THE BAPTISM OF AGNES MCFARLAND

 The Americanancestors.org website has been adding the Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 for awhile now and I had had no luck finding any of my family in them. But I wouald check back periodically, and finally, a few weeks ago, my luck changed. I found the image of Page 100 from Blessed Sacrament (Jamaica Plain) Baptisms, 1892-1903,and at the very bottom of the page was the entry for my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.

 

Massachusetta:Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2019 (From records supplied by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston).
Page     100


My grandmother was baptized on 10/16/1898. The names of her parents and witnesses are given in a mix of English and Latin:

Father Joannes, John McFarland
!
Mother Ann Kelly

Witness1 Hugh Clark

Witness2 Maria, Mary Flynn

I also found the record for her younger sister Margaret. It was a big family so there are more that I can look for!

AGGIE

((This was my very first post here back in February, 2007.I'm reposting it toay in honor of her birthday,7Oct 1898)

I’m a child of mixed heritage. On one side I’m
descended from a long line of Yankee settlers.
On the other, I’m descended from Irish Catholic
immigrants who came to Boston in the late
19th century.

Meet my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.
In the family she’s known as Aggie. To us grandchildren
she was "Nanny". I believe the picture is for her Confirmation.

She was born in 1898, eighth child and third daughter
out of the ten children that would survive infancy. She
grew up in a Irish Catholic family, her father a laborer
on the Boston Elevated Railway.


She had rheumatic fever as a child in a time when it
was a deadly disease and although she'd survived it left
Aggie with a weak heart. In 1924 she married Edward F.
White Sr. They had two children before a third died, then
Edward walked out in the middle of the Great Depression
leaving Aggie to raise the children on her own.

Aggie divorced him in 1935.

It was hard for her; in those times the label "divorced"
was somewhat shameful for an Irish Catholic woman.


Work was hard to come by for a woman with children
so she scrimped and saved. Some nights dinner was
bread soaked in milk. My Mom and uncle were sent to
a nearby dental school to have their teeth worked on by
students. When Mom came down with what was known
as St. Vitus’ Dance in those days, Aggie somehow came
up with the money for the doctors and to buy liver to
serve at dinner to get Mom’s iron content up. I suspect
Aggie’s parents must have helped her out here and there
financially. My Mom once claimed that the legendary
Boston Mayor James Michael Curley helped out with
some problem as well.


But Aggie was no cream puff, either. One story my
Mom told was of the time she and Uncle Ed skipped
school to hang out at the cottage out on Houghs’ Neck
with their cousins. The place was owned by Aggie’s
younger sister Peggy and her husband Leo McCue and
was quite a distance away from the Jamaica Plain
neighborhood of Boston Aggie and her children lived
in.


Yet suddenly my grandmother was walking down the
beach towards them. She’d taken the trolley and two
different buses to get there. She stayed long enough
to let Mom and Ed get their things and then took
them home by the same route she’d used to get there.


Somehow she did it. She raised her children to adulthood
even though it meant sometimes ducking her rebellious
son's head in the sink when he used swears or nursing her
daughter through a case of scarlet fever. She survived
watching her son join the Navy at 18 to fight in WW2.
All this while living life as a divorced Catholic woman
whose husband had left her for another woman.


She never remarried.


I knew her as Nanny, my grandmother, and she lived
with us when I was a kid. My Dad and Uncle Ed had
bought a two family home after the war in Malden on
a GI loan and so Aggie saw all five of her grandchildren
everyday. But she spent most of the time with my sister
and I because my parents both worked fulltime.


I have memories of her.


She was a quiet woman, black haired with grey streaks
and usually wore those one piece housedresses. She’d eat
peas by rolling them down the blade of her knife into her
mouth and looking back I think she did it to amuse me
and tease my mom. She never yelled but I remember
her breaking up a knockdown fight between two Italian
ladies who lived in the houses to either side of ours and
doing it with a slightly louder than usual voice and a
disgusted tone at their behavior in front of children.

I remember her being upset when the goldfish got sucked
down the drain of the kitchen sink when she pulled the
sink plug by accident after cleaning the goldfish bowl. And
I recall how she kept me from looking out the window after
a worker fell off the roof when it was being reshingled.
(He survived by the way; he broke his back and narrowly
missed landing atop the picket fence that ran between our
house and our next door neighbor’s.)


As time went by her rheumatic heart got worse and she
needed an oxygen tank in her bedroom for when breathing
was hard.


