Postcards from Lavella
For years I was proud of being the first woman in our family who left home before she was married, seeking my independence and destiny in another world. (For me, that other world was California.) How wrong I was! Researching family history, I have discovered a parade of woman in my family, and in my husband's family, who traveled a similar road years before my time. One of these women was Susanah Lavella Hopkins , and like me, Lavella was destined to become a Californian. Known as Lala to her family, she used Lavella as her given name. In 1869, Lavella's birth was registered under her mother's name, Fanny Hopkins, in Rathdrum, County Wicklow, Ireland. Her father, Nicholas "David" Hopkins, had been born into a family of means. David had a farm called Lamb Park in Coolbeg, near Wicklow Town. In 1881, when Lavella was only 11 years old, her mother died. Family correspondence suggests her father experienced financial difficulties. By the time she was 2...