Mary Ann Writes to Her Son Louie in 1893

I can’t remember when I took this photo.  I was visiting with my mom’s Bucklin cousin Louise in Hathaway and we were talking about family history and looking at old family photos.  I tend to do that from time to time, so I can’t remember the exact date.  I should be able to tell, because I keep such good track of all of the photos I take.  At least I thought I did.  I’ve found many photos I took when I was younger that don’t have a date on them.  Why would anyone listen to my recommendation to label all of their photos when I don’t do so myself?  Because they shouldn’t follow my bad example!  Do as I say, not as I do.  Label all of your photos!!

Ok.  I got that out of my system.  That wasn’t planned, but none of this post was planned.  I just knew I was going to write something and it was likely going to be about my mom’s side of the family because it’s their turn.  So this old letter caught my attention when I was looking through the folders on my computer about my maternal side.

As you can see from the letter itself, it was written on April 11, 1893.  What you probably do not know is that it was written by my great great grandmother Mary Ann McGrath.   She was the mother of Louis Bucklin.  He was the father of Fred Bucklin, who was my maternal grandfather.

Mary Ann is my closest link to Ireland.  She was born in 1834 in Roscommon, Ireland.  Her youngest sibling was born in Ireland in 1838.  That would mean that Mary Ann was 11 years old when the Great Famine began in Ireland in  1845.  That’s when a blight caused the destruction of a large majority of the potato crop in the country. Since potatoes were a large part of the Irish diet, it caused widespread famine.

During the six years of the Great Potato Famine an estimated million people died from starvation and hunger-related diseases.  Mary Ann and her family were part of the million Irish people who emigrated during that time.  I have not been able to identify the date of their move to the United States, but know that they settled in Palmer, Massachusetts.  Mary Ann met a local man named James Bucklin and they were married in 1854 in Springfield, Massachusetts.  So we know they were in the US by 1854, but they probably came over around 1850 or so.  I hope to be able to find that information one day.  I will definitely let you all know when I do.

So Mary Ann and James went on to have Jennie in 1855 and Joseph in 1861.  Those two were born in Massachusetts.  The family then moved to Iowa at some point, because they had Edd in 1864 in Sand Springs, Iowa.  They were still in Iowa when our Louis was born in 1873.  But the family moved south to Louisiana and began homesteading in Hathaway, Louisiana, in 1884.  Then in 1893, it was decided that Louis needed a good education and that was going to be done in Ada, Ohio.  So he went off to Ohio Normal University.  He kept a journal about some of the things that were happening when he was there.  He must have also kept some of the letters that he got from home, because the family still has some of them.

In this one, his mother Mary Ann talks about a dream that she had.  In the dream her son “Louie” came to her crying because he had broken his arm.  This caused Mary Ann to worry about her son and she says, “I cannot wrest untile I hear from you that you are alright.”  I’m sure she was missing her youngest son and was concerned about his well being.  I wonder how Louis took this.  He was 19 years old and probably didn’t want to see himself as a child who goes crying to his mother when he gets hurt.  And yet he probably appreciated his mother’s concern and he still kept the letter all through the years.

The big Cry Baby!