Students from both Saint Francis Xavier School and Saint Thomas of Canterbury have been sharing and posting family stories as part of our Matchbox Dairy One Book collaboration. We have been reading these stories together in class and posting comments. We are now looking forward to meeting one another face to face later in the month.
Here is my own family story.
Mrs. Nagel
My grandmother immigrated to the United States in 1901. She was born in Saintfield, Northern Ireland, and lived on the street pictured. When she was eleven years old, her father left for the United States to find work. She, her mother and her brother were to come once he had a job. Unfortunately, her mother became ill with influenza and died suddenly, so my grandmother traveled alone with her brother to the United States landing in East Boston. She returned to Saintfield in the 1970’s and tried to find her relatives without success. Recently, online records allowed me to find and contact some of her family. Two years ago my son and I traveled to Saintfield to meet them. They remembered the stories of my grandmother leaving Ireland, but did not know what had happened to her. Together they helped us to locate her childhood home and her grandfather’s shop. We all had tea together in this shop which is now a tea house. Tea was my grandmother’s favorite treat so it seems fitting that we met her family there! I remember having tea often with my grandmother at her home in the United States. She had a special “brown betty” teapot and tea cozy that she used everyday, so for me a special object that helps to tell the story of her life is her teapot.
