Boston and the Irish Famine

Boston is as Irish as it gets in America.  

The plaque that goes with this statue says:  Lest We Forget

The commemoration of The Great Hunger allows people everywhere to reflect upon a terrible episode that forever changed Ireland. The conditions that produced the Irish famine - crop failure, absentee landlordism, colonialism and weak political leadership -- still exist around the world today.  Famines continue to decimate suffering populations.  The lessons of the Irish famine need to be constantly learned and applied until history finally ceases to repeat itself.

(Unfortunately, I don't believe that mankind CAN learn from its mistakes.  We certainly haven't since the beginning of recorded time.)

Starting in 1845, a virulent fungus devastated the potato crop, depriving poor Irish families of their main source of food and subsistence*.  Ironically, as thousands of Irish starved to death, the British government then ruling Ireland callously allowed tons of grain to be exported from Ireland to pay absentee landlords their rent.  "The stranger reaps our harvest, the alien owns our soil." wrote Irish poet Lady Jane Wilde.

The grate famine which ravaged Ireland between 1845-50 was the major catastrophe of the 19th century.  It brought horrific suffering and loss to Ireland's 8.5 million people.  Over one million died of starvation and disease.  Another two million emigrated, seeking sanctuary in Boston and other North American cities.  Those remaining in Ireland suffered poverty, eviction, and the decimation of their culture.  This memorial remembers the famine, known in Irish as An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger).  It depicts the Irish exodus from their homeland, their arrival in Boston and ultimate triumph over adversity in America.  It was dedicated on June 28, 1998, as part of the 150th anniversary of The Great Hunger.


Another plaque says:  The American Dream

Despite hostility from some Bostonians and signs of NO IRISH NEED APPLY, the Famine Irish eventually transformed themselves from impoverished refugees to hard-working, successful Americans.  The leadership of Boston Irish like John Boyle O'Reilly, Patrick Collins and Richard Cardinal Cushing culminated in a descendant of the famine generation, John F. Kennedy, becoming the nation's first Irish Catholic President in 1960.  Today 44 million Americans claim Irish ancestry, leading the nation in Medal of Honor winners, and excelling in literature, sports, business, medicine and entertainment.  

I liken what the British did to the Irish to what the American government did to the Native Americans when they allowed the millions of buffalo (bison) to be slaughtered almost to extinction.  The buffalo were to Native Americans what the potato was to the Irish.  Shame on both the British government and the American government. 

However, what was, is.  The Irish came to America and "moved on."  They haven't demanded special treatment or minority status.  They just put their shoulders to the grindstone and have made successes of themselves right and left.  No namby-pamby treatment for them.  They were - and are - people of pride and strength of character.  The Native Americans also have claimed no special treatment.  They live in their nations on reservations or have assimilated into the American lifestyle.  Again, people of pride and strength of character.  I for one am proud to be a descendant of Native Americans.

*subsistence -- especially means barely sufficient to maintain life.  I always think of existence and sub-sistence.  Below the level of existing.

Headed Into Boston Today

Just thirty minutes away from Merrimack, New Hampshire is the amazing city of Boston!

 

So rich in history it is impossible to describe!  We were here once before, from Hartford, Connecticut on our second contract as medical travelers (http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2011/08/hartford-connecticut.html), but it was raining cats and dogs and battleships even.  We tried our best to sight-see, but rain was coming down as though it was being poured out of buckets and water was running over the gutters right into the doorways of shops.  I've never seen rain like that!  No wonder they don't just have taxis but also the famous Duck Boats for tourists.

This trip we have bright blue skies - but it was cold!  However, buried somewhere in there

 

is the story of our Founding Fathers, of the first shots fired in the American Revolution (March 26, 1770)  (Not a typo.  The Boston Massacre happened in 1770.)  None other than John Adams, the future second President of the United States of America, defended the BRITISH involved in that shooting.  Fair play is part of what America was founded on, and Adams exemplified that even before "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one nation to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another..." The U.S. succeeded in its dissolution of its bonds to the British.

