The Matriarch

The matriarch of my family is my Fathers' 87 year old Mother. She has been the touch stone of this family long before my time. Born the middle child of a low income Irish family she knew what it was like to go without, but what she had to go without in her adult life would break the spirit of any normal human being. She's an itty bitty thing, she stand about 4 ft 9 with shocking white hair, I tease her and call her "The Troll" and she still tries to knock the spit outta me.

She married her childhood sweetheart and had her first 5 children, Michael, (my father), Emmett, Bob, Ann and Dennis. They always dreamed of having their own house with a one horse for the kids to ride, that wasn't meant to be. After the birth of Dennis my grandfather fell ill with Tuberculosis. Back in that time, they had TB sanitariums and that is where my grandfather lived the last few years of his life.  He was a stubborn Irishman, he wouldn't let them cut him open and try to remove the spot on his lungs, so he went to his death early. During the last few years of living in the sanitarium he was allowed to go home for brief visits with his family, that is when his other two children Stephen and Susan were conceived. So here was my Grandmother, 35, widowed and trying to keep her 7 children together. It wasn't meant to be.

Either my grandfather or a relative was a "moose member" and in Illinois there is a place for families called "Mooseheart" its a place where families can turn to during hardships.  It was a place where they could find a place to live, 3 square meals a day and an education.  In reality it wasn't a good place for a family, back then you were separated into certain houses, you were separated by sex, and age so even though they saw each other daily they did not live as a family. My aunt speak of seeing each other but not being able to speak to each other, there were strict rules. I don't know to much about it, but I know my father and my Uncle Emmett ran away every chance they got.  They would jump trains heading east back to the city of Chicago, to the neighborhood they grew up in, my Grandmother and her Brother and Brother-in-law would go into the city to find them and return them to Mooseheart. Finally when my father was 17 and my uncle turned 16 they let them be, they didn't go find them and drag them back. Depending on which of my aunts and uncles you talk to this was either a goodplace or a bad place to be in. But when you were poorer than poor, it was a place to go.

My Grandmother not only had to bury her Mother and her Husband within six months of each other, But she has had to bury her oldest child my father, who died at 41 due to complications of alcoholism, she buried her 2nd oldest son, he was a recovering alcoholic himself, but cigarettes and cancer is what killed him and she also had to bury her oldest daughter from the same disease.

Sometimes this woman is bitter because of the hand that was dealt to her and other times she is the wittiest, warmest woman I have ever met. She is the matriarch of 7 children, 17 grandchildren, 33 great grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. When you meet her and tell her how nice it was to meet her she tells you of course it was! She has battled her own demons and found some kind of peace in her life, she is a woman who will brag about her family till you want to roll your eyes. But this is a woman who knows "what its all about" its about family, the good the bad and the ugly, but if you ask her she has no ugly, we don't bring ugly home from the hospital! lol