If you're a Goodreads member, I need your help. A Goodreads member recently gave Connell Maguire's book "Follies of a Navy Chaplain" a one-star review. Short but very negative. It brought the average review down to three stars. If anybody reading this blog has read "Follies of a Navy Chaplain," like it or not -- and I'm betting you enjoyed it -- puh-LEEZE post a comment or a brief review at Goodreads. Father Joe passed away at age 93 earlier this year and I'm sure if he were still here, he'd have kind words for the person who posted the negative review.
If you haven't read it and have a Kindle, or have downloaded the free Kindle reading app to your computer or tablet, I'll make "Follies of a Navy Chaplain" available for a one-day free download tomorrow, Oct. 10.
If you have neither, but would be willing to read a copy and post a review at goodreads, email me your address at aelson.chichipress@att.net, and I'll send a free print copy to the first ten readers who request one.
Following is a brief excerpt from "Follies of a Navy Chaplain" in which Connell Maguire describes his last day in Ireland, which he left with his family to emigrate to the United States at age 11.
My own book "Tanks for the Memories" recently got a very short one-star review of its own at amazon.com, c'est la vie, that doesn't bother me. But Father Joe deserves way better.
Farewell
My parents had a shop and a good
business in Glenties town at the time of the Irish war for independence from
England. However, there was not much opportunity for young people. My mother
had witnessed her four brothers leave for America, never to return to their
grieving parents. She dreaded that fate. She saw boys, fresh from school,
sitting on the corner smoking. Something had to be done and soon. There were
four children then and taking us to America would be a chore and expensive.
They had relatives in Scotland so there we went to Greenock, the Brooklyn of
Scotland. I was just a year and a half so I do not remember the bonny, bonny
banks of Loch Lomond. The expedition to Scotland did not work out so back we
came to Mam’s grandparents. Dad left for America to make a living for us. He
went back and forth over a period of nine years. In 1923, he built a house in
Ireland and tried to find work there. Kathleen was born in December in that
house. We went to Yeats County where Dad had some friends but no luck. Dad had
to leave again. Finally in 1928, Mam took Kathleen and went to check out the
possibility of taking the whole family to America. She left Barney, Pat, and me
with Aunt Bridget in the new house. Anne was in boarding school in County
Monaghan.
Mam returned in 1929. Teresa was
born in June and varicose veins laid Mam up for days. Later she sold the house
for the fare to America, and hired a car and driver to take the six children to
Dublin to the American Embassy for physical exams and processing. I remember a
stenographer asking another should she describe my hair as black or brown. What’s
left is neither now. We sailed from Belfast. The ship was a day late so they
put us up in a hotel. I don’t recall street cars in Dublin. I do remember being
stunned to think how expensive concrete roads and streets must be as we
approached Dublin. In Belfast we watched the trolleys together until I was
scornfully excluded when I remarked I hadn’t yet seen any trolleys on the
middle two tracks. We landed in New York just after the ominous stock market
crash, soon to affect us. My father was on the pier to meet us. Then and for
many years, I took for granted all my parents did for us.
Almost all the news about the United
States that made the Irish, English and Scottish papers was about gangsters and
kidnapping. I had the impression that other than the Irish and the rich
Americans who hired the Irish, all Americans were gangsters and kidnappers. I
promptly received a scare. I had lagged behind the others carrying a suitcase.
A man grabbed me by the arm. My God, I didn’t last five minutes in this
country. I shouted “Mam! Mam!” I still wonder why he stopped me.
So much had happened in a short
time. That independent recorder within me was at work all the while, clicking
some moments into memory’s file and erasing others.
For our last months in Ireland, we
had moved from my grandmother’s house to a house on a rise in a field in
Meenahalla. Perhaps there was friction with five children, my mother expecting,
my uncle and grandmother all in one house. We had a grand time in the rented
house, kicking a football around the field and exploring the huge stone remains
of a rath, a prehistoric burial mound. A row house in Philadelphia would be
quite different. So would plumbing and electricity and an instant gas “fire” in
the morning that saved so much time.
My mother did not go down to
Mullantboyle that morning of our departure to say goodbye to her mother. She
was busy with a five-month-old baby, luggage and checking on the other four of us. Besides, the Irish do not
like to say goodbye.
The night before many neighbors came
to say farewell, to try to enliven the traditional “American wake” the night
before emigrants departed forever. How different all this is now!
Of that morning, a few things are
etched clearly in memory. I was delegated to take a hammer back to Uncle Barney
at my grandmother’s. I don’t remember whether I saw either one of them. I never
saw Grandma again. I had to walk the equivalent of a block on the main road on
my way with the hammer. I met the McNamees going into town to our school, this
time without us. We didn’t hug or say goodbye. We took the meeting in stride as
just another happening. But that something in me wrote it down indelibly. Our
worlds were separating. We would never see each other again. I did not feel it
then.
I remember combing my hair in front
of a little brown framed mirror. I forget how we got to the station. Rose
Kennedy in a khaki raincoat was the only one to see us off. She said she too
would emigrate. She never did. My mother and sister were crying as the train
pulled out. My brothers were sad. I wasn’t. To me it was an adventure.
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P.S.: Here's a link to the Goodreads page, although you may have to log in:
Follies of a Navy Chaplain
Visit the Oral History Audiobooks campaign
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