Looking for the new park

The sun comes out in the afternoon, and it's time to walk down to the corner of Broad Street, admiring the job they did last fall on recontouring all that land. It's still behind a locked fence, but it's very high on the other side of Elliott Avenue and even higher than that on some of the land on this side of Elliott. There's supposed to be two pedestrian walkways in the works, one that goes to 2 Broad Street. I guess that means that it begins about where I was standing on my way down the hill?

From Western, you can't even see the traffic on Elliott, the ground's been lifted above car height on both sides. There's still a pedestrian traffic light at Bay and Elliott, where I used to be able to come down the stairs from Western, walk thru the garden there, and cross the traintrack. Been several years since the RR allowed anyone to just cross the tracks there. There's another spot a block further north where a caboose had been parked long since, blocking what had obviously been another good crossing to the park.

Even in the short time I was at Bay and Elliott, there were two sets of visitors admiring the statues and gardens that have been there. Imagine how many people will enjoy the whole thing when it's all statues and gardens. Those lawns have remained healthy and untrodden -- visitors have been just fine about using the wide pavements.

There was a train on the tracks beyond Elliott most of the time; I think the other pedestrian overpass goes over the traintrack as well as Elliott, maybe as an extension of Bay, but I doubt that. Probably over south a bit.

I wonder, next year when this opens as a Statuary Park, will there be an admittance gate only, or will the park be free and lovely from all sides?

It's amazing that the beautiful view you get when you walk down Bay Street doesn't become the main scenic view of the whole project. There's snow on mountains across the Sound, but I'm told there's far less than other years.

About Michael Hayes and Margaret Real

When we were in Ireland, we spent the most time in the county of Limerick. We looked at the towns that Michael Hayes and Margaret Real came from, visited in the country stores, chatted with the people coming out of Mass...

Simon Real was mentioned in the Tith Applotment Book as having about thirteen acres of land in 1850, in the townland of Knockainy, West. July 19th, 1919, his daughter Margaret was born; her mother was born Catherine McArthy. Her sponsors were Edmond Carroll and Bridget Halpin. Jim corresponded with living descendants of the Real family -- in records it's often spelt Rael, and it's pronounced Rale. I remember Grandpa McJohn sitting in the living room of our little apartment in Chicago before Beth was born, saying that the spelling of his grandma's last name changed with the person who was spelling it! His Hayes aunts had lived with him after his dad's early death, cared for him all their lives, and they were beloved. They were, of course, Margaret's daughters.

Beth spent time sitting at Aunt Mary's side writing out the names on the back of old tinplates of the Hayes girls. Maybe there was a picture of Margaret Rael Hayes?

Michael Hayes and Margaret Rael had six children, and the first five were baptized in the Knockaney Catholic church from April 8, 1850 (John R) to March 9, 1861 (Margaret) but the youngest, Deborah, who married Joe Sheridan, was born after 1861.

Margaret Rael had married Michael Hayes in Knockaney on November 21st, 1848. She had a sister who stayed in New York, but she and Michael came to Chicago . Michael Hayes -- there's a picture of him in the Holy Family book, sitting with the other ushers in his stiff collar and black suit. As an old retired guy, he worked as an "inspector of curbs" which sounds to me like a good Chicago political appointment! His daughter Catharine was the businesswoman; she bought the plot in Mount Carmel where Michael was buried, in 1901, and then when John McJohn, her brother-in-law, died so young, he was buried there too. That's in the oldest section of Mount Carmel, off to the extreme north, under a pretty old tree.

Those Hayes girls pitched in to make a fine fun life for the youngsters. Money wasn't plentiful, but there were always houses to live in, because Edward McJohn and his oldest son, Christopher, had bought and sold so many buildings in the Holy Family parish. And all but Margaret worked, while Peg stayed home with the kids and kept house.