Here at Park Street Congregational Church in the much older Old Granary Burial Ground (established in 1660) are lie the bodies of many of those who began the fight for America's independence and the creation of these United States of America.   People like Paul Revere (1734-1818), Samuel Adams (1722-1803), several members of the "Boston Tea Party" of 1773 such as Joseph Shed and Matthew Loring, Robert Treat Paine who served as a military chaplain during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and in 1770 led the prosecution of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre,  John Hancock, the parents of Benjamin Franklin, Peter Faneuil, and (just to lighten the moment) Mother Goose.  Yes, that's right, Elizabeth Goose, the second wife of Isaac Goose.  She raised 10 step-children and 10 of her own - twenty children!  Is she the Mother Goose though?  James Otis (1725-1783) is also buried here.  He was a prolific pamphlet writer in the time of the American Revolution.  Pamphlets were the Facebook of the 1700's.  In one, "The Rights of the British Colonies, Proved and Asserted," he argued that since the Stamp Act had been passed in the English Parliament but bypassed the Colonial legislature, it was taxation without representation.  Now, where have I heard that before ...?

The oldest headstone was carved in 1672.  

Many of those headstones sport skulls and crossed bones and grim reapers. 

These images were supposed to remind the living to be God-fearing Puritans and of the mortality of the body.  Samuel Sewall (1652-1730), who presided over the horrific Salem Witch Trials, is also buried here! You need to remember that the Puritans were still around in the 1770's.  At the conclusion of the American Revolution/War of Independence, the things you and I might see on a headstone, like angels and cherubims, began to appear.  (Thank goodness!)

Unfortunately, in the 1830's, graveyards began to evolve into botanical cemeteries.  I say unfortunately because, to compete with new, commercial graveyards, older places like this church graveyard began to move "organic groundskeepers" (cows and pigs) out, and arrange existing headstones into neat little rows to make human grounds-keeping easier.  For good or bad, the bodies were not rearranged. So, who really IS buried under those names???

And, last info on the Granary Burial Grounds, does anyone remember this "Hunt For More":

Compliments to "Jimmy's Tangents."
http://jimmysgranary.com/GranaryGuide.pdf
http://www.jimmysgranary.com/hrgranarymap-left.jpg

Even Queen Elizabeth thought this place was necessary to honor and visited her on one of her trips to America.

The Town Tomb

While Granpa was working in Manchester, New Hampshire, we lived in Merrimack.  Each day that I took him to work we passed this cemetery.  One day I noticed the inscription on this little building.

It says, "1878 Town Tomb."  Huh?  So, when I got back to the house, I googled it.  Wow!  There's everything from restaurants to Halloween stores - but nothing to explain this picture.

Hmmm, what could it be.  I mean, I've seen family crypts before (Duh!), but a TOWN tomb?  Lets see, we are in the far northeast.  It did take us three and a half days of driving to get here!  Are we far enough north that the ground freezes solid and graves can't be dug?  Do they put caskets in here until the Spring thaw?

Finally Granpa asked around at the hospital, and that's exactly what the deal is.  Why do I find it creepy that there's bodies stacked in there (probably frozen)?  I suppose it's better than to stack them in the barn until the Spring thaw...  Still.  I'm glad I live in Texas where the deer and the antelope play all winter and the ground never freezes!

(From a reader:  Saw your article on Town Tomb. I can tell you from experience it is tough on families. My brothers daughter died in February of 1992 they had a funeral service shortly after her death then they put the body in a tomb until June at which time they had a committal service. Remember I grew up in Maine. A lot of folks now days just have funeral home handle it all.  Can you imagine having a funeral for a loved one then a few months later having a committal service. Linda and I were very fortunate in that are parents died during the warmer months. Every cemetery in our area has a tomb and a few of the larger Churches have tombs.  There was a part of a older TV program called "Northern Exposure" where the bar owner, who was also on the local Cemetery Board went around asking every one how they felt and if they thought they would live thru the winter. If they felt they may not make it he would dig a hole for that person before winter set in!)

Moose Viewing Routes, Rules, and Regulations

I had always heard Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont were loaded with moose.  I felt sure we were bound to see a few zillion while we were here - especially once I found this map.  Not only did it show us the roadways most likely to give moose-sightings a chance, but it gave us moose tips, too.

For instance:

#1.  Apply brakes
#2.  Let up just before impact
#3.  Aim for hind end
#4.  DUCK!


Unfortunately, after days of driving these stupid moose routes the only moose we saw was at an outlet shopping mall!

