’d rushed to get home and he got home early. So anyways we got home
and oh I thought we’d die. Myself and Laura and oh we had trifle and all sorts of Irish things
and we really thought we’d be home. But anyway. So we called him up to tell him we’re
home cause he lived up another street. Called him up to tell him, so he says “oh, I’m in bed”
And I says “oh, well you’re dinner is ready” and I says “oh you just ate? What’d you have?”
“Scrambled eggs and toast.” He said. Well I thought, that was the worst thing, scrambled
eggs and toast on Christmas Day. Y’know and here we were in America.
K: Yeah. Oh wow, I’d never heard that story before.
M: Really?
K: I never heard that one before.
M: Yeah, and he was. He was pissed. (laughs) He was.
K: Yeah, so when you got married, when you got married a few years later, 1950…1957?
M: Yeah, July 10th..July 6th.
K: What was that like. Who was there? I know you said Sally was there and a few ladies
from out of town. But what was that like? Weddings at the time. Different right?
M: It was at the church I worked for, that’s where we got married. And that was the priest
that married us. And I’m tryin to think. And the Soden’s, one of those girls, and Laura.
K: Ok.
The crib being a part of the nativity set she puts out every year for Christmas.
This also happens several times and is a common rhetorical device she uses, she’ll pause
at the climax of a story and have you try and guess what the end is. This is a story I had not
heard before.
53
54
M: They were my bridesmaids. So it was like very nice. And of course my sister Sally. And
the other three girls were here from Wichita with Sally, so they were the only Irish ones
that was there. The only ones that came from Ireland anyways. And they were here already.
K: Right.
M: Yknow I don’t think, did any of my family come from Ireland?
K: But Sally was..
M: But Sally was, Sally was here.
K: Any of Granda’s family, was any of Granda’s family. Did any of Granda’s family come?
M: No, but there was quite a few of them here. I dunno who was here. Wait’ll I see did any
of em come. Oh Ambrose was here, he was his best man. He had only just been here for a
little while.
K: Was Mamie here yet?55
M: No, no. He wasn’t married yet.
K: Ok.
M: He went, he went back and married her.
K: Ok, yeah. Did any of the Canadians come down? Was..?
M: Oh yes, they were here.
K: Bob and Clare?56
M: Bob and Clare. And um then who else was here..
K: That mighta been it. Would thatve been it.
M: Well we had quite a few people at at the wedding. Vincent knew a lot of people. And uh,
oh my Aunt Binah came! And my uncle came from Chicago.
K: Chicago.
M: From Chicago to give me away. And my Aunt Binah came, they both came up from
Chicago.
K: Was there a reception or a party afterwards?
M: Yes, at a lovely place. Queen’s Terrace was the name of the place. Very nice, I’d never
seen anything like it before. Well we were probably there for a weddin before we’d picked
it but it was a very nice place. Just a couple blocks from where we lived y’know.
K: Ok. And did you do a lot of the planning for the wedding?
M: Yeah, yeah we did it all. Vincent had his brother was a best man. And then there was a
friend of his that was…and then who else was there and of course I had Sally. And Laura.
And Mary Alice. I dunno who else, there was. Ambrose and Matt Brady, I think that was the
two.
K: Do you remember gettin your dress?
M: Yes, and I looked beautiful. (laughs). And it was a lovely dress it twas.
K: Did you get it in Manhattan or Woodside?
M: No, I got it in Jamaica. It was very nice, and I was very thin, ya saw my picture, where’s
my picture?57
K: Yup, yup I think it’s in the other room. So then, so then you moved in together in
Woodside and then a few years later had Mom.
Mary “Mamie” Cooney (nee Kehoe) my Uncle Ambrose’s wife.
Clare Rockarts (nee Cooney) my Granda’s sister became a nurse and moved to Canada
where she married Robert “Bob” Rockarts.
57 Jamaica, Queens in New York City.
55
56
M: Right.
K: Right.
M: A year later was it Ger?
G: Yes.
K: A year later?
M: Yeah
K: And then Vera?
M: Vera. Yeah it was, she was…yeah. Vera was the next one. And then I forget it was a year
after.
K: And then Valerie.58
M: And then Valerie. Yeah, right.
K: And what was that like, because you were home raising them right?
M: Yes, I was home. Yes. I was home. That was nice. At the beginning we had to bring down
the carriage. We had to take up the carriage from the basement, it was an apartment house
as I told ya. I dunno if told ya that. We’d go ahead and bring it down and McCaffrey was
livin there and they’d go ahead and bring the carriage in for me yknow?
K: Oh
M: It was nice. And the Soden’s, I never had to put the carriage in I usually had to come
down four flights to put it out.
K: Right.
M: And then we had a park down the block from us that ye could go on the swings and all
that, we used to go down there nearly every day. The weather was beautiful in the summer.
Not like Ireland. Yknow, Ireland it was rainin all the time. Mm.
K: When did you realize I guess cause you had figured at first that Granda was gonna be
there for a year and then come back. And then he had said well we’ll be here for five years
and then we’ll go back. I guess when did you realize or when did the conversation happen
where you said, “we’re gonna stay here”
M: Well I never said we were gonna stay here (laughs) he was the one that said that we
would stay here. Well no it was always going to be longer, it was always going to be longer.
And I remember when um this was eh when my father died. That was. It must have been
twelve years I think after we were..(thinking) what’s my train of thought I’ve forgot now.
K: When your father died.
M: Yeah, well I think it was (thinking). But anyways so my sister Sally got the house. She
was, she was a nurse and she came home and she stayed with my mother, my mother was
sick before she died and she stayed on with my father.
K: Right.
M: And of course she got the house. The shop, the bar and all that. And she wrote and said
to me, said in her letter, if I wanted it I could have it.
K: Right.
M: And oh, that was the best news I could have heard. But anyways, Vincent didn’t think it
was, he thought he was doin better here than he would over there. And then Geraldine was
twelve at that time, Geraldine was twelve. And I didn’t think it would be fair to her. Did ya
ever hear that? I didn’t think it would be fair to her, she would miss out on all her friends
and all that. And then she’d have to learn the Gaelic. I was wrong about that. She didn’t.
58
Valerie “Val” Bruno born February 21st 1962. My aunt.
Americans, American citizens if they went over there to live didn’t have to learn the Gaelic.
We had to pass Gaelic. Yknow when we were young. So I didn’t think. I thought that would
be hard for her to do yknow. I was thinkin of her mostly. But anyways. Anyway. We never
went home and we stayed here. Yeah. Yeah.
