Is Meets Was

Merry Christmas. For me, Christmas is a nostalgic time as well as a joyous time. It is a time in which I remember the people who have touched my life. One such person is my paternal grandmother, Mary (Fitzgerald) Merrill. My life was touched by her absence. Mary holding Gil, Lib, and Dot, and Fred Merrill, 1913 Christmas Tree, 1913 In December 1913, my grandparents celebrated Christmas with a tree and a new camera. Fred and Mary were living in Franklin, New Hampshire with their three children: Dorothy Margaret (age 6), Elizabeth Mary (age 2), and Gilbert James Merrill (6 months). I wonder: "Were there presents under the tree for the children to open on Christmas morning? Did Santa stuff special treats in stockings hung by the chimney?" I do know that  there was plenty of snow to enjoy that winter.  Uncle Dan Fitzgerald c. 1913 Mary, Lib, Gil, and Dot, Winter 1913 Above is the only photograph I have of Uncle Dan. Two years later, at the age of 18,...

James, a tailor by trade, arrived in Boston aboard the Catharine on November 13, 1848, having left behind his wife, Betsey, a little tyke (Thomas), a challenging toddler (Mary), the baby (John), a son just forming in the womb (Patrick), and the memory of the infant daughter (Joanna) who had died a few years before. James Fitzgerald was about the same age as one of my husband's ancestors, Henry Webster, whom I have previously introduced. James relocated from Ireland to America about the same time Henry immigrated from Scotland to Ireland. Both men were in their mid-thirties when they made these significant changes.  James Fitzgerald struggled to find a way for his wife and family to join him in America, whereas the transition was less arduous for Henry. James and his wife, Betsey, were both from county Kerry.   I believe Betsey was a Graney from Killelton, a townland on the north shore of the Dingle peninsula in the civil parish of Kilgobban. I suspect that James also wa...