Aggie died at age 58 on February 12th, 1957.


She lived a tough life but she always carried herself like
a lady.

MOTHERS DAY PT 1

Once again for Mothers Day I'm posting photos of our family's mothers.

For our Mom's side we don't have very many since her grandparents immigrated
here from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century.

 

John McFarland & Annie (Kelley) McFarland

First there's Anna Kelley, born 1Oct 1858 in Kiltrustan, Roscommon, Ireland. She married
my great grandfather in Edinburgh Scotland on 16May1879 and shortly after they came
to America and settled in Boston. She had 17 children, 10 of whom survived to adulthood.
Anna died 15Feb 1945 at Boston, Ma. at age 86.

Pauline (Offinger) White

Our other maternal great grandmother was Pauline Offinger, born 17Dec 1873
in Cambridge, Massachusetts to German immigrant parents. She married Edward J.
White on 27Nov 1895 in Boston, Ma. and had 9 children.          

Agnes (McFarland) White

Our grandmother Agnes (McFarland) White was born 7Oct 1898 in Boston, Ma, the
14th of John & Annie's 17 children. She was known as "Aggie" in the family.
She married Edward F.White, Sr. and had two children, our Uncle Ed and our Mom
Anne Marie. She died 12Feb 1957 in Malden Ma.

Anne M. (White) West

Finally, our Mom, Anne M. (White) West. She was born 7Jul 1927 at Boston, Ma and
married our Dad on 29Jun 1947, also at Boston. To her McFarland cousins she was
known as "Red White". She died on 28Jul 1999 at Weymouth, Ma and she is missed by
my brother, my sister, myself and the rest of the family.

MOTHER'S DAY PT 1

Once again for Mothers Day I'm posting photos of our family's mothers.

For our Mom's side we don't have very many since her grandparents immigrated
here from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century.

 

John McFarland & Annie (Kelley) McFarland

First there's Anna Kelley, born 1Oct 1858 in Kiltrustan, Roscommon, Ireland. She married
my great grandfather in Edinburgh Scotland on 16May1879 and shortly after they came
to America and settled in Boston. She had 17 children, 10 of whom survived to adulthood.
Anna died 15Feb 1945 at Boston, Ma. at age 86.

Pauline (Offinger) White

Our other maternal great grandmother was Pauline Offinger, born 17Dec 1873
in Cambridge, Massachusetts to German immigrant parents. She married Edward J.
White on 27Nov 1895 in Boston, Ma. and had 9 children.          

Agnes (McFarland) White

Our grandmother Agnes (McFarland) White was born 7Oct 1898 in Boston, Ma, the
14th of John & Annie's 17 children. She was known as "Aggie" in the family.
She married Edward F.White, Sr. and had two children, our Uncle Ed and our Mom
Anne Marie. She died 12Feb 1957 in Malden Ma.

Anne M. (White) West

Finally, our Mom, Anne M. (White) West. She was born 7Jul 1927 at Boston, Ma and
married our Dad on 29Jun 1947, also at Boston. To her McFarland cousins she was
known as "Red White". She died on 28Jul 1999 at Weymouth, Ma and she is missed by
my brother, my sister, myself and the rest of the family.

AGGIE

((This was my very first post here back in February, 2007. I'm reposting it 
today to mark Womens' History  Month)) 

I’m a child of mixed heritage. On one side I’m
descended from a long line of Yankee settlers.
On the other, I’m descended from Irish Catholic
immigrants who came to Boston in the late
19th century.

Meet my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.
In the family she’s known as Aggie. To us grandchildren
she was "Nanny". I believe the picture is for her Confirmation.

She was born in 1898, eighth child and third daughter
out of the ten children that would survive infancy. She
grew up in a Irish Catholic family, her father a laborer
on the Boston Elevated Railway.


She had rheumatic fever as a child in a time when it
was a deadly disease and although she'd survived it left
Aggie with a weak heart. In 1924 she married Edward F.
White Sr. They had two children before a third died, then
Edward walked out in the middle of the Great Depression
leaving Aggie to raise the children on her own.

Aggie divorced him in 1935.

It was hard for her; in those times the label "divorced"
was somewhat shameful for an Irish Catholic woman.