K: So you, you did go back though a couple of times.
M: Yes, we did. The first time we went back Geraldine was two. We celebrated her birthday.
K: Right.
M: Over there.
K: And what did you do, you stayed with family? You traveled?
M: Yeah, my mother and father. We stayed. I stayed mostly. I spent. At that time KLM
Flights were going, and it was “KLM is the way to go” yknow that was the saying or
whatever.59
K: Right.
M: And so we would go over and we would spend most of the time in Mayo, Crossmolina.
And of course we would go up to Cavan to see Vincent’s people. And I would stay up there
too. Y’know I would stay up tbere with Lily’s house. Remember when ye were.60
K: Right, on the land where Granda grew up.
M: Yeah, well no, not there. We used to stay with Lily.
K: She lived up the lane a little bit but it was all the same, it was the Cooney property.61
M: Yeah, yeah exactly. Down. We visited down there. The homestead.62
K: The homestead.
M: But we stayed with Lily cause it was a lot of around summertime there’s a lot comin
home from different places yknow.
K: Right.
M: But anyways.
K: Lily was married to Granda’s brother
M: Yes, T.
K: T. Eugene.
M: Eugene, yes. Exactly. Yknow more than I know.
K: (laughs) I dunno about that. So when you went back you stayed with family. And you,
when did you see, you saw your parents?
M: Right they would be home. They would be home and me father had a bar. The same old
bar.
K: Right.
M: So we would be there. We would spend, I’d say we’d usually go for 8 or 10 weeks.
K: In the summer?
M: In the summer. Right. And we went the first year and she was two. And
K: And would you go back every single..
M: And the next time Valerie was little.
Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (KLM)or Royal Dutch Airlines.
Lily Cooney married my Granda’s brother, Eugene Thomas known as T. They have both
since passed away.
61 The Cooney homestead and land was split between two of the brothers, Kevin and T.
62 One of my earliest memories was of a painting of the Cooney homestead which my Nana
and Granda had hanging in their home, which my Nana still has today.
59
60
K: Ok, would you go back every summer roundabout or no?
M: Well I dunno how many summer we went back, do you remember Ger?
G: I think we went four times before I was 12.
M: Yeah, four times. And then we didn’t get that big flight anymore, that changed. So we
didn’t go. And then it was harder cause the kids were like yknow they couldn’t take time
out from school. Yknow.
K: Right.
M: Ye only could go for maybe three or four weeks or something. I dunno.
K: Sure.
K: Do you remember when you, when you last saw your parents? Before they passed away.
Before your mother passed away.
M: Ehh, wait’ll I tell ya. (thinking) I know she was sick. I know she was sick. And Sally was
home so, but she died. When did she die? (thinking)
K: I’m just asking, we have that written down somewhere, but like when you last saw, your
memories of them, like your last memories of them.
M: Yeah.
K: Your last memories of your mother and father.
M: Yeah, well my father died six months after my mother. When I was home, so it’d be.
That’s when she died. That’s when that’s the last time I was home. In fact I’d just been home
by myself. I think.
K: Right.
M: And uh, so uh,
K: You went, you went back for her funeral?
M: No, I didn’t.
K: No.
M: No I didn’t go back for her funeral cause I had just been home. I think she died in August
was it? I, I, I didn’t go back for the funeral. But for her funeral. Or my dad’s. My brother
didn’t want me goin home for my father’s funeral I remember. Because you’d have to,
they’d have to go down to Shannon to meet me yknow what I mean?
K: Right.
M: And it would, it would slow up everything that, the burial and everything.
K: Right.
M: So, but anyway. I had I had just been home before my mother died. And he died six
months after my mother. And uh so uh.
K: And they say he died of?
M: He died of a broken heart. Yeah. I mean I dunno. But they were very happily married.
They were very happily married. My mother was sick, she was very sick.
K: Do you remember, like your memory of the last time seeing the two of them. What that
was like. For you. Because you knew, you knew she was sick.
M: I knew she was sick, yeah. What was I going to say? I knew she was sick, yeah. And I was
glad to be home to see her while she was livin. Yknow?
K: Right.
M: And so, she was, she was a wonderful person. And my father, my father was a wonderful
guy. Very good, and very good to my mother. He would. Before my sister came home he
would take care of her. Yknow and everything. But anyways. Well I dunno my train of
thought is kinda gone. But it was sad. It was sad. It was sad for me to be home and see her
so sick, yknow?
K: Right.
M: But I knew she was, she couldn’t be in better hands. The, her doctor lived. Yknow the
Loftus’?63
K: Right.
M: Did ye meet him when ye were home?64
K: I did. Yup.
M: We were up there. Myself and Sally went up there. Who else went up there? We had tea
up there. Right when we were home?
K: Right.
M: But anyways so, so eh..wait’ll I see what I was tryin to think of here now.
K: Your father. Your father, your mother couldn’t have been in any better hands.
M: Yeah. Cause she had Sally. Mickey Loftus and the doctor says “Your mother’d be long ago
gone but for she had her own private nurse.” He said. She had her own private nurse. And
she was a very good..she loved my mother. And well, anyone loved my mother. They loved
my father too, everybody. All the neighbors they all like, when ye were home didn’t ye
notice?
K: Everybody said. Everybody said.
M: He was a nice guy, helpful. He was a very nice guy.
K: I remember Loftus, was it Kevin Loftus? The old, who was your neighbor? The old man.
M: Kevin?
K: Who was the older man? The older Loftus. The old man, the one who you took some
pictures with in the street.
M: Kevin, the guy who owned the drapery shop?
K: Yeah, he was the older guy, he was you neighbor, but he had said to me “If” I had written
it down but he’d said that “if Tom Geraghty, Tom Geraghty could die a happy man if he
knew his family was taken care of.”
M: Yeah.
K: That’s what he had said.
M: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
K: Something like that.
M: Yeah.
K: So, after your mother died did you and your father write any letters back and forth, did
you write letters to your parents?
M: My father, my father died like six months after. So and it was, it was a big surprise to me.
But then y’know the kids were at an awkward age. And yknow everything is…
K: More difficult.
M: More difficult.
The Loftuses’ were neighbors and good friends of the Geraghty family and still live in
Crossmolina.
64 Something she says to me several times throughout the interview when referring to
Ireland and my experience there is “when ye were home” I really believe this indicates how
much she truly thinks of Ireland as her home, to such a degree that she thinks of it in some
way as my home as well.
63
K: Sure.
M: Yeah, right, exactly. And my brother didn’t want me goin home.
K: Right.
