’ve been thinking about connections lately. Every time I get a few quiet minutes I find myself trying to form a picture of Rose in my mind. I remind myself that she was a woman of the late nineteenth century and not the mid twentieth. So I work my way back through the generations: my mother, who can talk to anyone and is loved by everyone; my Grandma Diddy, fashionable and elegant, but who loved to meet us at Union Station in costume; Grandmommy Mary Rose, who followed her Navy husband all over the world; and great great grandmother Rose, who began a new life in America. That gets me to thinking in the other direction, from Rose through to my daughter Katie and the triumphs of each generation.

I don’t know for sure why Rose left Ireland or where she lived at first, but I do know that she and James were married soon after, and they were still in their teens. James worked as a fireman and Rose kept house. They raised 3 children and lost two, they moved to several rentals in New Jersey and Brooklyn, and they helped raise two of their grandchildren. Mary Rose lived in several states and Panama and even had her first child (my grandmother) in Shanghai. Dorothy married her own version of a vagabond and followed my grandfather to a series of jobs and law schools. She opened and ran not one but two beauty shops, one in Indiana and one in California, and raised my amazing mother. Mom got married young, made everything work while times were tough, and, with my dad, founded a very successful company. Together, they raised 3 children who are all now college-educated professionals. My own daughter Katie is finishing her Master’s dissertation and is headed toward her PhD. Five generations after Rose left her home for what had to be an uncertain future, her strength and courage has been reaffirmed by each woman, culminating in a young woman who who has the world by its proverbial tail.