another week begins

Tomorrow  Monday, April 11th starts a new week.  This week is a special week for one of my nephew's as he celebrates his birthday.  Birthday blessings to Bryan Dolphin and also to his wife Jenni and his little son.  He is a proud Father of his wife and son.  I know that very well.
Since I being his uncle remembers him when he was a small baby himself and he was always a joyful and lovable boy.  A joy to his Mother and Father who are my Brother Everett and his wife Barbara,my sister in law.  And also a joy to all his sisters.  As well as to his grandparents and I know two of them who were very proud of their grandson Bryan, that was my own parnts of course. But these grandparents were very proud of all their grandchildren.  And I know that they were very careful in being the grandparents of all their grandchildren.
But I also know that it was a dream come true for my Mother and Father in hearing the news of a little baby boy being borned to Evvy and Barbara.
Since the older son and Brother went into being a Religious Brother in the Society of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in the year of 1957.  My parents never said anything against my decision to become a  Religious Brother.   That was probably a dream come true for my Mother since her dream was to become a a Religious Sister when she was ia young woman in Ireland.  The oldest of 13 children. 
It was the generosity of her own parents to allow their oldest daughter to go to the United States in 1929, thanks to the step brother of her Father who was always living in the United States and in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts.
It waa also the deep religiosity of her parents, parents of deep faith who raised our Mother and Grandmother to be a good Christian and to follow her own Catholic Faith in another country that was so different from her homeland of Ireland.  This being the case of coming from a farming family that had animals and raised crops for a living in a place called Derrylin n County Fermanagh.
She had a Father who was crippled with Rheumatism and had to walk with a cane.  He enjoyed smoking a pipe and his wife would have to fill his pipe with tobacco and light it for her husband.
She had many chores of raising the children, thirteen in fact and a couple of the children ahd died at a young age.
So I can imagine what my Mother had felt in leaving her homeland for another country and culture and history so differnt from her own.
However she kept very close to her family by sending letters and also sending over packages of clothes to her parents for her younger sisters and Brothers.
This is a journey of our Mother and Grandmother that I share with you today.  Each one of us have our own story of our Mother and Grandmother.
Our Mother also had the responsibility of taking care of our Father her husband in the last years of his life.  As Dad said in his own words about Ma that "She was the best nurse" and Ma  would say that someone else would do the same but Dad made it very clear to her that she was the only one an that was very true.  Since Dad knew himself very well and comeing from a broken home with his own parents being separated at a young age and I believe that he might of been around 12 years old at the time.   He was very close to his Father and our Mother knew that as he would take him our for a ride on Sunday afernoon in his Model T Ford with our Mother.  Ma found him to be a quiet man but a fine gentleman.
When his Father died in 1938 due to walking pneumonia, it had changed everything for our Father.

So another week begins tomorrow and also the last two weeks of Lent and this year Easter is on April 25th. And it just so happens that another child was born on April 23rd and during Holy Week if I am correct.   Her name is Maureen Helen Dolphin Thayer, the third child of he Dolphin family.  

I will write a few words about Maureen at another time.

The purpose of this is to share a jounry about what is going on in our life in our youth and as we are now grown adults as a family that began in Worcester, Massachusetts all the way back to 1937 or on therir wedding day in 1934 on Thanksgiving day.

So we give thanks always for our porents, grandparents and ancestors. To all those that we now share life with and also remembering all those who have left us and have meant so much to each one of us. as a family, an extended family.

lots of love,
frankie .