M: Well, it’s not exactly that he didn’t want me goin home but he thought it would be hard
for me and harder for them because they’d, someone’d have to go down. I’d be wreck and
that would be true yknow. They’d have to go down to Shannon and it’d take over four hours
to get down. And four hours to come back and ye don’t know. And ye might’nt, ye might
delay the funeral nearly 2 days or more. And I think he thought it’d be better if I didn’t
come. And I’d only make them worse.
K: Lemme ask you another question. When you, so in those earlier years. A lot of books and
things that I’ve read about Irish immigration to the United States earlier on people would
talk about difficulties that the Irish faced and discrimination against the Irish in the United
States and problems and things like that. This was earlier, when people would immigrate to
the, immigrate to the United States during The Famine. But did you or Granda ever face
anything like that? Any discrimination..
M: No, no.
K: Or problems?
M: No, no, no. Never did. And when we came here like I had two aunts and an uncle in
Chicago. And actually my uncle was the fire chief.
K: Really?
M: In Evanston. Evanston was the name of the place.
K: Really?
M: Chicago, yeah. And in fact there was big articles, there was articles in the paper but I
guess I don’t even have them now. But he was an, but he came up and gave me away for my
weddin did I?
K: Right, you did tell me that.
M: Yeah, so um, so Chicago seemed to be a very very Irish area. And when I went down
there when I came, I went down there for two weeks. And like my aunt, like there was two
aunts. And I think I had two first cousins or somethin. Joyce’s was their names. And all that.
And everyone, they used to have people’d get married and they’d have parties and all that.
And they’d rent out a hall. Rent out these halls. And actually my aunt and all them they
would cook and all that because they would, they worked for people yknow. They worked
in as housekeepers or whatever.
K: Right.
M: Yeah, and they, they came at that time. But everybody, every place we went to was Irish
Irish Irish.
K: Yeah.
M: And everybody knew everybody and they all had, it looked to be in great shape. Yknow?
K: Yeah.
M: Very very good, I didn’t see any any discrimination or anything at all.
K: Right.
M: And y’see my father’s family came from a different area to me. Rememeber I was in
Crossmolina?
K: Right.
M: He was from Newport/Westport area. And there was a lot of people from there.65
K: In Chicago?
M: In Chicago, in that area. And they all knew each other. They were all Newport, more so
than in my area.
K: Right.
M: There weren’t that many if yknow what I mean.
K: Were there difficulties or frustrations in those early years being in the United States?
Were there any frustrations or difficulties that you and Granda faced or..?
M: Yeah I don’t remember, I don’t remember ever hearin anything like that. Vincent would
probably know that better than me.66
K: But even personally, personally. Was it frustrating to be away from Ireland and be in a
new place or was it…
M: No, well actually it was very exciting. They had a lot of Irish things here. Webster Hall
was always havin’ dances y’know every county, everything. Father Albert, Father Paul,
they’d run these dances for em. Everybody from that area’d be here. Would be at that thing
y’know? It didn’t seem to me to be. I think everybody was delighted to see everybody.
K: Yeah.
M: Yeah. As far as I remember.
K: Sure. When did you move to College Point, you moved out of Woodside and to College
Point.67
M: Yeah.
K: Right? How long after moving into the apartment in Woodside, after you got married did
you move to College Point, do you remember?
M: I don’t remember.
K: That’s fine
M: Well, what class were you in Ger when ye moved from..
K: Mom?
G: Yeah?
M: When did you move to College Point?
K: When did you move to College Point, when did y’all move to College Point?
G: (thinking) Um…I was 5…um
K: So 58?
G: Valerie was born. Valerie was in the hospital.
K: 59.
M: 62, 1962. I went to the hospital to have Valerie and I came home to College Point, yeah.
K: So you…what happened? Had you already moved in?
M: No, no we did not have moved in. In fact Valerie was a bit late in comin’ so we went to
the hospital to have Valerie. Or I went to the hospital to have Valerie. And it was like a
holiday time, Washington’s birthday.
Newport and Westport being two of the larger urban areas in County Mayo.
Any of the discriminations they would have faced would have probably been in the
workforce, my Nana spent a lot of her time at home raising her daughters which is why I
believe she’s saying this.
67 College Point, Queens New York City. And the place I have always thought of as my
Nana’s home.
65
66
K: Ok.
M: And it was, what was it? Valerie was born on the, well I dunno, so anyway so it…
K: It was a holiday, so did Granda have off?
M: It was a holiday, and I was in the hospital havin Valerie. And eh, so, on one of the days I
called up in morning. Oh yeah, and Geraldine and Vera were over at Auntie Mamie’s and
they were in Astoria.68
K: Right, ok.
M: And no reply, no reply from my husband or whatever.
K: Ok.
M: From Woodside, from…the thing. And…am I tellin the right story?
K: Yeah, you are. Yeah, I think you are.
M: And so no reply. So anyway, I couldn’t know. I wasn’t as worried about Vincent as I was
about my two kids! Whose lookin after my two kids! But anyways. So finally anyway finally
I called Norah, Mrs. Soden she lives in the same house on this floor and I said to her, she
answered the phone, I said, “Oh, did ye see Vincent?” “Did he not call ya?! He’s movin!” she
said!! (laughs)
K: On the day that Aunt Val was born?! When you were in the hospital?
M: In the hospital yeah, “He’s movin!”I says, oh my I couldn’t believe with what, nothing
packed, nothin..
K: Did you know that you were movin to College Point.
M: I didn’t, the first I’d heard. I knew we were movin to College Point but we had no date
set or anythin cause we were expecting Valerie and we wanted to wait there until that was
all done. So it seems that there were a few of them, that was that holiday weekend. And him
and Nora Soden’s husband, he was her boyfriend that time, was there and Matt Brady was
there and I dunno who else, so they says to Vincent “why don’t you go rent a truck, put it
outside the door and we’ll move ya tomorra. On the holiday”
K: And they did?
M: So he went, got over to the truck, put it right outside the door, which was perfect cause if
he waited till mornin he wouldn’t get anything. And anyway he’s up and down four flights
of stairs movin this stuff, he didn’t think to call his wife yknow.But that was funny, that was
funny. So anyway, that was that story.69
K: So when you went outta the hospital you moved into a new house?
M: Yes, yeah. I did and one of his friends from Ireland was there helping em move. Well
anyways, helping him move, but he was helpin him clean up the place. And he was, he
worked for Con Edison.70 And I will always remember, he was like, (stands) I should be
sittin…
K: No, that’s fine go ahead.
M: There was like a hallway like that
K: Right
Astoria, Queens New York City.