There's a family in LaGrange that's probably descended from Deborah Hayes, and a Sheridan who's in the choir in Lake Forest with Joe who probably is also. Deborah and Joseph Sheridan had six children who lived -- all lively, charming, and able; John Hayes and Nell Mahoney had six children -- his daughter Mary was the mother of the Howard boys, two priests and one surgeon, who had so many friends on the West Side. Monsignor Howard was another charmer -- I never met the other two Howards, but a priest who lived in SFX here for a number of years was very fond of their company.

And from John McJohn, of course, there's all our lot.

Reagan is another name which is spelled like Real and gets the pronunciation of the long a.

I Believe in Angels

A card I got the other day referred to the way we keep on floating on our wings.

The wings I do expect to float on aren't particularly mine. There's a wonderful statement in the Old Testament somewhere that describes it: the old can be held up by the wings of eagles, so that although young men stumble, the old can persevere. Anyone can be held up by the wings.

I do believe in angels. Not the meaty handsome be-winged kind that painters showed us, although certainly that's the way to put a readable symbol in a brilliant picture so people know what story you're telling. But there are angels, maybe harmonies in the universe, and they have skills or abilities that we cannot define (either). And I really do believe that when we pray for help, or even just as we go along hoping, even a negligible small thing can be accomplished by angels. Why not?

Winter Ebbs Away

By golly, there is an end to winter. Sure, we expect some snow this afternoon, but out in the lawn, the sturdy little green stems of snowdrops are white with buds. Really bright white.

They aren't open. Don't they open into little hanging bells? But they will happily go ahead, holding their white flower well above whatever snow comes.

The next things will be yellow winter aconite, but they'll take weeks to get rolling.

McJohns All Over the Country

Well, yes, this is all one family. There was an outfit doing fake genealogy once, who offered for sale books listing one's whole family -- and what the unknowing buyer got was entries from the phone book. Jim McJohn decided this was funny, and actually bought one. He did find one lady in the South with the name, never managed to get in touch with her; and a family in Seattle. After his polite letter, they corresponded. Seems a couple had attempted to settle on a hyphenated name when they wanted to marry, and no hyphenation really suited their extended family; so they made up a name -- McJohn. They thanked him for the brief genealogical listing he had mailed, and said they would save it for their children.

I've talked to those children by phone when I was in Seattle; the original couple divorced, and while they left plenty of records (land, chancery) in the McJohn name, it does appear that they took back their original names. Their kids, however, do use the McJohn name.

A few years back, one of the McJohns found my name online, and I talked by phone to members of that branch of the family. They knew that their father had been a feisty short Irishman called Littlejohn when he was a submariner for the US in WWII. He'd been born to a young couple just after his dad died of the flu in Coney Island, and had been raised knowing nothing of the McJohns. Comparing careers and tendencies, we could conclude on the phone that we were certainly related, but it has taken a number of years to trace out where on the East Coast the family branched off.

The McJohn we know the most about arrived and was eventually naturalized in New York at the Mariner's Court. He was godfather to his sister's children -- she married a McGowan. He had brothers; one of them had children who were living with an uncle in Brooklyn when they were in their teens. Their father had moved to Connecticut and served in the Civil War through two enlistments. From Brooklyn to Coney Island, we don't know much about Littlejohn's father.
Google generally finds the most about Steve and Bill, but I found a really nice citation of some of Jim's genealogical work in the Germanna files this month. John Blankenbaker published for some years a fine newsletter about the Germanna families, and Jim highly respected John's work. He would be so glad to find himself and his work so clearly and well represented in the writing of a man whose work he so much enjoyed.

Opening this blog, I didn't realize that people who aren't members of the blogspot community can't add comments. The email tab has proved handy.

Who's Got The Answers?

What a disappointment, bringing the Chicago Sunday Tribune in, unfolding the Book Section to the Crossword page, looking for the words that really answered last week's upper left hand corner. I don't know the names of all Gene Hackman's movies.
And the "Answer" that the Tribune prints is a grid of words that has never been printed in the Tribune in the last three months! What a gyp.

Rang Like a Bell

Researchers quoted in Science magazine are studying harmonics via telescope. They say there was a time when "the universe rang like a bell." I love this.