Two weeks ago I wrote about my Grandma Rose, the grandmother who lived just across town and was good at everything she tried.
Today, in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day. I’d like to write about my Irish grandmother, Norah.
With Saint Patrick’s Day only a few days off, the stores are filled with green. When I was a child, we practiced our cutting skill around the curves of shamrocks during the month of March. Our bulletin boards were decorated with leprechauns and rainbows leading to pots of gold. On March 17, we wore green, knowing that if we forgot, we’d get pinched.
For years, I celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day without a thought for my Irish grandma. Growing up, I’d asked about her once or twice. But my mom didn’t know much, and my dad was hesitant to talk about his mysterious absent mother. So I left it at that.
Much later, my sister and cousin became interested in genealogy. Searching the internet and looking through musty old records, they found that Grandma Norah had sailed from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1910. She was twenty-eight years old when she landed, five feet five inches tall with blue eyes, brown hair, and a fair complexion. Like many female Irish immigrants, she listed her occupation as “domestic.”
A year later, she married my grandpa, James Cromarty, an immigrant carpenter from Scotland. Together they had five children—four boys and a girl.
Grandpa James in the middle
Those are the bare facts. And yet, we don’t really know much about Grandma Norah. Did she like to dance or sing or tell stories? Was she talkative or shy?
We know that their only daughter, Norah Mary, died at the age of five during the great flu epidemic. But we don’t know how hard that loss was for her or whether it affected her relationship with her sons and husband.
For many years I was too busy with my own life to think much about her. When she did enter my thoughts, she came with two big mysteries trailing behind.
#1. The orphanage. Why were the three younger boys placed in an orphanage in Vancouver, B.C.? And why didn’t anyone tell Grandpa James who was in California with their oldest son?
#2. The deportation. A few years later, Norah was deported. And again I wonder why. One story says she had a nervous breakdown. Another quite different theory suggests that she and her brothers, all scrappy Irishmen, were involved in Sinn Fein riots in Vancouver, and Norah stabbed a policeman with her hatpin.
Mysteries and story fragments are fascinating to a writer. And once I became involved in writing, I started to think more about my Irish grandma. One day during a break from a writing class at the University of Washington, I was filled with sadness for my grandma as I sat on the grass thinking about Ireland’s literary tradition and my Irish heritage. The next day I went out and bought a bright green dress to remind me of her and also to give me confidence that the Irish talent for storytelling would show up in my writing.
One of my greatest regrets is that I’ve never seen a photo of my grandma. After Grandpa James died, his second wife, Catherine, threw all the photos of Norah into her wood-burning kitchen stove. My mom, who had driven across the state to express her condolences, arrived just in time to save only one photo: a baby picture of my dad.
The irony is, we have several pictures of the photo-burning second wife, Catherine.
Catherine
Okay, so that’s why her photo is upside down? 🙂
Your grandmother’s absence made your heart fonder. I suspect she may show up in your stories in future, if she hasn’t already.
What a story! I wish you had a photo of Grandma Norah.
Is it possible to obtain one from old friends or relatives that might keep some?
(Many old friends and relatives came to see my late Grandpa because he had photos of other people’s ancestors! I guess he loved taking photos!)
The trouble with finding photos of Grandma Norah is that Grandpa James was the only one we know of in this country who had any, and those were the ones that were burned. The best chance of finding a picture seems to be to find relative in Ireland or England. She had a sister who lived in London, but so far we haven’t been able to find a record of her.
I wish there’s a site or anything that can help us trace our ancestors, just like that popular TV show Who Do You Think You Are! 😀
There are some sites. Ancestry.com is the biggest, but it’s not free. My cousin uses it.
Nicki, this is a great story, but sad. I was fortunate to know my grandparents, but now that they and my parents have passed on, there are so many questions that I didn’t think to ask when they were alive.
I think when the older generations are still with us, we assume they’ll always be around, and if a question comes up, we can always ask them. We don’t think of our questions all at once. They occur to us one of two at a time. Unfortunately many when it’s too late.
Family histories can be fascinating, Nicki. I don’t really know a lot of personal details about any of my grandparents. That period of immigration and large families was especially interesting, I feel. 🙂 St. Patrick’s Day could very easily pass me by unawares so it’s good that it’s still well celebrated in the States.
I think there are three reasons St. Patrick’s Day stays popular in the United States: Elementary school teachers, retailers that sell cards and shamrocks, and the fact that it’s a good excuse to go to a pub and drink beer.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Nicki! May the luck of the Irish shine upon you!!