A story that I think is truly indicative of how hard my Granda worked as an immigrant to
America, he spent most all of his time working and trying to get overtime and on his day off
him and his friends didn’t just rest on their laurels but helped his family move to a new
neighborhood.
70 The New York gas, steam, and electric service.
68
69
M: And there he is, with the biggest arms I ever saw. But anyway he was washin and cleanin
and everything. So anyway, that was that story. So Geraldine and them oh I thought I’d
never get them home. They were over with Mamie, she wanted to keep them save me,
because I had Valerie as a baby. Yeah and a new house, not a new house, an old house. But..
K: Yeah.
M: You never saw that place did ye?
K: College Point?
M: Yeah
K: I never saw Woodside.
M: Oh yeah.
K: I saw College Point
M: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
K: So what was that like, you had to mix it up a little bit I guess?
M: Oh yeah, because other people moved out. Well we bought that house.
K: You bought it, not rented it?
M: We bought that house yeah. And so we had done nothin with it. Because I was like
expectin any minute I guess. And oh Vincent was over there yeah. He was paintin it and all
that beforehand and then he did, he cut it out because the phones weren’t connected or
anything and he was afraid that if I needed him, we didn’t have cell phones that time.
K: Right.
M: I guess? I guess not. So he didn’t want to be out there paintin, he didn’t have interest in
the paintin because it was time to be goin outside to call me to see if I was alright all the
time.
K: So you were renting the house in Woodside and then you decided to buy the house in
College Point, right? You were renting in Woodside? In the apartment?
M: Right, we rented there. That’s right.
K: And then you decided to buy the house in College Point?
M: Yeah.
K: What made you decide to buy a house?
M: Well cause we had three kids now. Right? Two.
K: Well you had two and then you had the third on the way.
M: Oh yeah yeah, that’s right, so we needed that and so Vincnet wanted to buy a house, an
apartment house because he could use. Did we have a spare apartment? We did.
K: Yeah.
M: We could use it, that would nearly pay the mortgage. Y’know so he always used his head
(laughs).
K: Right.
M: But anyways that’s what we did. We did a lot of remodelin on that place too afterwards
but it was nice, but anywayss. So we had one apartment upstairs and then he remodeled
the basement, he had a nice basement down there.
K: Yup, I remember.
M: Yeah, you remember, so that was about it on that, movin out. Oh yeah, why did we
move? Actually, his buddy on the buses Corrigan, did ye ever meet Corrigan?
K: I think I did.
M: Yeah, he had a place in College Point and Vin-we were lookin around, College Point, we
really wanted to get a place in Woodside.
K: Right.
M: And every place we went to they’d be fallin apart, the sinks’d be comin from the wall, or
whatever and anyway and Vincent used to often leave Corrigan home, yknow cause he had
a car, and so Corrigan’d say “why don’t ye move to College Point?”But anyways, that’s what
we did. We came out one day to look at the apartment, to look at this place that Corrigan
knew was for sale.
K: Right
M: And we looked in and I was expectin Valerie yknow, so I, when we went to that place it
was a Sunday and they were cookin’ meatballs n spaghetti. Well I thought it was, that smell,
I’d never had meatballs before, I thought I smelled that the sauce, (whispers) it was makin
me throw up. I was so sick. I thought I’d never get outta that place. But anyways what do ya
call, I came out and I sat in the car and waited for them to come out and at that time they
went down to the basement, himself and Corrigan and the (unintelligible). And so they
came out and anyways so they says “oh, the furnace was good, the pipes were good” and all
that. And there was, it looked to me like they’d bought the darned thing. I thought to myself
and I never even got to look to see if they had any closets or anything. And I said “I never
got to have closets or anything, we don’t know they have any closets.” “Suuure there’s
closets”. There wasn’t any closets. We made one big closet.
K: In, in the main room.
M: But we were very short a closets, but anyway I always remember that. That was the
most important thing for me. That I had three girls yknow?
K: Yup.
M: Yeah, I guess I had three girls.
K: What was College Point like at that time, were there a lot of Irish people living in College
Point as well?
M: There was, there was quite a few around there.
K: What other?
M: Oh, oh in College Point?
K: Yeah, College Point.
M: No. I didn’t know too many in College Point. In fact Corrigan’s, Durkin’s71 came shortly
after us. Oh, there was on our block, two houses on the other side there was Nora Roach.
K: Right.
M: From “County Kerry”72 yknow and I tell ya, she was right there, she was a very friendly
woman. And the husband was a busdriver on the same bus as—Roach was as name.
K: Really? On the same bus, on the same route as Granda.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Corrigan was a busdriver.
K: Ok, so they all knew each other.
M: So it was very friendly, nice cause we had Nora Roach all the time, she was very very
very sweet person. Yknow and um our next door neighbor was very nice. She was not Irish
but she was very nice. And her father, he always used to be goin up to the Catskills, he had a
place up in the Catskills. And he used to bring us deer, yknow deer?
K: Yeah.
The Durkins became best friends with my grandparents.
Said in a bit of a singsong voice that is her impression of people from County Kerry, she
does this for people from most counties in Ireland.
71
72
M: Deer, he’d shoot deer. And things, I mean it was nice meat. He had it cut up into little
pieces yknow.73 And that was nice. And Vincent would try anything yknow.
K: Who was this that lived?
M: Schwartz was their name. I think she was German.
K: Ok.
M: And she had a daughter, about twelve at the time. And Mrs. Roach had a daughter, about
twelve at the time.
K: Just about the same age
M: And then they had, my kids were always playin with them, they were “their babies”
(laughs) yknow?
K: Yeah.
M: So they had like a lot of fun. Like it was really nice, and they all had yards. We had a yard,
they had a yard. Schwartz had a yard. The other one had a y- and they were all very nice,
what was that (unintelligible) she’s sleepin is she?74
K: And you had, you had a
G: I’m not asleep, Nora Schwartz and Walter was the son..
M: What?
K: And you had, you had a pretty big garden in that backyard too for awhile?
M: Yeah! Yeah, and Roach’s had a pretty big one. Schwartz’s wasn’t as big but it was big
enough because her husband had a small house.
K: Right.
M: But I forget, what was Schwartz’s daughters name? Do you remember Ger?
G: Jeanie? Janey?
K: Yeah, in College Point there were, you’d mentioned the spaghetti and meatballs there
were, there were a lot of Italians living in College Point?
M: Yeah, well there was a lot of Irish, and German, and Italians.
K: Yeah.