Work was hard to come by for a woman with children
so she scrimped and saved. Some nights dinner was
bread soaked in milk. My Mom and uncle were sent to
a nearby dental school to have their teeth worked on by
students. When Mom came down with what was known
as St. Vitus’ Dance in those days, Aggie somehow came
up with the money for the doctors and to buy liver to
serve at dinner to get Mom’s iron content up. I suspect
Aggie’s parents must have helped her out here and there
financially. My Mom once claimed that the legendary
Boston Mayor James Michael Curley helped out with
some problem as well.


But Aggie was no cream puff, either. One story my
Mom told was of the time she and Uncle Ed skipped
school to hang out at the cottage out on Houghs’ Neck
with their cousins. The place was owned by Aggie’s
younger sister Peggy and her husband Leo McCue and
was quite a distance away from the Jamaica Plain
neighborhood of Boston Aggie and her children lived
in.


Yet suddenly my grandmother was walking down the
beach towards them. She’d taken the trolley and two
different buses to get there. She stayed long enough
to let Mom and Ed get their things and then took
them home by the same route she’d used to get there.


Somehow she did it. She raised her children to adulthood
even though it meant sometimes ducking her rebellious
son's head in the sink when he used swears or nursing her
daughter through a case of scarlet fever. She survived
watching her son join the Navy at 18 to fight in WW2.
All this while living life as a divorced Catholic woman
whose husband had left her for another woman.


She never remarried.


I knew her as Nanny, my grandmother, and she lived
with us when I was a kid. My Dad and Uncle Ed had
bought a two family home after the war in Malden on
a GI loan and so Aggie saw all five of her grandchildren
everyday. But she spent most of the time with my sister
and I because my parents both worked fulltime.


I have memories of her.


She was a quiet woman, black haired with grey streaks
and usually wore those one piece housedresses. She’d eat
peas by rolling them down the blade of her knife into her
mouth and looking back I think she did it to amuse me
and tease my mom. She never yelled but I remember
her breaking up a knockdown fight between two Italian
ladies who lived in the houses to either side of ours and
doing it with a slightly louder than usual voice and a
disgusted tone at their behavior in front of children.

I remember her being upset when the goldfish got sucked
down the drain of the kitchen sink when she pulled the
sink plug by accident after cleaning the goldfish bowl. And
I recall how she kept me from looking out the window after
a worker fell off the roof when it was being reshingled.
(He survived by the way; he broke his back and narrowly
missed landing atop the picket fence that ran between our
house and our next door neighbor’s.)


As time went by her rheumatic heart got worse and she
needed an oxygen tank in her bedroom for when breathing
was hard.


Aggie died at age 58 on February 12th, 1957.


She lived a tough life but she always carried herself like
a lady.

AGGIE

((This was my very first post here back in February, 2007. I'm reposting it 
today to mark Womens' History  Month)) 

I’m a child of mixed heritage. On one side I’m
descended from a long line of Yankee settlers.
On the other, I’m descended from Irish Catholic
immigrants who came to Boston in the late
19th century.

Meet my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.
In the family she’s known as Aggie. To us grandchildren
she was "Nanny". I believe the picture is for her Confirmation.

She was born in 1898, eighth child and third daughter
out of the ten children that would survive infancy. She
grew up in a Irish Catholic family, her father a laborer
on the Boston Elevated Railway.


She had rheumatic fever as a child in a time when it
was a deadly disease and although she'd survived it left
Aggie with a weak heart. In 1924 she married Edward F.
White Sr. They had two children before a third died, then
Edward walked out in the middle of the Great Depression
leaving Aggie to raise the children on her own.

Aggie divorced him in 1935.

It was hard for her; in those times the label "divorced"
was somewhat shameful for an Irish Catholic woman.


Work was hard to come by for a woman with children
so she scrimped and saved. Some nights dinner was
bread soaked in milk. My Mom and uncle were sent to
a nearby dental school to have their teeth worked on by
students. When Mom came down with what was known
as St. Vitus’ Dance in those days, Aggie somehow came
up with the money for the doctors and to buy liver to
serve at dinner to get Mom’s iron content up. I suspect
Aggie’s parents must have helped her out here and there
financially. My Mom once claimed that the legendary
Boston Mayor James Michael Curley helped out with
some problem as well.


But Aggie was no cream puff, either. One story my
Mom told was of the time she and Uncle Ed skipped
school to hang out at the cottage out on Houghs’ Neck
with their cousins. The place was owned by Aggie’s
younger sister Peggy and her husband Leo McCue and
was quite a distance away from the Jamaica Plain
neighborhood of Boston Aggie and her children lived
in.


