I seem to have more of
a contempt for my late maternal grandfather’s mother the more that I understand
about her, at least wherein her bubbe meises are concerned. The three bubbe
meises that really (forgive my language) piss me off (as if “shit” wasn’t
language for which I might need to ask forgiveness):
1.
That we’re
of the “Dark Irish”
2.
[Not excerpted here]
3.
That my
grandaunt Kas had polio
The real stories are
the following, respectively:
We’re Portuguese
Irish, and likely even Sephardic Jewish and Irish. Nana Allen’s maternal
grandfather was a “John McCoy”, and probably an Anusi—and “McCoy” was certainly not his own name, as he is not
buried in the McCoy Family Plot in Baltimore’s New Cathedral Cemetery. As for
how he immigrated to Ireland, my grandaunt Bernadette “Bern” Allen Dew (z”l)
stated that “He fled a war in Spain”—which I found out after I saw the Census
record that read “Spain” and “Ireland” for the respective birthplaces of Nana
Allen’s maternal grandparents, the parents of the Rosalita “Rose” (or “Rosa”)
McCoy Reilly whose 1900 Census record lists the “Spain” and “Ireland” in
question for her parents’ birthplaces. As for the “war in Spain”—as “John
McCoy”’s 1850 Census record helped me to research—that war was the Peninsular
War, from which he as a Lisboa-born infant fled with his parents to Ireland.
About three decades
after he immigrated to Ireland as a war refugee—and almost certainly an Anusi one at that—he immigrated to the
United States as—as far as I know—an immigrant. By 1850, he had been married to
MaryAnn Elizabeth née McCoy for at least eight to ten years and had the
following children:
1.
John, Jr.
2.
MaryAnn
Elizabeth, Jr. (whom, per a record of her second husband’s family history, told
the bubbe meise that her mother was born “Mary Dolan”)
3.
Ann
He seems to have named
the first two children per minhag
Sephardi—after all, the first son was named for his father, and the first
daughter was named for her mother (and apparently got a flair for spreading
bubbe meises from—ironically—her, as the 1880 Census Record for a “Rose Riley”
lists both of Mrs. “Riley”’s parents as having been in Ireland—and even while
the 1880 Census record for MaryAnn’s and Rose’s sister Lavinia lists them as
having been born in Maryland.)
Then he had four more
children, and a nasty divorce to boot about six years after the youngest one
was born. While I don’t know the exact circumstances of the divorce, I know—as
I said—that he is certainly not buried in the McCoy Family Plot in New
Cathedral Cemetery, and that his wife told the Census taker that she was a
widowed mother of four daughters as of 1870.
By 1880, he had a
grandchild whom proved that his Sephardish
Yidishkeit was still around and alive within the family, even though he
apparently hadn’t been around or alive since 1870—his daughter Rosalita had a
daughter whom she named “Ann(e)”, and his ex-wife and his daughter’s in-law
mother both went by “Ann(e)”. Then he had more grandchildren by Rosalita with a
mark to prove that no real Catholicism was to be found as far as he was
concerned: after all, none of the granddaughters carried “Mary” or any variant
thereof for either a first name or otherwise as an honorific for the mother of
Jesus.
Even Alice Marie
Reilly named none of her daughters “Mary” or any variant thereof insofar as the
prénom d’honorifique de la Virginé is
concerned—the first names of her daughters were “Marguerite” (since her in-law
mother was Margaret Conley Allen—and I’m now realizing where her Sephardish
Yiddishkeit showed up in that regard, if I hadn’t already realized it a little
bit), “Katherine”, “Bernadette”, and “Dolores”.
(Per JewishGen, by the way and although
JewishGen covers mostly Ashkenazi Jewish communities, “Marguerite” and
“Katherine”—and variants thereof—were used among Jews; and as one rabbi told me
when I asked if naming Reilly for Nana Allen and her mother was permissible in
Jewish tradition, “There are no rules for such a thing. You may name your pet anything
you like.” Also, Ariela Pelaia of ThoughtCo—formerly About.Com—captures what
I’ve generally read regarding both Hebrew and Non-Hebrew names when she states,
“[T]here is no hard and fast rule when it comes to giving your child a Hebrew
name.”
(Also by the way,
Sephardic Jewish girls will sometimes be named after living grandparents as
opposed to living parents—the minhag
varies in that regard.)
As far as Alice
Marie’s sisters, they were (besides Anne—z”l—whom died at the age of seven or
eight):
1.
Rosa
2.
Sara—not
“Catherine”, but “Sara Catherine” (and contrary to what Mom claims, “Sara” is
not a common Catholic name—or at least too common of one—as it would arouse
suspicions, especially in a family in which the first girl is not named “Mary”)
3.
