Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Scratch and sniff

Too bad you can't smell this Irish Soda Bread. The smell is absolutely incredible. I make this bread every year for St. Patrick's Day. The recipe is my mother's and was her mother's and that makes it authentic (insert Irish smile here). My mom is first generation Irish-American. Her parents came over from Ireland, through Ellis Island, in the early 1900's. After having done some research on the http://www.ellisisland.org website a few years back I was able to find the documentation showing my grandfather's entry into the U.S. I still haven't been able to find the records on my grandmother but I haven't given up quite yet. Why bother? Well, it matters to me. Family history interests me.
A few years back I made a scrapbook for my mother for her birthday. Part of the book included a family tree. The scrapbook was to be a surprise for my mother so I had enlisted her sisters to help me with the family tree part of the book. I was very surprisd to learn they could not provide me with a lot of the information. I had asked my aunts to give me what I thought was basic information: dates of their parents arrival into the U.S. One of my aunts told me that my grandparents didn't talk much about the "getting here" part of their lives. She said they were just so happy to be here they spoke little about how, or exactly when, they got here. They were proud of their heritage but were happy to be Americans.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Same here, Mum was first generation American. Her family came from Scotland 1920's via Ellis Island to upstate NY.
Her older sibs and her parents wantd to leave "those memories" behind, so this will be a challenge to know all the circumstances,difficult but not really impossible. Sandy