Yet suddenly my grandmother was walking down the
beach towards them. She’d taken the trolley and two
different buses to get there. She stayed long enough
to let Mom and Ed get their things and then took
them home by the same route she’d used to get there.


Somehow she did it. She raised her children to adulthood
even though it meant sometimes ducking her rebellious
son's head in the sink when he used swears or nursing her
daughter through a case of scarlet fever. She survived
watching her son join the Navy at 18 to fight in WW2.
All this while living life as a divorced Catholic woman
whose husband had left her for another woman.


She never remarried.


I knew her as Nanny, my grandmother, and she lived
with us when I was a kid. My Dad and Uncle Ed had
bought a two family home after the war in Malden on
a GI loan and so Aggie saw all five of her grandchildren
everyday. But she spent most of the time with my sister
and I because my parents both worked fulltime.


I have memories of her.


She was a quiet woman, black haired with grey streaks
and usually wore those one piece housedresses. She’d eat
peas by rolling them down the blade of her knife into her
mouth and looking back I think she did it to amuse me
and tease my mom. She never yelled but I remember
her breaking up a knockdown fight between two Italian
ladies who lived in the houses to either side of ours and
doing it with a slightly louder than usual voice and a
disgusted tone at their behavior in front of children.


I remember her being upset when the goldfish got sucked
down the drain of the kitchen sink when she pulled the
sink plug by accident after cleaning the goldfish bowl. And
I recall how she kept me from looking out the window after
a worker fell off the roof when it was being reshingled.
(He survived by the way; he broke his back and narrowly
missed landing atop the picket fence that ran between our
house and our next door neighbor’s.)


As time went by her rheumatic heart got worse and she
needed an oxygen tank in her bedroom for when breathing
was hard.


Aggie died at age 58 on February 12th, 1957.


She lived a tough life but she always carried herself like
a lady.

"IN SUNSHINE OR IN SHADOW" 4

It's been years, decades actually, since the last time I'd been to the McFarland
grave at Mt Benedict. I couldn't remember exactly how many names there
were on the gravestone. I knew my great grandparents' names were on it, along
with my grandaunt Winnie who'd never married and my grandmother Agnes
under her married name Agnes White. Other than that, I didn't know if the
names of the children who'd died in infancy were on the stone nor if they
were even buried there. As you could see from the my cousin Chris Markunas
sent, it was only the four names I remembered.

The Interment Record showed that some but not all of the children were
indeed buried there:

Great Grandfather John McFarland purchased the plot on 23 Aug 1886. At
that time the bodies of children Catherine and John must have been brought
from wherever they'd been previously buried since they had died before the
purchase of the plot. Over the years children Annie, Edward, Sarah and George
joined them in grave #1120. Great grandfather John died in 1923 and great
grandmother Annie in 1945. They are buried in grave 1122. Adult daughters
Winifred and Agnes(my grandmother) lie in grave 1123.

But there are two other adults named on the Interment Record, and while
names themselves were family names, I had no idea who these two men
were. The first was Frank McFarland who was interred on the date the
lot was purchased, 23Aug 1886 at age 31. The second was another John
McFarland  age 26, interred on 24May 1888. Obviously they were related
to my great grandfather but the question was how?

Using the ages and interment dates I searched both Ancestry and FamilySearch
and found the death records for both. These images are from FamilySearch's
Massachusetts Deaths 1841-1915 Collection:

Frank's parents' names are listed as Michael and Dorothy, the same as my great
grandfather. More importantly, his place of residence is given as 37 Coventry
St.. That is where my great grandparents were living when their children Catharine
and John died. I think it's safe to believe that this Frank McFarland was my great
grandfather's brother.

John's parents are Michael and Mary. He was nearly ten years younger than my
great grandfather and not living with him, but he is buried in the family plot, so
I'm guessing he's a nephew or cousin.

Both men died suddenly. John died at Boston City Hospital as the result of an
accident. Frank was killed by the "caving in of an embankment " on Western Ave.
in Boston. I'll have to see if I can find a newspaper account of their deaths.

To be continued....

A "SOCIAL" EXPERIMENT

I've written several blogposts over the years about my maternal
grandfather Edward F. White Sr and how little I know about that
side of the family due to the divorce between him and my grandmother
Agnes McFarland. I'd hoped that eventually some unknown White
family cousin would find my posts, contact me, and fill in some
blanks in the family history, but so far there hasn't been even a peep.
So now I'm going to try a little experiment. The genealogy community
is making wider and wider use of online social networks, and taking a
cue from that, I'm going to use Facebook.

