As narrated in 1999 to Maura E Enright and Ruric Todd
Margaret was born in 1863. She was born in Wicklow (near Dublin). She wanted to be a doctor but ended up a nurse because she could not find a doctor to train her or to sponsor her in college. At that time it was illegal for the Catholic Irish to own a book with covers, and the British soldiers could enter any house at any time to search for contraband. Margaret successfully disguised her medical book as a door stop.
As a child, Margaret went to the County Carnival. Kids were jumping into Hay. Margaret jumped into the middle and landed on her head. Asked friends not to tell. Had bad headaches for the rest of her life.
She married James O'Byrne, a man who had been working in India as a batman (servant) for an officer. They settled in Limerick City. James got work as a butler. A butler met the guests and supervised other servants, served meals, and took care of the household's animals, silver and dishes.
Margaret, a nurse, and James, a butler, were considered to have careers and to be a cut above ordinary working Irish folks.
James and Margaret had 9 children in nine years.
Frank,
Margaret (lived 6 months and was so beautiful that the neighbors came to admire her beauty),
Ellen-Mary (Nellie),
Charles,
Jimmy-James,
1896: Kathleen Mary
Delia,
Maura,
Baby
Some family memories:
Brothers and sisters bickered, no fighting.
If you were late for supper you had to bring in twigs for firewood.
Nellie took Maura and Delia to school. They walked through all the puddles in their new shoes. Nellie had to kneel in front of the room as punishment.
Kathleen went to school until she was 14 (unusually long and similar to college education) and then was made apprentice in a dressmaking business run by a French woman. The French woman liked her work and gave her 3 English shillings a week for five years.
The schoolhouse was a one-room schoolhouse, Mandee O'Dee was school mistress.
8 am - 11 am was the priest's tour. One day Kathleen felt faint and could not stand up when the priest came in.Mrs O'Dee was going to help her up by the hair. Priest said, You go teach, I'll help her up. Next day Margaret had a few words with Mrs. O'Dee.
Frank climbed a wall to get apples. Fell off the wall backwards when climbing back over and was found unconscious a day later.
Charlie loved to dance, and went all over Ireland dancing.
Delia took a trip to Lordes once.
Delia became a secretary and maintained a reputation as the elegant one in the family, always addressed as Miss OByrne.
Margaret had an old age pension. She died in 1949 at age of 86.
Kathleen O´Byrne comes of age:
World War I came and cloth for sewing could not be bought, so there was no work for seamstresses.
Friend Lena's brother-in-law in England sent a letter to Lena telling her there was work in England sewing airplane parachutes of the finest satins and silks. The IRA did not approve of Irish people going to England to work but Kathleen and Lena went anyway and worked in England for 2 years. Her brother Jimmy was a member of the IRA and spent some time in prison because of IRA-related activities, but still remained close to Kathleen.
Kathleen was laid off after two years, returned to Ireland in the middle of WWI, and went to a dressmaking school on Limerick Street, a 6 miles walk each way, with the walk crossing the Grudy River.
Her brother Frank immigrated to America and got a job in in steel construction. During the construction of the 3rd Avenue L he fell off and on to his head and died of an anorism. Buried upstate in Graymoore. Nelly and he had been especially close.
Sister Nellie went to America in 1912 because there was no work in Ireland. She was sponsored by a relative (probably Frank) for $20. She found work as a waitress, and then become head waitress. Nellie sent earnings back to help the family with a tobacco/sweet shop on a dock on lower Mallow Street called the Bon-Bon. Baby ran it. It turned out to be in a good location, with plenty of business from near-by seminary students who would sneak out to purchase sweets.
Kathleen went to America in 1920. Molly White, a cousins, sponsored her. She got a job working as a waitress with Nellie. They shared a room, studio beds, and jobs.
Cornelius Patrick Enright comes of age:
In Ireland, he lived on the same road as his future wife, Kathleen O´Byrne.
He was a good concertina player. When he lived in Ireland, he would put the furniture on the front lawn to empty his house for a house dance. He also trained men for footraces: farmers vs. the hired hands. Sometimes the help ran in new shoes, against his advice.
Cornelius won his house, probably through gambling.
He moved to America in 1912 with a group of Irish young people.
During WWI he worked in the Colt gun factory.
Cornelius then worked a packet boat to Albany, then worked in a grocery store in 1922.
His brothers Patty and Charlie worked in a grocery store in Manhattan, went into the Army, moved to Chicago and disappeared. A twin-image of Cornelius´s son Joseph Enright was sighted in Chicago by friends but they were unable to catch up to him.
The train to the last stop in the Bronx was a popular picnic destination for young people, including Cornelius and Kathleen.
4-foot-9-inch Kathleen and six-foot-something Cornelius married in 1922.
Cornelius and Kathleen Enright:
1927: moved to house near Marine Park in which his youngest child was born and which remains in the family to this day.
Brooklyn Edison hired Cornelius and sent him to school one day a week to learn to be an electrian. After nine years of training one day a week and working 6 Am to midnite he became an electrician. His children remember him as a jack of all trades and the house he and Kathleen bought is filled with his handiwork.
Maura (the youngest) was born when her brother Charlie had scarlet fever and the house was in quarantine. Her uncle Frank passed away at the same time. Because of the fever, people were unwilling to stand godmother and godfather to Maura. Mrs. Knapp and her son Harnett finally stood in.