Document text
Name Jane K. Leary
Subject An Irish Shoemorker in Lynn
Section #3.
My w/indering conversation with Uncle Jimmie
led us to a discussion of the changing complexities
that intermarriage of various racial groups is bring-
ing about in Lynn.
"Well, a course when two young people that
gets married, has been brought up entirely diffrunt,
a
it makes it aorta hard fur 'em 0 learn holy ta get
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along tagether. But y4t, know too, that if the same marries
the same fur too long, it sometimes makes fur a poor strain.
Why there's idiots come from some a the best families in
America, all because they married their cousins or second
cousins. Children need fresh blood. It don't pay ta let
families go ta seed, no matter how high up they are.
_
"Them old guys in England, years ago in history,
knew what they wuz doinl when they made a nobleman out&
a guy that pulled hisself up by his bootstraps. Then he
married one a them and that put new blood in that family.
!Funny, we knew that's true of horses, but we
often forget it's true of human creatures. This here
intermarriage '11 make bright children, I'm a thinuint,
and they're Americans jest as =Oh as them pure bred
Yankees.
Jane K. Leary 2.
Anyway, pure blood gets dang impure if yeLdon't watch it.
"Jest the same too, there's a lot in inheritance.
YA take that there sons a Man a War. Ain't they doin'
something nAw? That's the other side of this here question,
fur this goes ta prove that 'blood will tell)k
"There's a lot in that subject of intermarriage
that none of us knows nothint about. We all get a lot ta
learn about VIA many things and our life ain't long enough
ta learn it in.
"There is one thing about marriage that I'm
certain of though, and that is that ya ought ta stay
married after ya take that step. Now look at Hollywood.
I ain't get nothint against actOrs. But don't it kinda
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make ya sick at your stomach, the way they get divorced?
Ain't hardly a one a them that's stayed married.
"That the ttng about the Catholic Church I like.
If ya get married and don't like it, ya get ta take your
medicine. /A know that way, folks think a long while
'fore they take that step, And if they think a long
while, they ain't* likely ta get tired a their bargain."
-*Aunt Mary gave me further bits of insight into
the life of this family, for her philosophy reflected this
life.
Jane Leary 3,
'In the years when Jim wuz wfIrkint in the shops,
I wuz alone with the children all day and I had most of
the raisin' of 'em ta do. Had ta, for he went 4 work
early and he came home late.
w1Tias hard work and besides I always did what
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I could ta earn an extra dollar 'r soS. Sometimes I had
a boarder. But Jim always brought his envelop home
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regular.
"I wuz good ta my children and I'm glad I wuz.
I always tried ta make as much a one as I did another.
Why even when I made a rice puddint with raisins, I
always put as many raisins in one dish as another.
Sometimes I even counted tem. It's an awful thing ta
favor one child, -when another's standin' at your elboe
hankerint for the same kind of love.
'Why once I saw a mother beinl partial ta one
child and she clean forgot another little girl watching
her. There wears in that child's eyes. When a
child get tears in her eyes, she's -hat inside. If it
jest yells, that don't mean much. But tears. You watch
a child when it has tears in its eyes. It'll remember
that hurt.
Jane K. Leary 4.
"I never wuz one to make a favorite of a
child. I tried ta treat 'em all alike. And I
didn't dress 'em all up in starched clothes either
sets they thought they had ta walk stiff and stay
clean. Children wuz meant to romp and play.
"After they went ta school though, I always
tried ta see they wuz dressed as good as,. the others
they went with.
"I think young parents are too hard on their
children taday. They havta live. What if they do not
have table manners? They'll learn. It's better they
should spill a little on the table cloth, than ta grow
up ta be a nervous wreck because tome one is always
at tem.
"What if they don't sit so still at table?
Most children wriggle around and I don't blame tem
much, considerint what they havta listen to while
they eat, the stupid talk that most a us big ones
use. They often have more sense than them that's
scoldin' rem.
Jane K. Leary 5.
"I had good children, wery one of tem. I never
had ta tell my boys ta change their clothes and put on
their overalW after school. They'd come right in the
house and first thing I'd know, I'd see 'em with their
8,J
old clothesA and ready ta go out and play 'till supper
time.
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"We liveg in West Lynn then, near where the River
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A Works of the G. E. is. Oft' times the children would
get their little wagon after school and go off with the
other kids of West Lynn to where the G. E. unloaded their
coal. They'd pick up the coal that wuz dropped *hen the
unloadin, wuz done, or sometimes they'd pick up the half
burned chunks that the G. EA, throwed away. Ya could burn
it over again in the furnace and often we'd get enough to
last us half the winter that way.
"Sometimes they bring home wood too, for the G.E.
threw all the wood away, that the things sent the company
0 e,
was packed in. Taday they sell iti)
birb-44"111"147-41"*""A
Lotta homes in West Lynn been.kept warm that way. Most
alway get enough for the kitchen stoves anyway.
Jane K. Leary 6.
0
"Before the children wuz born, when I wOrked
in the shop, I usta bring home those big spools that
the thread comes on for the stitchint room. That wuz
good wood to burn, A couple of 'tam would burn bright
for an hour. I often brought a couple home every night.
1M 'ei
just as clear as if 'twas yesterday, when
a
each a mine come. It's no wonder we love 'em 80, fer
we go right up ta the doors a death tot each one of
'em, and then we wait them Iong months before they come,
and we wonder if we havta die and leave the little ones
we have behind us, and prayinl that we'll come through
all right. Its no wonder we love 'em 4.
"Sometimes I think that the only real love,
that is the love that gives all and expects nothint
back is mother love, There's no feelin' that's deeper
and the mother that don't love her child, no matter what
comes up, ain't fit ta be alive.
"ya oveyour children everything ya can do for
'em, as long as ya live. That's what mothers are 6,r.
They din't ask to be born. You brought 'em here. So
ye ought ta do fur tem..
Jane K. Leary
7.
"An ya always love the weakest the most.
Seems like the one that needs ya the most has your
heart strings tuggint towards tem.
"An no matter how many ya have, you'll find
a place for tem in your heart. And you'll love each
one of 'em in a diffrunt way. According ta the way
they have need a love, I guess. Anyway it will be
diffrunt with each one.
"And no matter what happened to me, I'd
never stand in the way a one a mine, after they
wuz grown up. If they wanted ta get married, and
was marrying right, I'd step aside if I had ta go
to the poor house.
"But I guess I wouldn't go ta the poor house
taday, 'count a the Old Age. That's a goad thing,
that Old Age, 'cause it saves the pride of poor old
creatures that in the old days would havta go lover
the hint or else live on their children and mabbe
not be welcome to the bit they'd eat.
Jane K. Leary 8.
But there's another side to this Old Age business,
that a lotta people dontt consider much. It's got
a bad side to it too. It's makint people think they
don't hafta save for their old age, 'cause they kn6
they'll get taken care of, that they won't be hungry
and they won't be cold. So they just spend all they
get and never think a the rainKday. Think Uncle Sam' 11
have ta hold a umbrella over lem,
"No, such alaw ain't exactly itdr to them
that's saved all their life for their old age, so
they won't need be a burden on their chidren or make
'em shamed 'cause they havata take chsity.
"Just the same it's a good thing for them
as deserve it. Only I'm thankful I don't havta take
it. I earned my old age and an did Jimmie Murray.
xit /were- enloyfdi4 14.1V(0,0!
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