M: Yeah both of them and quite a few Irish, and quite a few Irish moved in after. Because
the houses were more reasonable I think there.
K: And would you describe it as a working class neighborhood?
M: Yeah, yeah.
K: Working class neighborhood, yeah. And safe?
M: And safe and yeah very nice, and you had the bus right there on Main Street. Yknow goin
out to Flushing75 and (unintelligible) It was very convenient, very convenient, there was
everything ya wanted, it was nearly like here. Where you could get anythin you wanted. If
you couldn’t you could just jump on the bus and go into Flushing.
K: Right.
M: You had all them big stores and everything you want. And go onto the subway into the
Manhattan.
K: Sure
M: It was very convenient for everywhere.
Afterwards she told me she was trying to think of the word venison.
She noticed my mother had fallen asleep at this point.
75 Flushing, Queens New York City
73
74
K: So I think it’s interesting, you’d mentioned that you’d figured for a long time that you
would go back and yknow the biggest reason you didn’t, one of the biggest reasons that you
didn’t was because, Mom, my mom was twelve years old and she was, she was in so many
ways American.
M: Yeah. Yeah she was American and..she would and I figured she would have to learn the
Gaelic. And that was not true, I heard that years after. That would have killed me at the
time. But that was one of the things that I really thought..and she was very smart, she’s still
smart. Your mom.
K: And what were some things I guess that were interesting to you, because you grew up.
You grew up Irish. And now you were raising daughters that, in so many ways you still
thought of yourself as Irish. But you were raising daughters who were American.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
K: What was that like, was that, what was that like.
M: Well no, it was fine. That was the way it was. Yknow, and they had a lot of nice friends. A
lot of them were..A lot of them were around the corner, they had the Murano’s her age. Very
very lovely people. And then she had a lot of friends, a lot of lovely friends. Down at the,
where the park was, there was a park there was a girlfriend down there. There was quite a
few friends.
K: Sure.
M: Yeah, and Vera the same. Vera was a little quieter than Geraldine. She was always a little
bit quiet.
K: Yeah.
M: Valerie, I dunno what Valerie was. But Valerie saw to her own, she was always tinier and
smaller y’know than the other two.
K: Yeah, she was younger.
M: She was younger, but even so, yeah. (laughs) She was always runnin and racin, she was
like a little rabbit.
K: Sure.
M: Yeah.
K: So what was it like I guess that, now as they got older, they went off to college, then you
and Granda kinda had an empty nest again.
M: Yeah
K: Right, you had an empty nest, you had the house to yourselves what was that like?
M: Yeah, well ya know even when they were goin to college, they’d come visit all the time
yknow?
K: Yeah.
M: Or they were stayin home. Well, Geraldine stayed in college. Vera went, well Vera moved
on, she went to Nebraska I think it was. And Valerie went to same college as Ger. And, but
they always kept in comin back and forth yknow?
K: And you had a lot of visitors too right?
M: Yeah! Yes.
K: A lot of guests.
M: That’s right, a lot of Irish visitors. They’d all stay with me. Yknow?
K: Can you tell me a little bit about that?
M: What?
K: Can you tell me about that, the visitors, where they would stay and a lot of them would
come and be working right?
M: Yeah, that’s right
G: I think you two are doin fine without me. Can I go to bed?76
K: Is that alright if she goes upstairs?
M: Yeah, yeah.
G: You two are doin fine and enjoy the rest of the interview.
K: Ok. Alright.
M: Yeah, Vincent, there was a lot of…what was I goin to say?
K: Visitors, there were a lot of visitors. There were a lot of visitors that came.
M: That’s right and a lot of them would come and go to work but they’d stay with me first
yknow, until they got settled. And so that was nice, I always loved havin them, most of them
were on Vincent’s side of the family.
K: Right.
M: Yknow, like Mary Cooney came.77
K: Right
M: And she stayed with me for quite a while and her uh..husb..her brother Tom came.78
K: Right. Big Tom?79
M: He stayed..I think he stayed with Ambrose. I think.80
K: Ok.
M: And uh, what do you call him, Gerard came.81
K: Right.
M: And he stayed with me. But like if they were only comin for two weeks or somethin
they’d stay with me. But these were all comin for longer, they were comin for work yknow?
K: Right.
M: And they all enjoyed, I enjoyed havin them too and Vincent loved havin’ them. He loved
havin’ them. When there’d be someone from Ireland comin’ he’d love that. And so anyway.
And they loved living with us, like ye couldn’t see by Gerard when you were home there?
K: Yup. He said, he said that you were like, you were as much a mother to him as his own
mother.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
K: That’s what he said.
At this point my mother left the interview to go to sleep.
My mother’s cousin, Mary Cooney.
78 Another common vocal tic that surprisingly did not come up much in this interview is she
will cycle through several different relationships (husband, brother, cousin) or names
(Jack, Charlie, Tom) before settling on the correct one.
79 “Big Tom” was Mary Cooney’s brother, Thomas Cooney. There were several Thomases
though and he was the largest. Also, one of the first individuals in my mothers generation to
move from Ireland to America. He came here to work and decided to stay unlike many of
the rest who went back.
80 Many of the Irish relatives stayed with my Nana and Granda rather than my Uncle
Ambrose because they had a finished basement and finished upstairs apartment, as well as
a guest room. They had the space to accommodate plenty of guests.
81 My mother’s cousin, Gerard Cooney. Now lives in Donegal, Ireland.
76
77
M: And they were all like that, Mary Cooney used to say, Mary Cooney used to say “I was
her second mom”
K: Yeah
M: Yknow, and I didn’t know at the time I just, I just treated them all the same! But I didn’t
really realize all that until later on when they’d be sayin “how good I was”
K: And they’d grown up and had their own families.
M: What?
K: When they’d grown up and had their own families.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they really enjoyed bein’ with with us, and Vincent
used to love havin em. Like I mean Paul82 came, Gerard came. All them, I told ye all of them.
Right?
K: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about, I mean I know a lot of stories about Granda about
how he was such a hard worker and he was a smart ma.
M: Yeah, he was a smart man. And he only had like a national school education.
K: Which would be to about what? 8th grade?
M: Yeah. I don’t think he ever made it that far. I don’t think he ever made it that far. But
he..his mother was a teacher.83
K: Yeah.
M: And his grandmother was a teacher.
K: Right.
M: And his uncle was a teacher.84 And they all had all these little small schools around. But
he never, eh Vincent would…the others all went to school everyday. He didn’t go to school
everyday. We often wondered how he was so smart. Yknow he could look at your wall and
he’d measure it up and he’d tell ya how much wallpaper you’d to want. That used to amaze
me yknow?
