In 1960, the letter said, “How could you have fallen so low in the world as to marry a Catholic, given the way you were raised.” It was to my dad from his mother. It was also my mother Anne’s first glimpse into her husband’s family.
My father, Harold, or Hal as he preferred, left his family without a word when he was 16. Since then and until he died in 2011, he never mentioned his mother Mina or father Samuel, at least not to me. No stories or reminiscences of them together at Drumarkin House in Rathfriland, Co. Down in Northern Ireland.
He left his parents and sister Muriel without so much as a “see ya,” and only sent word to them 12 years later to let them know he was living in Canada and had gotten married. He was 28.
I wonder if my mother convinced him to write the letter. Or whether he thought news of his marriage to a Catholic would serve another blow to their collective Presbyterian gut.
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In 1985, I was 22 and determined to do some traveling. I thought the U.K. would be a good place to start. Perhaps I could even learn a little about the people and places from whence I came – or from whence my parents came, anyway.
When I wrote my Aunt Muriel asking if I could visit, I didn’t know her. I had met her only once before at the age of two. At that time in 1964, my mother had taken me and my brother John “home” to meet her and my dad’s families.
I don’t know why my dad didn’t come with us on that trip. Too cowardly, I expect. Mom said she was nervous about visiting Drumarkin House. She was right to be, as her reception from Muriel, her sister-in-law, was frosty.
However, mom said during that visit of ’64, our grandfather Samuel was kind to her and genuinely concerned that we children be made comfortable. “Muriel,” he chastised, “Do we not have any snacks or toys for the wee ones to play with?” Mina, Samuel’s wife, had died in ’62, two years previous.
I have a photo of John and me with our grandfather in 1964. Me happily sucking my two middle fingers, John in the midst of an easy laugh, Samuel solemn. We were two and three. He was 82 and died shortly after our visit.
It was only recently, by finding a photo of the Greene family headstone online, that I learned Samuel’s age in that photo. Based on the years engraved on the stone for him, Mina and Muriel, I determined he was 15 years his wife’s senior and 50 when my dad was born. Why so old? I wondered. Did he fight in the First World War? Was he previously married? Where did he and Mina grow up and meet? Why did they wait so long to start a family? I’ll never know any of the answers to these questions because there’s no one left to ask.
Carol, Samuel and John Greene, 1964
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