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When Grandpa Trod the Boards: From The Colleen Bawn to the Irish Cultural Garden

Title page from The Colleen Bawn script.   In 1933, when Joseph John Gilbride was 23 years old, he took to the stage. Grandpa had a bit part as a soldier in a production of the 19th century Irish play, The Colleen Bawn , by Dion Boucicault. The play was produced in Cleveland's Little Theater in Public Hall. 1   My grandpa's name and address in The Colleen Bawn cast list. 2   Now, it's not a huge stretch to imagine Grandpa doing a bit of theater. He was an outgoing fella, prone to jokes, puns, and visual nonsense that made his grandkids laugh.  Cut-up Grandpa checks out his new headphones, getting a smile from Grandma! 3 But beyond the novelty of thinking about a young Grandpa playing a soldier, it was the context of this Theater of Nations endeavor and the groups that helped produce  The Colleen Bawn  that grabbed my attention.   Beginnings  It began with this announcement on 13 December 1929 in The Plain Dealer: Races of City to Give Plays with P...
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THE LONG LINE OF ORDINARY


I am occasionally participating in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, a writing challenge encouraging genealogy researchers to write about their ancestors. The challenge is hosted by genealogist, blogger and podcaster Amy Johnson Crow.

This week's prompt: Long Line

By Nancy Gilbride Casey


"It is the unseen efforts, the common fidelities, the loving devotions amidst the ordinary, that lend substance to an existence; even an existence that may, or may not ever, even for one fine moment, pop and sparkle in the eye of public acclaim."1

I come from a long line of ordinary.

I come from average folk who simply made a life, worked hard, and raised their families. My men were coal miners, factory workers, pipe fitters, a blacksmith. My women worked as a laundress, a Woolworth lunch counter waitress, a secretary, a factory laborer, and many as housewives. Some struggled to find work which fit them, and bounced from job to job.

The memory of some have faded with time, overshadowed by the day-to-day business of their descendants' lives.

I honor the long line of their ordinary actions which brought me to today.

I honor the meals made, the laundry washed, and the clothes ironed. I honor the dishes dried and the floors swept.

I honor the foreheads kissed, the fevers soothed, and the diapers changed.

I honor broken hearts mended, goodnights said, and food passed around the table.

I honor the struggle to provide, disappointments suffered and the victories celebrated. I honor food stamps taken, layoffs and unemployment lines endured. I honor second shifts, and showers men took in the basement after their long, dirty workday. I honor sacrifices made.

I honor porch sitting, chats on front steps, a grandmother calling grandchildren for dinner from the front door. I honor early rising, bus riding and walking to school. I honor nicknames given and jokes made.

I honor sticking up for one another. I honor divorced mothers and the relatives who helped them. I honor the marriages that lasted until death.

I honor the actions I never saw, done by so many on my behalf, to give me a better life.

I honor the long line of ordinary which came before me.

My people were not famous. They will never "pop and sparkle in the eye of public acclaim." Yet it was their very ordinariness which formed the foundation of my life.

I am forever grateful.


Until next time...

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NOTES
1 David Baird, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," Thinking Faith, 17th January 2014 (https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/secret-life-walter-mitty : accessed 19 Jan 2020). 

Photo above: Food stamp coupons used by my mother Ann M. Kozlina Gilbride while laid off from her job at Bailey Meter in Wickliffe, Ohio in the late 1970s.




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