K: Right.
M: And he’d know quite a lot of things like that.
K: The recitations, I always remember the recitations.85
M: Yeah! He had a lot of recitations and eh especially when he had a few drinks taken. And
he wouldn’t miss a word. Yknow? Dangerous Dan McGrew. The Shirt of a Happy Man. And
that was a great..I love that one myself.
K: “The King was sick” right? Was that it, that’s The Shirt of A Happy Man right?
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
K: Did he learn those in school do you remember? Do you know? Did he learn those in
school or did his mother teach him?
Gerard’s brother, Paul Cooney.
His mother, Maryann “Molly” Cooney (nee Gilchrist) was a teacher at one of the local
national schools.
84 His uncle was in fact the schoolmaster and it was always related to me that he was very
very strict.
85 “the recitations” were long poems that my Granda had committed to memory, later on in
life he suffered from Alzheimer’s but before that had reached a more debilitating point I
recall him performing some of these around Christmas at a large family party.
82
83
M: Oh, yknow that I don’t know, I don’t know. But he never would miss a word. And if he
forgot, he’d be right back on track in a minute. I don’t know how…And especially if he had a
few drinks taken.
K: Yeah. (laughs)
M: You’d wonder…I’d be up there chokin’ because I wouldn’t be able to tell him yknow? But
he was great with them, he never, he didn’t sing. But whenever there’d be in a company he
would always say his recitation. They’d ask him to say it! Because everybody liked. He had
all the..the way he’d. Ya ever heard him?
K: The characters, and the voices? Yeah
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He did a great job on doin it yknow? But anyways he did a
very good..he never sang. I dunno if any of them sang? If any of their family sang.
K: They said Leo sang.86
M: Oh yeah, he sang.
K: And Gerard. That’s where Gerard got his singing voice. That’s what they told me.
M: Oh yeah, do you remember , “Hills of Athenry”87
K: Yup.
M: That was a nice song.
K: And so, um, he did a lot of improvements on the house too.
M: Yeah.
K: He did a lot of work on the house.
M: Yeah, he did. He did all that basement himself. Did he, well maybe not every bit of it. But
most of it. And I never realized that basement was so good until your cousin Brian88 came.
K: Yeah.
M: Y’know, he thought it was so wonderful.
K: Well it was unbelievable what he did. What he did down there.
M: Yeah.
K: He had no, he had no. He had never trained under anybody to do anything like that.
M: That’s right.
K: All self taught.
M: Yeah. Yeah.
K: But he would, they would all help each other out. Right? Ambrose and all of his friends
and Corrigan and Durkin..
M: I dunno about Ambrose was doin it but Corrigan would help him and he would have a
couple from the buses, there was one guy Harris, he used to be at the supermarket. I forget
his name, I forget his name.
K: That’s ok.
M: And he was very good. He helped to put that backdoor.
K: Yup.
M: I remember puttin’ that backdoor, the two of them putting. Like Vincent might, he’d do
all the details and Vincent would be, you’d have to have somebody holdin it. And all that
kinda thing.
Leo Cooney, my Granda’s brother.
She is referring to “The Fields of Athenry” an Irish revolutionary song.
88 My cousin Brian Towers, on my father’s side lived in my Nana’s finished basement for a
time while working in New York City until he found a new apartment.
86
87
K: Right.
M: But um.
K: And he would go help them I imagine too right with little projects and thing right?
M: Oh yeah! Yeah he would always would. Like a lot of those jobs. Two. You’d have to have
two. Maybe more but you’d have to have two. One is no goo…one cannot do. Even a
professional one person cannot do it. Yknow?
K: Can you tell me? One of my favorite stories is the story about Granda and the boat.
(pause) When he got the boat.
M: Oh yeah?
K: Do you remember that?
M: Yeah.
K: Can you tell me about that?
M: Well I dunno what was so good about that.
K: I just, I got a kick out of it. I didn’t know that he ever had a boat and…
M: He did, he had a boat and..
K: How did that come to be?
M: When we were in Ireland, we were in Ireland at the time when he got the boat.
K: And he would stay and work.
M: What?
K: He would not come to Ireland with you. He would stay and work.
M: Yeah. And that made his. That made his summer, like he would could work all the
overtime he wanted. We’d be over there for eight weeks, ten weeks. Yknow?
K: Right.
M: And he worked. Work, work, work, work. Oh yknow for the company because when ye
have kids ye don’t get to work that much yknow.
K: Right.
M: And cause, I didn’t drive. He would drive. And on his days off he’d like to bring us
someplace nice. Staten Island.89 Or y’know wherever. Rockaway.90 Whatever time of year,
but anyway, we always did somethin like we weren’t homebodies or anything like that.
K: Right.
M: But anyways, I think we had a pretty good life. Yknow.
K: Right. The boat..
M: The boat…we were in Ireland and he bought this secondhand boat I guess. And I..forget
the story…and I think this other guy Roach, d’ya remember Roach?
K: Yeah.
M: And he’d be writin, telling me the boat, they were down on the boat I think. Dyin’ with
the heat, paintin it. And all that kinda..sandin it down. Sandin’ it down, they had to sand the
whole thing down yknow.
K: Yeah.
M: And anyway. I dunno if this is the part you wanted was but they got it all ready to go in
the water. And it…
K: It wouldn’t float.
M: Yeah!
89
90
Staten Island being a borough (community) within New York City.
The Rockaway peninsula, a popular vacation spot in Queens, New York City.
K: What happened? Did it, did it sink?
M: Well no I think they just, I dunno what happened. I forget the story but I mean I know I
was dyin to get back I thought that would be a lovely thing to do with the kids.
K: Yeah.
M: Boat. On the boat. And anyway, they spent so much time on it cause every letter would
be full about the boat! (laughs) “The boat, sandin’ it all down” They had to sand it outside
and they had to sand it inside. And they had to get new pieces on it They were. It was a busy
busy time.
K: Right.
M: I don’t think he even missed us he was so busy with the boat.
K: (laughs)
M: But anyways, it never quite worked after all that work. And I was dyin’ to get home, I
couldn’t wait to get home to get out on the water.
K: Yeah!
M: And the kids yknow? Well anyway.
K: That’s funny.
M: I dunno, was that good?
K: Beyond the Rockaways and like Staten Island, did you ever take any longer vacations?
Beyond Ireland. Did you ever take any longer vacations? Other vacations in the United
States anywhere else? Did you ever travel anywhere?