Manchester, New Hampshire

Manchester is the capitol of New Hampshire, and it is the largest New England city north of Boston - with a population of about 110,000.  Add in the surrounding 'burbs and you have a population of about 410,000 - or 1/3rd of the population of the entire state of New Hampshire. 

I found us a little place in the rural 'burbs:

Now, don't get all wowser on me.  We just had the apartment on the left - see our van?  The rest of the place is a home.  Jean works at the Manchester hospital Granpa is contracted to, and that's how we got onto this place.  Sure beats an Extended Stay!

The driveway was a bit tricky once the snows came.  It wasn't just long, it was downhill if we were leaving - and there were curves!  Brett would clean it with his snowplow tractor attachment, but not always before I took Granpa to work.  One time I tried three times to get up the driveway before Brett plowed, and finally just parked the car at the road and walked up the driveway!

Other Things While We Were Home

There was a Princess style show:

A puppet show:

Halloween:

And the inevitable phone call taking us away from all of this... to New Hampshire!

The Turkey Shoot

Every Fall in Tyler the local Kiwanis Club holds a Turkey Shoot.  For you non-Westerners, that does not mean we all get together and go hunt turkeys for the Thanksgiving table.  It means that, to support the Kiwanis, we pay a couple of dollars, use their single-shot .22 rifles, and, if we hit the target, we get a free frozen turkey - which we can then use for Thanksgiving dinner.  They also dangle a golf ball from a string and if you hit it you get a free ham!

This isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.  In days gone by you could use your own firearm.  You were used to it.  If it was a good gun, it was properly sighted in; if it wasn't a good 'un you at least knew that it pulled to the left or right.  No, nowadays you have to use their rifle- which may or may not have been cleaned in the last ten years, may or may not have been sighted in, has been fired that morning a hundred times or more...  Not to mention the wind seems to always be howling, blowing your bullet God knows where.  And that golf ball on a string?  It's definitely dancing in the wind - at 50 yards!

No, this is for real shooters.  Like us! And we have a winner!  (Of course.)

 Now it's time for Momma to go for the ham...

And, bam!  Just like that there's a ham to go with the turkey!  Never mess with Texas women 'cause she didn't hit the golf ball - she sliced that string in two with one bullet!  The judges figured that was a fair shot! (We did, too.)  Not unexpected for someone who went to college on a Rifle Team scholarship and qualified "Expert" on National Guard rifle range every year!  That's where she met our son - and he qualified Expert not only with a rifle but pistol and machine gun, too.  (She wasn't required to qualify on anything but the rifle.  But she could always out-shoot our son...)

Chores Around The Farm

For awhile now we've needed to rebuild our little bridge over the "creek."











Actually, it's a drainage ditch between the house and driveway,

but Granpa has dressed it up to look like a creek.

He had some pretty good helpers, too.




















Came out looking pretty good.  In no time at all those wolmanized 2x4's will be equally weathered, and it will look even better.  That and finishing the handrails....

Then it was off to repairing a shed torn up by a wind storm.  Mordachai our burro always, always keeps an eye on things!  On a farm you have to use whatever comes to hand, and as you never throw anything away when you're living on a farm, you never know what you'll be using.





It was a big stain, er, strain on the the grandkids to help put on a protective coat of paint.

Then it was on to moving, repairing or outright building new fences.  This is what's known as a "fence slammer."  Our Houston son made it for us.  You just put it over the top of a metal t-post and slam it down to bury that post into the ground.

Leaving Kingman

Going back through these photos certainly makes me homesick for Kingman and all of our friends there!  This time we were in Kingman for a full year.  We acquired so many thing, though, that we had to bring in Granpa's pickup and rent a U-Haul to get home!

Isn't Arizona beautiful?  The skies are endless and the air is so clear, dry as a bone and there is still gorgeous greenery.

But with everything - and everyone - all packed up and good-bye kisses taken care of, we're on our way.

Once we got home and had some going-away gifts put in place ...

...we were ready to get on with the farm chores!

The Blood Moon Prophecy?

