Cuzins By the Duzins !!

 

The other day we went over to Bayshore at the mouth of the harbour. I sat on the bulwark above the beach while Fluff ....... always looking for some action ...... prowled the sands below lining up as many unfortunate gulls and cormorants as possible in the crosshairs of her super - duper camera lens ........ and looking very professional too , I might say ! All of a sudden a fellow my age siddled up to me , hunkered himself down and , pointing to the island a bit offshore , asked me the following question , " Do you know what that is out there ?" ( With Fluff shooting everything in sight down below and me disguised in tourist garb the guy had taken us for out - of - towners ). "Why yes , " I retorted , " some of my distant kinfolk and forebearers have been fertilizing the plant life out there for nigh onto 160 years." He laughed , saying .... " so you're from around here , are you ?" .... to which I answered , " Yeah , I'm a Northender ." 

It turned out that he was a Westsider of Irish origin like myself who had just come back from a three - week tour of the Old Sod and we were on his turf... in fact , he just lived up the hill a wee bit from the beach behind us. We chatted on for some time about Partridge Island there before us ( our own little Ellis Island ) , growing up poor in the 1930s - 1940s , Catholic parish life and how it had changed , etc........ but it was when we exchanged family names that all my geneological bells started tolling loudly. He said his name was Greg Hayes. Now my grandmother on my mother's side was Annie Hayes from the West Side !! .... and back in 1925 when she died her brother , Michael , who lived at Market Place on the West Side  was mentioned in her obituary as well as her sister , Catherine. My Mom often referred to Uncle Mike and we had Aunt Catherine ( Kit ) living on and off at our house in my childhood. I can even remember attending Aunt Kit's burial at Holy Cross Cemetery in 1944 when I was 8 years old.And to boot I still have her old standing rocker she brought from Ireland here with us ..... one of the few pieces of antique family heirloom furniture I have not let go of yet.

For the sake of brevity .... thereby sparing my readers the arduous yet palpitating details of our conversaton and the complexities of kinship terminology ..... it turned out that Michael Hayes was Greg's grandfather ....... so his grandpa and my granny Hayes were brother and sister ! ......... and Greg and I are second cousins !!  

We shall get together soon for coffee and an exchange of old snapshots. I feel blessed and enriched .......