M: Wait’ll I see now. Did we? Mostly Ireland at that time we would go to Ireland and that’d
be it. Well we would, we went to Canada a couple of times.
K: Ok.
M: That was to relations.
K: And would you drive? How would you get up there? Drive?
M: We’d drive. Yeah we’d drive. And the first time we went, I think it was a little Studdy
Baker we had.91
K: Ok.
M: And uh nobody could believe that we took this thing to Canada.
K: (laughs)
M: So we were c..and it brought us all the way there, but comin’ home, The Catskills….
K: It died.92
M: Died! (laughs)
K: Really?
M: It died! It was lucky, we were, we stayed the night in the Catskills.93
K: Ok.
M: Which was a good place to die yknow? And anyway, but I remember we were all tryin’ to
push it, Vincent and us three girls tryin to push the darned thing. But I mean how much
could ya?
K: Yeah.
Studebaker.
Another example of her having me guess the end of a story and taking great delight when
I got it right.
93 The Catskills are mountains in upstate New York.
91
92
M: But it would puff and puff and we’d think we’d had it started but we, I dunno what
happened. I dunno how we got home from there. Cause the Catskills is quite a distance
away.
K: Right.
M: But anyways, I forget that story, I must ask. I dunno who I’d ask. Ambrose might know.
K: That’s a good one, that’s a great story.
M: Yeah.
K: So, as mom and Aunt Val and Aunt Vera got older…uh…Christmases, I remember
Christmases when I was a kid when I was very young and there’d be these big Christmas
parties and things like that. And those were always so much fun. Christmases at your house
in College Point.
M: Oh yeah.
K: Do you wanna talk a little about that? Having all the family there and what that was like.
M: Yeah, for the dinner d’ya mean?
K: For the big dinner and the gifts, and we’d go out afterwards somewhere to a cousins
house or somethin’
M: Yeah, yeah. It’s hard to remember all that stuff. We would have a very very nice, we’d
have the cakes, like coconut and I would, I’d always used to bake a coupla cakes. Fruit
cakes.
K: Yeah.
M: And like, the Americans didn’t go for fruit cakes. But we, we did. And so we did a fruit
cake, and we’d always have like the turkey and trifle was a big thing.
K: Yup.
M: That was another Irish dessert. We don’t even have it anymore. And um, what else did
we have? Yeah…and then of course the gifts. And then we’d go down to Ambroses I think it
was.
K: Yup.
M: And oh yeah and all their kids, we could exchange gifts.
K: With the cousins.
M: Yeah, exchange gifts with the little kids yknow?
K: Sure.
M: But of course we’d buy nice things that they’d want y’know?
K: Right.
M: And it was a great time for ye, ye could play.
K: It was great.
M: It was nice.
K: So I don’t think I’ve ever asked you this, but what was that like, you had daughters and
then your daughters had kids. When Stephen94 was born or when I was born or Michael95
and Kristen. What was it like havin grandkids?
M: Oh that was wonderful. That was wonderful. And it was wonderful havin’ you. You were
the cutest little guy that ever lived. And very imaginative. Y’know. You would be like “The
Zookeeper!” and ye’d have the braces on and all that thing. And you were..everything
was..you had great imagination.
94
95
My Aunt Vera’s son, Stephen O’Neal.
My Aunt Vera’s other son, Michael O’Neal.
K: Yeah.
M: Great imagination, moreso than any other kid. And ye were a handsome little guy. You’re
still handsome.
K: Thanks Nana. When..Well, how did Granda , when the grandkids came along Granda
must’ve been thrilled too.
M: Oh yeah yeah yeah sure. And he’d when ye’d come out he’d have ya on his knee and he
used to do the same with my own kids. Ya know that.
K: And then as time went on um Granda got sick and then passed away and you moved out
here.
M: Yeah, yeah.
K: Out onto Long Island, and what was that like, the move leaving College Point?96
M: Leaving College Point. I really miss College Point. Because I don’t drive.
K: Yeah.
M: And it, ye had everything there in College Point that ye wanted, ye’d go up the street you
could buy anything you wanted really. And if it ya didn’t you’d just jump on the bus and go
to Flushing. Like here you’ve got to have somebody drive you if ye’d like to go someplace.
And I feel bad askin everyone. Well I don’t ask ye, ye offer, like your dad. Or your mom or
whatever. Val, they’re there. Well in fact they make the doctors appointments and all that
for me. Y’know? But I still feel bad askin them. But it’s like so different, like, College Point
was a busy little place. Here ya don’t hardly see anybody. Y’know it’s like very private. And
if that’s the right word?
K: Sure.
M: Well ya have the neighbors across the street and next door neighbors but like…
K: It’s not the same.
M: It’s not the same, it’s not the same. Like in College Point you’re houses were, well..was
our house joined? No it was separated but but they were side by side. Here ye have a lot of
property. Yeah we’d have a little backyard, which was enough for us. Not everybody had a
backyard but it was a great thing to have. We used to, when the kids were little we had a
small, not a big pool like yours but a small pool y’know? But it was great for them and
they’d wrap it up at the end of the year and take it out the next year or get a little bigger the
next year and the people on the other side had one. The Schwartz’s was it? No, not
Schwartz’s. Shaudeneckers. And they would have kids the same age as ours and they’d
come over to us. And they’d have lunch with us, we’d have lunch outside at the table out
back and they could go over the other side where Schwarz’s was. Where the
Schaudeneckers was. And well, Schwartz’s was the other side.
K: Right.
M: But anyways, so it was really nice, and that woman was so sweet. She had a lot of kids.
One every year. And but she was very very nice.
K: When you when we went back this summer, Mom and Dad and Kristen and myself and
you to Ireland, it was my first time there.
M: Yeah, yeah.
K: And we went to Crossmolina and traveled all around and you got to see your sisters and
we went to Dublin and all that. And what was that like, going back after so long?
96
My Nana currently lives with my mother and father on Long Island in New York.
M: Yeah, well I was really lookin’ forward to it, and I was really lookin’ forward to you, you
had been dyin’ to go for a long time, and you’re dad had been dyin’ to go. He had been dyin’
to go for a long time and he really enjoyed it yknow? He really enjoyed it. And they loved
him. In fact when Sally was talkin, my sister Sally the last time, I said somethin’ about Jack
and she says “what a nice guy” she says yknow? And I said “yeah, real nice guy.” But
anyway and he is a wonderful guy your Dad, yknow? I dunno anybody as good as him.
Thoughtful, and can do everything and knows everything. But anyways so uh.
K: So what was it like going back to Crossmolina?