 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,

blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

 The sun will be turned to darkness, 

and the moon into blood ,

before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord

shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be a deliverance,

as the Lord hath said, 

and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

-- Joel 2:30-32

Joel is one of the twelve "Minor" Prophets that God spoke through and the Prophet recorded.
There were only five "Major" Prophets.  Those Prophet books of the Bible are tough to read through because of the prophetic language and seemingly constant warnings and condemnations.  The book of Daniel is really, really hard.  Entire seminary courses are taught on that one! But those books of the Old Testament are important because they tell the future.  (People are still going to palm readers to learn the future.  It's already written in the Bible.  Just go there.) Isaiah and Micah told of Christ's birth - and it came to pass EXACTLY as the said it would.  Not impressed?  Isaiah wrote about it seven hundred years before it happened!  Isaiah also tells of Christ's death on the Cross.  Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah told of Christ's return.  Now, if his birth was foretold in precise detail, and his death was foretold in precise detail, why would you doubt that Christ's return won't happen exactly as they said?  You might want to read about that so that you'll know what's going on when it happens!

But, back to the Super Blood Moon...

In 2013, John Hagee published, Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change, and the term "Blood Moon" became a part of the world's standard lexicon.  In his book he lays out why he believes that this series of blood moons, the tetra, heralds the coming of the end times as prophesied by Ezekiel, Daiel and Zechariah.

What Hagee doesn't say is that God/Joel perhaps meant a simultaneous solar and lunar eclipse.  The astronomers say that that doesn't happen.  Even more, they say it can't happen, EVER, on the same day. 

I say, unless, of course, you're GOD!  I mean, after all he hung the sun and the moon!  He can arrange them whatever way He wants whenever he wants!

September 27-28, 2015 - The Blood Moon

The origin of the term, "Blood Moons," is religious, at least according to Christian pastor John Hagee, who wrote a 2013 book about Blood Moons.  The media picked up the term then and have run with it ever since. What astronomers call it is a lunar tetrad (meaning group of four.) It’s four successive total lunar eclipses, with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six lunar months (six full moons).

The big deal this year of 2015 has to do with Biblical Prophecy of what Christians call "the End Times."  This tetrad began on the night of April 15-15, 2014.  The second one was October 7-8, 2014, and the third April 4th, 2015.  The third eclipse was the shortest lasting one for the entire 21st century.  The fourth, on September 27-28 was  the coolest of all because it was a Super Moon!

Granpa and I drove up into the Hualapai Mountains.  Looking back on the town of Kingman was a treat.

We did the best we could with the cameras we had.  They were good enough to create some great memories.

A Little Of Me

I remember our home on Dairy Road.  There was our house and an elderly couple living next door.  That was it.  Us and pastures and cows - oh, and a rodeo next door on Friday nights.  I remember being five years old - and Daddy never lived with us again.

Then we moved to Brookhollow.  Wonderful, 1950's-growing-up-neighborhood.  We played outside from sunup to sundown.  Riding bicycles, eating from the ice cream truck, playing Monopoly with neighbors with games that lasted days.  Street lights came on, and we were supposed to go home.  Mimosa trees in the front yard...

Then Momma and Daddy's breakup was official - and we moved to a stucco house in Abilene.  There was a candy making business up the street, huge trees in the yard. (eew! They were full of strange bugs - zillions of them!)  Momma painted one of the walls in the living room a rich deep red and hung our treasured 4 x 8 bevel-edged mirror on it.  At Christmas she painted a scene of Bethelhem from afar with angels watching down from heaven.  It was beautiful beyond belief.  I think that stayed up there until March when my oldest brother's birthday mirror was due to be painted.  We only lived in Abilene for a short while.  Momma had started an art business with a man.  All I remember about him was that he had a leg brace - maybe from polio as a child?

It was in Abilene that Christ came into my life.  An elderly couple living next door had a granddaughter visit for the summer, and she invited us to something - Vacation Bible School?  I think maybe my brothers and sister went once, but I kept going. I would come home so full of happiness.  When I walked into the house everyone would be angry and fussing.  I never understood why they didn't want to be happy.

Within about a year - maybe a little more - we moved to Nashville, Tennessee.  The house was on acres of land with hundreds of trees.  Really, really rich people lived next door. We were pretty isolated, definitely not Brookhollow.  I got invited to my first dance while we lived there. We were there for three years.

Then everything got left behind except us and our clothing - and the mirror which was to be shipped to us.  We moved into a rent house in the Oak Cliff area of Texas until Momma could find a job, then bought a house close to that job.  When the mirror was delivered the crew managed to shatter it into a million pieces.

