Member-only story
Keeping Connection Across the Miles
The value of relationships is priceless, even when there is an ocean in the way.
I am a Jersey girl but I didn’t grow up going to the shore and I never went to summer camp. We went to Disney once or twice, but only because I had relatives to visit nearby. My dad was a language professor and a serious travel addict. He wanted nothing more than to see the world, every place and every chance he got. My brother and I trailed behind him, visiting every country. Each trip abroad ended in the same place. Ireland.
My dad was first generation Irish-American, born to immigrant parents. His mother and father entered this country as servants in a large house in Glen Ridge, NJ. She was a cook and he was the chauffeur. They fell in love and were married. Their path took them to Manhattan, where they would stay to raise a family.
My grandmother was a tough cookie, to say the least. She managed to take every seeming misfortune and spin it into gold. Arriving in the United States in 1912, she quickly made a career for herself. First as a servant, then as a laundress. When she had an accident and fell breaking several bones, she received an insurance settlement. Instead of using it on doctors, whom she didn’t trust, she bought a nine-unit apartment building on 74th and Columbus on a tax lien and became a landlord.