M: Oh I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it but it’s not. The people are nearly all dead, like
I’m eighty six now. Eighty five. So all my friends, they’re all gone. Like Mickey Loftus he was
still there.
K: He was still there.
M: Yeah, he’s my age, and Edie, she’s still there. And remember the Morins? I was surprised
at her yknow? I didn’t know she was still there. But like it was really nice and they were so
happy to see ya. Really really and they were dyin to see y’all. My kids and her kids y’know.
But they were really really nice. Like down where my sister lives in Killala, I didn’t know
too many people back down there. Yknow?
K: Right.
M: I visited a few people, Mary Jo Larsen.
K: Sure.
M: But, what was I goin to say? But I really say, where I started workin’ in Munnelly’s.
Remember that was the first place we went. And it was closed up! I was so disappointed.
And bringin’ ye to see where I’d started to work. And then one other thing..I was so sorry,
there was a couple of places I should have gone and some people I should have gone to see
and I didn’t and I was really sorry I didn’t go to Newport where my cousin was. Y’know that
girl?
K: Yeah.
M: And ye would have liked that area too, well ye went to Westport.
K: Right.
M: So that was a lovely town.
K: Yeah it was.
M: Did ye like it?
K: Yeah it was.
M: Yeah, I haven’t been there in years. But that’s where my father served his time. Y’know
to business. Right.
K: Where he apprenticed?
M: Yeah.
K: He apprenticed in Westport.
M: Yeah. But um it was a nice town and they’ve improved on it I believe. For like, it’s a sort
of resort type of area now.
K: Right.
M: But it was originally nice, I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed every minute. Of course my
family and my sisters and all that but it was really exciting, really exciting. And I was
excited cause ye were excited. Yeah I was really excited and I was so happy that you’re dad
enjoyed it. Cause I figured, he has no idea. He probably had an idea but I don’t think he like,
you really don’t have an idea until you’re there y’know?
K: Yup.
M: And I say, you said, “what did you like most?” and you said “your family” and your
cousins and all that. And there’s such an amount of them. Especially in the Cavan side. It
must be an exciting time. Yknow? An exciting time. And then there was a lot like the
scenery to me didn’t mean that much. But it was different to ye. You were in Kerry and all
that so it was different. It was really really nice. But, so yeah. And the people are wonderful.
Yeah.
K: That’s true.
M: Very very friendly. Very friendly. Very friendly people. But they don’t think they’re
friendly they just, that’s the way they are.
K: That’s the hospitality.
M: Yeah, that’s just the way they are here. Yknow?
K: Yeah. Sure. (pause) What do you think, just wrapping up. Y’know you’ve been in this
country for so long and you’ve lived for so long, what do you think has changed the most
over years. Y’know, since you were a girl or since you came to America or just in your
estimation. In your own life or just in..
M: Well, that’s a hard one, wait’ll I see now. (pauses) Well of course, comparin’ Ireland with
America, you cannot really compare yknow? Like America’s busy busy busy yknow?
Ireland, yknow you can see when you visit there, everybody has time to sit down and talk
or stand up and talk or whatever, here nobody has time, everybody is busy right?
K: Right.
M: And everybody is workin, everybody is workin. And but of course it’s gettin’ a bit like
that in Ireland now too like when I was growin’ up no mothers would be workin. The
fathers would be workin. If they were farmers they’d be out on the farm, if they had
business they’d be in the business, like my mother when we were growin up, she never
would even help my father in the shop, he would have a guy, a man or someone to help him,
y’know what I mean?
K: Right.
M: But it was like, but now all the women in Ireland are workin just the same as the men.
And a lot of them..there’s not as much farmin’ I don’t think.
K: Right.
M: And there’s a lot of business, although there’s a lot of business in the farmin’, d’ya
remember when we went to visit Kathleen?97 Like her boss, he has like a gravel pit or
somethin. And she works there. And her husband works there. And she…yknow when she
started ther, she’d just finished leavin cert. Like your final exam in the secondary school
and she worked in that business, and she’s still there. And like they had babies at that time,
that man and woman and no w they’re like, although I don’t think the father is workin,
they’re like the family is like the president and the vice president and whatever but they’re
all workin in that particular business, but like farming doesn’t seem to be as big a thing as it
was and now the wives are out workin just the same as the men, like they’re education.
Education in that time wasn’t as big. Now? Ya have to have an education. Like even in this
country. If ye don’t have college education ye cannot even get a job.
K: Right.
97
Kathleen Smith (nee Cooney) a cousin in Ireland.
M: Like yknow one time, if I remember correctly, policemen, ya didn’t need. Ya maybe
needed just a high school education and do you take a test for that? I think for the police
you do.
K: Yup, for the police you do.
M: Yeah, well any job you have to do a test for is a little harder I think. But now, if you’re a
couple years with college you don’t even get into the police I think. As far as I remember,
maybe I’m wrong.
K: Sure.
M: Yeah but in Ireland it’s nearly the same thing. Nearly everybody is educated. In the
university. And very hard to get into them too. Y’know, like you’ve seen in Gerard’s family,
they’re all goin to college. You’d seen Paula’s daughter…
K: Aoife.
M: She’s in college..goin to college, they’re all goin to college to get any kind of a job.
K: For sure.
M: Well it’s hard. It’s, now there’s not that many job. There’s not that many jobs. So now
you’ve nearly, well you can still get into teachin’ and nursin’ if you’re a girl, y’know what I
mean? But y’know it’s hard work. It’s hard work.
K: What. Well, we can wrap up with this I think. What would you say, this might be a bit of a
difficult question. But, what do you think you’re the most proud of from your own life.
M: Oh my goodness. (pause) Hm. That I’m the most proud of? Well I’m glad I have three
beautiful daughters. I think that’s an accomplishment.
K: Absolutely.
M: And they got on well. They all got on well. And so on and so forth. And um, and I always
had plenty to get along with, I was never short and I always had like y’know a nice home,
now I have a nice home, then I had a nice home, like in College Point I had a nice home. And
even when we were in the apartments we had like a nice house with nice people Ye could
go in to, you could knock on the door and say hello.
K: Sure.
M: And they could do the same to you. You miss that now, there’s not much of that.
Friendship yknow?
K: Right.
M: Yeah, that’s a bit like Ireland, everyone’d be in and out the next door yknow.
K: Great. That’s a great answer, I think that’s a great answer.
M: Oh yeah?
K: Great, thank you very much.
M: Oh. I hope I did well.
K: You did great. You did wonderful
M: Because some things is hard to remember and um..
K: You did an absolutely fantastic job.
M: Aw thank you.