It must have been hard for your Grandma Nora to leave her homeland all those years ago to seek a better life. I am sure that may have taken a toll on her. Even today, I see many expats who struggle with living abroad and they have no other choice but to return home to what is comfortable and familiar.
I grew up in a small town where most people had [and still have] Irish roots. I don’t know if it is something that stems from the past, but most people are tight-lipped about the challenges they are facing [and I am sure depression would be one of them] as people in a small town are quick to jump to conclusions and quick to judge.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, too, Constance.
In the United States (and probably in Canada) we speak glowingly of our immigrants and the success of their children and grandchildren. We even seem to have the attitude of how lucky they were to come here, and we smile at the old familiar stories of immigrants dreaming of the “old country.” We forget how much that first generation often suffered. My Grandpa came from Orkney, a small, barren Scottish island. They had a small farm, not big enough to support his many brothers. In fact, he had to send money back to them.
I know dozens of Irish songs. I think most of them are Irish-American songs. “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” is one example.
I wonder if we’re related, Nicki ~ are there any Logie’s in your family tree? Then they were wee bairns, my grandmother and her sister spent summers on Orkney with relatives.
I think the relatives went by the last name of Herd.
I dug out my family tree and looked. But no Logies or Herds. My great-grandfather, who owned the farm in Orkney, was William Banks Cromarty married to Barbara Taylor. It was definitely a possibility, though. Orkney is a small place. According to my sister, who visited several years ago, everyone seems to know their neighbors.
I checked ~ no Cromarty or Taylor listed as anyone’s married or maiden name.
Orkney is a sparsely populated place so I thought it was worth checking when I saw you mention it.
I find genealogy fascinating. It took me years to get a comment my grandmother made when I was a teenager. I was lying in the sun and she told me it wouldn’t do any good with my green skin. I thought she was saying I looked like a lizard!
That’s funny. My dad had black hair and VERY white skin. He had a carpenter’s tan on his neck and forearms, but when he went swimming, the white of his skin was shocking. When asked about his favorite color, he said he liked every color as long as it was green.
Perhaps your grandmother was a “Wild Irish Rogue” and, hence, the deportation.
Lots of questions raised by this post. For example:
When your grandfather James remarried Catherine, was he still married to Norah?
Why did your dad hesitate to talk about his mother?
Did all 4 brothers unite after 3 lived in the orphanage?
Etc.
It’s hard to know the people we spend time with on a daily basis ~ we see only the tip of the iceberg. Much of who they are is hidden below the water line.
It is next to impossible to know people we’ve never met . . . outside speculation based on fertile imagination.
Some good questions, Nancy.
#1 I don’t think we’ve found a divorce certificate. I wonder if they worried about that in those days with the two people half-a-world apart and not likely to ever see each other again. They were serious about birth, baptism, and marriage certificates, though.
#2 I wasn’t surprised that my dad didn’t talk about his mother. He wasn’t one to talk about anything personal. For example, he never talked about his experiences in WWII. He talked about work and ideas. He focused on the present.
#3 The brothers did all unite. My dad and his younger brothers were very close for the rest of their lives. The oldest brother had what they considered the special privilege of being sent to a military school. He became a lawyer and settled in California. In those days, people didn’t travel as much, so CA seemed far away from Washington. They did get together on special but infrequent trips.
How very said that the new wife would burn such family history! What a loss. It sounds as though the research into her history only revealed new questions. It is sad when the stories are lost within a family. Even that we say we should write them down or record them-but don’t. I have one 94 year old Aunt 3,000 miles away that I have been talking to and recapturing memories of the life she shared with my dad. Her stories are somewhat different than how my father told them and I can’t help but wonder if they are told as faded memories, from the perspective of the eldest sister, or a little of both. She is as sharp as they come and had even emailed her thoughts which is great! I saw wear the green dress often and celebrate your heritage!
My sister and I often remember things differently. We both think we’re right and wonder where the other one is coming from.
My great-grandmother had a life that in many ways paralleled the cowboy stories she saw on TV. In her later years, she watched a lot of TV, most of it cowboy stories. (They were extremely popular then.) It became harder and harder to distinguish between her memories and what she’d watched on television.
It is often the case that a second wife is jealous of the first (absent/dead) wife and tries to obliterate her from the family records. My husband’s mother was very jealous of his father’s first wife who had died young leaving a 6 month old baby daughter – she hid all photos, and never allowed her to be mentioned. The baby grew up thinking my mum-in-law was her natural mother. The shock when she found out the truth was very damaging.