It was there that things got very lonely for me.  Our oldest brother left to live with Daddy when he was about 16, and then he joined the Marines.  Our sister was wrapped up in a boyfriend and a job, then graduated from high school and went off to college.  Our youngest brother left to live with our grandparents when he was about 16, and then - not to be outdone by big brother - he, too, joined the Marines.

What they all probably forget is that I was two years ahead of myself in school.  I graduated from high school when I was 16.  That's the good news.  The bad news is, I couldn't get a driver's license until the end of summer before my junior year. Momma really liked for me to take her to work and pick her up.  She didn't have to get out in bad weather and walk a long parking lot to get to a building.  She got to spend twenty or minutes alone in the car with me every morning and every afternoon.  I couldn't get a job until the end of summer before my senior year.  Momma was working two jobs until my senior year.

I would go to school then go home.  Alone.  Just me and the TV.  No computer back then, and certainly no Facebook or online games. Certainly no boyfriends.  I was considered "jailbait" because I was so much younger that all of the other girls. No girlfriends to talk on the phone with - they were more "developed" than I was and proud of it. Having moved around as often as we did I made only one real friend in high school.  She, though, had a major boyfriend and spent most of the time with him.  High school was not a happy time for me.  College was about the same - but at least I could go down to the dorm lobby and play Bridge with other human beings.

By this time I had learned to not be lonely.  I learned how to be alone for hours and hours, but I wasn't sad or scared lonely. 

Buffalo Bill Center of the West

Museums aren't what they used to be.  Here is an example of when nature and art unite.

This dude is gritting his teeth because there just happens to be a bear on his back!

The museum carries folks from wildlife that was here before even the Indians up through the end of Buffalo Bill Cody's life.  Cody was the real deal.  He really was an Indian scout - and a superior one at that. General Philip Sheridan name him chief of scouts for the entire Fifth Cavalry, praising his tracking skills and knowledge of western lands even though there were no maps to be had.  In 1872, Cody even received the Congressional Medal of Honor for the bravery he showed after the Third Cavalry was ambushed by Sioux Indians.

In 1893, Cody bought a printing press and set his sister and her husband up in the newspaper business in Duluth, Minnesota.  The paper folded in 1896 and Cody subsequently shipped the press to Wyoming so that he and a friend could establish the Cody Enterprise.  That newspaper is still being published to this day, and you will find the original printing press in this museum!

What would a wild west museum be with out an extensive (VERY EXTENSIVE) collection of guns!

They even have James Arness' (Marshall Matt Dillon) Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army Revolver, Paladin's from the TV series Have Gun, Will Travel, the pistols of the entire cast of Bonanza, Gene Barry's from Bat Masterson, as well as Audie Murphy's 1905 Bisley Revolver.

Seriously, the number of old west firearms is astonishing.  I thought I never would get Granpa out of there!  However, because he was lollygaggin' (as we say in Texas), I was sitting in the main area waiting ever so patiently, and I saw  the coolest thing of all.  This is a video Granpa took of an image projected onto a fine mist:

For those of you who don't get the video, here's a still he also took.  It's a very ghostly image as the mist is waving and barely visible.

The Irma Hotel, Cody, Wyoming

Of our innumerable trips to the Yellowstone area I don't believe we ever stopped in Cody, Wyoming.  Granpa and his family might have - but not Granpa and I and our family.

Looking for a place to have lunch, I spy the Irma Hotel.  It's lookin' like it's been in downtown Cody since the beginning of Cody - probably because it has been.

The one and only Buffalo Bill Cody built this place and named it after his daughter.  It cost Cody about $80,000 back then.  The Irma hasn't gone the way of many small town businesses; it is still very much alive and well.  One of the interior highlights is the solid cherry bar given to Buffalo Bill by none other than Queen Victoria!  (That seems rather odd to me - but it seems to be the truth.  I mean, did she give it to him because she heard he was opening a hotel?  Did she intend it as the registration desk and he put it to better American West use?)  Regardless, it's really pretty.

Buffalo Bill's whole plan was for folks riding the new Burlington Railroad line into Cody to stay there and book horse and buggy trips into the east entrance to Yellowstone.  He just knew he'd make another one of his fortune, but alas, it was not to be.

More importantly to us, the food was FANTASTIC!! and very affordably priced.  It was a fun lead into the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  THE most amazing, all-comprehensive museum of the west we've been to - and classy.

Why!  There's Granpa with the man himself.