Helen
4.
Agnes—whom
later became “Sister Mary Rosalita Reilly”
By the way, Alice
Marie’s first son was Edgar Joseph, for his father and distinguished as “Edgar
Joseph Eymard”—and I’m now really beginning to see the Sepharidish Yiddishkeit
(or “Sefardishkeit” or even “Ladinokeit”— and I’m going to assume that I coined
those despite I can’t say that I made those up—after all, “Sefardish” and
“Ladino” were long around before I was, and making “Sefardishkeit” from “Sefardish” and
“Yiddishkeit” is simply just making a compound word that can be used to
describe the Yiddishkeit of Sephardim
in Yiddish.
(Also by the way, I’m
pretty sure that this is at least part of why my maternal grandfather took an
interest in Yiddish, although he was—even if he didn’t know that he was—reasonably
ascertainably a matrilineally-Jewish grandson of a patrilineally-Jewish bat Anusim—and his widow, my maternal
grandmother, is my maternal grandparent whom is of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.)
Meanwhile, this alone
(as I’m now realizing) helps to explain why I thoroughly and even
defensively explain quite a bit of what
I explain—as if getting called “an overall liar” at Sheppard Pratt by a
caseworker whom fell for my father’s lies about me wasn’t enough, having Nana
Allen throw her younger children and their descendants for a loop really
affected me to start laying out every detail of quite a few cases once I found
out about being thrown for such a loop—and as if many of my matriarchs and
patriarchs on Dad’s side didn’t do enough loop throwing, todah rabah (and their loop throwing was more understandable than
her loop throwing, as—as I later read—the Inquisition ended in 1834, whereas
increasing Anti Semitism still affects many of my paternal relatives loathe to
admit that we’re Jewish—even to the point at which one relative is trying to
paint me as an overall liar in regard to what my father’s maternal grandmother
did, and notwithstanding that I can neither help what happened or conjure up
evidence to fit the narrative of what he wants to believe what happened.
(Incidentally, that
will—God willing—probably end up in More Shit
And Other Stuff That I Can’t Make Up—after all, just
typing all of this after a partly-mental-illness-affected hiatus from writing
has affected my mental illnesses to flare up.)
“Polio”
This one probably pisses me off the most.
Despite articles that discuss the Irish Catholic “shame” of the Kennedys
regarding Rosemary Kennedy (with “shame” being the word that the Kennedys
themselves used), Nana Allen—who herself identified as a strong Irish Catholic—still
has no excuse for lying about Grandaunt Kas’ Cerebral Palsy.
The story still goes that Grandaunt Kas
contracted polio when she was seven or eight—this despite that she wasn’t going
to have time to contract polio in the midst of the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918
and the Rheumatic Heart Fever Epidemic of 1923-1925 or thereabouts. Rheumatic
Heart Fever is what actually killed Grandaunt Dolores, whom died on January 25,
1923, by the way (and as for where I got the 1925 date, Great-Granddad
Czarnecki’s sister Regina died of Chorea due to Rheumatic Heart Fever on June
23, 1925).
Grandaunt Kas was born on November 6, 1911,
and Grandaunt Bern somehow remembered that Grandaunt Dolores died in the
Spanish Flu Epidemic. Either way, no way was Grandaunt Kas going to be going
anywhere where she could contract polio—she was probably as housebound when the
Spanish Flu hit the Allen household as much as all of the Allen children were
when Rheumatic Heart Fever hit the Allen household. The more that I thought
about that, then, the more that I had to conclude that Nana Allen told another
bubbe meise—even my grandmother at first said that she didn’t know for sure,
and that Nana Allen had “a lot of stories”.
Besides:
1. Mild Cerebral Palsy can become worse after illnesses such as the flu
and Rheumatic Heart Fever—and with illnesses that can cause fevers, you’re
messing with illnesses that can cause some serious brain damage. So either way,
Grandaunt Kas either had exacerbated Cerebral Palsy after the Spanish Flu
Epidemic or she had a fever that effected brain damage and resulting Cerebral
Palsy.
2.
The person whom told me that
Grandaunt Kas had Cerebral Palsy, he would have no reason to lie—he worked for
her when he and my mother were in high school, and she could tell a kid like
him what she wouldn’t have dared to tell peers of hers or quite a few people
within her own family!
That would also explain the real reason that
Grandaunt Kas turned down three marriage proposals—not because she wanted to be
single and independent, but because she was afraid that each of her suitors
would run if they found out what she really had—and I can tell you that because
I’ve lived being both implicitly and explicitly rejected by peers of mine due
to my Cerebral Palsy.