What I have found really interesting about Nicky’s Irish grandma is that she was deported – what were the grounds for deportation in those days?
When one is deported it is usually OUT of a country, and not necessarily TO a specific country. (I know this because my younger sister was deported from South Africa in the 1970s for protesting against apartheid); so where did Nicky’s grandma go? did she remarry later – she was young enough to produce more children. It is a fascinating family mystery.
In my own family today – no chance of mystery, Mum is 93, still very much on the go, skypes her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; technology has changed everything.
I know. Isn’t technology great? I can answer so many questions but it still leaves so many more because we are dealing with people, their emotions, and personal experiences. Thanks for sharing such a great story.
I think you’re so right, Herschelian, about the jealousy a second wife might feel about a first wife. In fact, the novel I’m working on now has a protagonist who is a second wife with feelings of jealousy for the dead first wife. (Funny, I didn’t make the connection with my grandma’s situation until this moment.)
The story you tell about your husband’s mother reminds me of a story I learned when we lived in Vanuatu. My friend, who was fifty years old, went on home leave to Australia, and when she came back, she was a mess. She’d found out that her “father” was not her father and that many people in town had known it for years. She felt that all her life she had been living a lie and that she didn’t know who she was anymore.
It’s interesting that your sister was deported for protesting against apartheid. You’re right, my grandma was deported OUT of Canada. My mom thought she landed in London and stayed with her sister. Mom speculated that Norah might have died in the Blitz.
Your mum is amazing, 93 and still skyping children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Good for her!
Interesting post, Nicki. It’s so sad about the photos. I never knew my paternal grandmother either. Before I was born she divorced my grandfather and never wanted much to do with her five children. I think today she would be diagnosed with depression and treated for it, but things were so different then. I believe she had a very hard life ~ possibly your grandmother did, too.
It’s surprising how many of us have a similar situation. As you said, it’s possible that if your grandmother had lived today, she could have been treated for depression. Maybe then, either her marriage could have been saved or she could have had a closer relationship with her children. We’ll never know, of course.
Yes, I don’t think her situation was that unique for back then.
It’s a great story, Nicki, although sad. There is something tragic when people leave this earth without leaving much behind. There is definitely a story behind the story there. I applaud your desire to know more about your Irish grandmother and am moved by the sadness you experienced at the realization that nobody knew much about her.
Even if you use fictional facts, she could still be a character of a future novel.
Come to think about it, even though Grandma Norah didn’t leave much behind about herself, she did leave her four sons, who all married and had children. Not everyone is that lucky.
True!
Wonderful post, Nicki. My paternal grandmother died when my father was two years old. Unfortunately, there aren’t many pictures or history about her life. One day, I’d love to dig deeper into my genealogy. That’s very sad about the photos.
Thanks, Jill. I’m sorry that your grandmother died too soon to see her son grow up. He must have been too young to remember much about her. I think you can infer quite a bit from a photo, especially the candid photos that are more common now than in the past.
What do you think about the DNA genealogy tests? They’re intriguing, don’t you think?
Thank you, Nicki. You’re right, my father doesn’t remember much about his mother. Oh yes, the technology that’s out there now is amazing.
Oh, the family secrets! Sad, but intriguing…possibly because of the sorrow. If I had five children, I think I’d stab people also. With something bigger than a hatpin. And if I lost a daughter, I might have a breakdown also.
What a mystery regarding her deportation. Are you ever tempted to go to Ireland and find out the rest of the story?
Secrets and mysteries! Some people are embarrassed by the trials and misdeeds of their ancestors; others are pleased to come from a line of interesting people, at least when those ancestors are far enough in the distant past.
My sister is going to Ireland in a few months. Maybe she’ll find something about Grandma Norah.
I didn’t know my paternal grandmother either. She died before I was born and I don’t have any pictures of her. I favor my Dad’s side of the family and I’ve often wondered whether I look like her or what she liked to do. She had immigrated from Germany so there isn’t much known. All my aunts and uncles are gone and I wasn’t smart enough to ask them when they were alive. I did hear a lot of stories about my grandfather. He was quite a character.
I think many (or maybe most) of us aren’t interested in our older relatives when we’re young. It’s a cliche but so true to say that we only become curious once they’re gone. So … Both of us are in the same boat, wishing we knew what our grandmas looked like. I wonder if all our digital photos will last. If so, the problem will be having too many.
Wow! What a great story! But how sad about your grandmother. So sorry about those photos. I hope someday you can learn more about your grandmother.
We all get lost to time eventually, but it’s sad that my grandma was lost to us so soon.