I decided to start a "White Family" group and thought about how
I could name it so those possible cousins might find it. Alas, White
is one of the most common surnames in the world. So I pushed it
back one generation to Edward's parents and named the group
"Descendants of Edward White and Pauline Offinger". Who knows?
Maybe an Offinger cousin will find it too!

For a description I wrote the following:

"Devoted to the family of Edward White and Pauline Offinger of
Boston, Ma."

Then I posted this to the Wall:

"I'm creating this group in hopes of finding other descendants of 
Edward and Pauline. Due to the divorce of my grandparents 
Edward F White Sr and Agnes McFarland, I know very little 
about the family and I hope to establish contacts to any cousins 
who might be out there."

Finally I posted a "White Family" topic to the Forum and gave the
names and dates for Edward, Pauline, and their children. I plan to
add the blogposts I've already written to it as well.

So, we'll see if I have any better luck on Facebook than I've had
here. If I do, I'll be blogging about it here!

THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS...

I’ve been reading some of the other genealogy blogger’s picks for
their favorite things they’ve posted this year so I thought I’d
mention mine.


The first is something I didn’t even write. That would be my
Aunt Dot’s Memories that I posted back in August. My Dad
never talked with us much about his childhood so getting this
memoir from my Aunt is easily my favorite thing on my blog
this past year.


From my own stuff, I enjoyed writing the posts on Orpha
Reynolds and on my maternal grandmother, Agnes “Aggie”
McFarland. I also enjoyed researching the Ames Murder
although I don’t think I did a very good job writing it up.

The one thing I can say with surety is that I can do better and
I have plenty of good examples to follow among other genealogy
bloggers to follow!

WINIFRED MCFARLAND

As I mentioned earlier, Aunt Winnie had already died
before I was born but her presence is still felt in the
family in a way most genealogy researchers find their
ancestors are remembered



These are among the oldest pictures in the family album.
Only two pictures of my grandmother Agnes McFarland
are older and these are the only ones with her younger
sister Winnie. I think the girl on the running board with
her is Aggie but that’s a guess on my part.

I think Mom once identified the two men as Uncle Mike
and one of the other uncles. The cap on the car roof had me
wondering briefly since one bit of information about my
Grandfather White was that he had worked for a time as a
chauffeur. But both men look older than the girls and I know
my grandparents were close in age when they married.I’ve
no clue to the identities of the other two girls or of the man
and woman walking up the road in the background. The only
thing I can say with a bit of certainty is that they seem to be
enjoying a day out in the country some time in the 1920’s.

Winifred McFarland was born in 1901 the 12th of 13 children.
(Only 8 made it to adulthood.) I know very little about her. She
appears as a 9 year old on the 1910 census. On the 1920 census
she was a 19 year old office clerk. By 1930 her father had died
and her older brothers and sisters were married and moved out,
so Winifred was the only one left living at home with her mother
at 950 Parker St in Boston. Winifred was listed as a stenographer
at a "chemical drug" business.

Winnie was only forty years old when she died on January
15th, 1940. I wasn't born until 1948, so I never met my grandaunt
But her boyfriend Jack Coyne visited us often because my
grandmother lived with us and I believe Jack and Aggie
stayed good friends until Aggie died.

Winnifred's death came at a time when her siblings were past having
more children and the next one was too young as yet to marry and
start raising families. I was the next child born, but my Uncle Ed
and Aunt Emily were the first to have a daughter, and so my cousin is
named Winifred White. (There was another Winifred McFarland, a
daughter of my Grand Uncle Mike, who was born back in 1917)

And so Grand Aunt Winifred is remembered through her namesake.

THE WHITES AND MCFARLANDS

These are my maternal ancestors.
As I said in the previous entry, Agnes McFarland
and Edward F. White were mom's parents.



THE MCFARLANDS

John McFarland (28 Nov 1852-03 Aug 1924)
m. Ann A. Kelly (01 Oct 1859-02 Feb 1945)

Children:
Michael b Aug 1882-d?
Annie b Mar 1885-d.Jun 1887
Francis J. b Nov 1886-d Sept 1968
John b Mar 1888-d?
Robert b Dec 1889-d?
Edward J. b Oct 1891-d Sept 1892
Thomas b Jun 1893-d 1978
Annie b Mar 1895-d?
Sarah b Nov 1896-d Jul 1900
Agnes b Oct 1898-d Deb 1957
Winifred b1900-d Jan 1940
Margaret b1902-d?
George b Jan 1918-d Jan 1918


THE WHITES

Edward J. White b May 1873-d?
m Pauline M. Offinger b, Dec 1873

Children
Marcella b Jun 1896-d?
Charles b Mar 1898-d?
Edward F. b Jul 1899-d?
Frederick b 1902-d?
Pauline b 1904-d?
Elizabeth b 1905-d?
Ruth b 1908-d?
James b 1909-d?
Esther b 1915-d?

