Coming to America
I don't remember my grandmother Kathryn Ward well, since she died when I was only three years old. I knew that she came from Ireland in the late 1800s, but for years I didn't know much more than that. One day, when my mother was showing me some family pictures, I asked about her family. She told me a remarkable story about her mother.
My grandmother, Katie Roach, was a little girl in Coolsuppeen, Ireland, when the potato blight wiped out their main food supply. Thousands, and perhaps millions, of people died in the subsequent famine. Coolsuppeen was hit especially hard by the famine. Katie's parents, James and Catherine Roach, decided that the only way to save any of their family from certain death was to select one of their seven children and send that child to Boston to live with their rich relations, Uncle John and Aunt Phoebe McCormick. They believed that they would probably never see that child again, but at least one of their children would be saved from starvation.
A ticket in steerage (third class) cost four pounds -- all the money they had. But the ticket agent told them that if they weighed two of their children and shipped them as baggage, they might be able to ship two children in the hold of the ship for the cost of one ticket in steerage.
James and Catherine decided to save two of their children. They picked my grandmother and her older brother, Tom. They packed a large basket of food and put the children's clothes and Sunday boots in a canvas suitcase. They weighed their children, tied large blue baggage tags around their necks, and sent them down into the dark hold of the ship for the long voyage to Boston.
By the second night out, the rats had eaten all of Katie and Tom's food. Some of the sailors took pity on the two waifs and took them up into their own quarters and fed them from their own rations for the rest of the two-week trip.
Katie and Tom reached Boston safely and grew up living with Uncle John and Aunt Phoebe. Katie never returned to Ireland, but her family all survived and eventually all came to live in America.
Katie married Albert Charles Ward -- Charley -- and moved to Denver, where Charley was a supervisor for the newly formed telephone company. They had five children in Denver, but during the influenza epidemic of 1918, when their baby girl -- my mother -- was less than a year old, Charley caught the flu and died.
Katie -- now calling herself by the more dignified name of Kathryn Ward -- raised her children in Denver until the Great Depression in 1929. When hard times hit, she packed her children in their Hupmobile and moved to California. Eventually, her baby daughter, also named Kathryn, grew up and met a man named Arthur Roth in Spanish class at San Diego High School -- but that's the beginning of a different story.
Mom is gone now and can't share any more stories of her family. But now that I know this story, I have been able to pass it on to my children and my grandchildren, and now to you.
When I think of James and Catherine Roach trying to decide which of their children should be given a chance to live; when I think of two dark-eyed children bravely climbing down into the dark, dank, rat-infested hold of a ship, believing they would never see their home or family again; I realize that I really can handle the insignificant challenges that face me. When I think of how my ancestors must have felt about America, a land of hope and riches and life, I don't take the land that is now my home so much for granted. Their courage is my heritage, and I must not forget.
What stories do you have in your family? There are some stories that only you can tell. If you don't write your stories down and pass them on, they could be lost forever.
At DocuWright Technical Services, we can help you tell your story. Please contact us today.