James

My mother is the beautiful, shoeless girl in Ireland about five years old. Her father, my grandfather who I never met, is on his deathbed. He worked the railroads in Clare, had a bad accident, and died from his injuries. My mother was one of seven children my grandmother brought over the ocean to Chicago after her husband died about 1925. They all worked...bus drivers, movers, garbage men...including my grandmother who worked the "steam tables" at downtown Carson's. Eventually, they all became citizens. My mother told me she got her first pair of shoes when she was ten, but a mean uncle kept one and she never got to wear them. She followed the path of most women of her day with limited resources and education (she never finished high school) and became a wife and mother. She was a good mother, loved her children, and always put them first despite enduring many hardships. She died young when I was in my twenties. After an Irish two-day, open casket wake, my sister said something I will never forget: "We will never know who she was." Story Credits: Barbara Ellis