The McFarland information came from my 2nd cousin
John McFarland who was the son of Francis.

A very nice lady named Gayle Nee on the Genealogy.com
White Family Forum gave me the White information from
the 1900,1910, 1920 and 1930 Federal censuses.

Thanks again, Gayle, if you ever read this!

AGGIE

I’m a child of mixed heritage. On one side I’m
descended from a long line of Yankee settlers.
On the other, I’m descended from Irish Catholic
immigrants who came to Boston in the late
19th century.

Meet my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.
In the family she’s known as Aggie. I believe the
picture is for her Confirmation.

She was born in 1898, eighth child and third daughter
out of the ten children that would survive infancy. She
grew up in a Irish Catholic family, her father a laborer
on the Boston Elevated Railway.


She had rheumatic fever as a child in a time when it
was a deadly disease and although she'd survived it left
Aggie with a weak heart. In 1924 she married Edward F.
White Sr. They had two children before a third died, then
Edward walked out in the middle of the Great Depression
leaving Aggie to raise the children on her own.

Aggie divorced him in 1935.

It was hard for her; in those times the label "divorced"
was somewhat shameful for an Irish Catholic woman.


Work was hard to come by for a woman with children
so she scrimped and saved. Some nights dinner was
bread soaked in milk. My Mom and uncle were sent to
a nearby dental school to have their teeth worked on by
students. When Mom came down with what was known
as St. Vitus’ Dance in those days, Aggie somehow came
up with the money for the doctors and to buy liver to
serve at dinner to get Mom’s iron content up. I suspect
Aggie’s parents must have helped her out here and there
financially. My Mom once claimed that the legendary
Boston Mayor James Michael Curley helped out with
some problem as well.


But Aggie was no cream puff, either. One story my
Mom told was of the time she and Uncle Ed skipped
school to hang out at the cottage out on Houghs’ Neck
with their cousins. The place was owned by Aggie’s
younger sister Peggy and her husband Leo McCue and
was quite a distance away from the Jamaica Plain
neighborhood of Boston Aggie and her children lived
in.


Yet suddenly my grandmother was walking down the
beach towards them. She’d taken the trolley and two
different buses to get there. She stayed long enough
to let Mom and Ed get their things and then took
them home by the same route she’d used to get there.


Somehow she did it. She raised her children to adulthood
even though it meant sometimes ducking her rebellious
son's head in the sink when he used swears or nursing her
daughter through a case of scarlet fever. She survived
watching her son join the Navy at 18 to fight in WW2.
All this while living life as a divorced Catholic woman
whose husband had left her for another woman.


She never remarried.


I knew her as Nanny, my grandmother, and she lived
with us when I was a kid. My Dad and Uncle Ed had
bought a two family home after the war in Malden on
a GI loan and so Aggie saw all five of her grandchildren
everyday. But she spent most of the time with my sister
and I because my parents both worked fulltime.


I have memories of her.


She was a quiet woman, black haired with grey streaks
and usually wore those one piece housedresses. She’d eat
peas by rolling them down the blade of her knife into her
mouth and looking back I think she did it to amuse me
and tease my mom. She never yelled but I remember
her breaking up a knockdown fight between two Italian
ladies who lived in the houses to either side of ours and
doing it with a slightly louder than usual voice and a
disgusted tone at their behavior in front of children.


I remember her being upset when the goldfish got sucked
down the drain of the kitchen sink when she pulled the
sink plug by accident after cleaning the goldfish bowl. And
I recall how she kept me from looking out the window after
a worker fell off the roof when it was being reshingled.
(He survived by the way; he broke his back and narrowly
missed landing atop the picket fence that ran between our
house and our next door neighbor’s.)


As time went by her rheumatic heart got worse and she
needed an oxygen tank in her bedroom for when breathing
was hard.


Aggie died at age 58 on February 12th, 1957.


She lived a tough life but she always carried herself like
a lady.