A Story Worth Sharing

This beautiful lady, is my Grandma. She is funny, chatty and has more sass than should be legal at the age of nearly 91. She is my favorite story teller and is a walking keepsaker of my families history. This story is about her Grandmother whose last name was Phalen. My great-great grandmother was not even born when her family left Ireland. In fact, she was born on the boat in route to America. Everyone on the ship was very excited and held a small "meet and greet" for the new baby girl. Even the sailors and ship captains got to come see the bonny wee lass. One sailor in particular took quite a fancy to the small infant. He was young, around the age of 16 or 17. He told his fellow sailor that someday, he was going to marry that baby girl. He kept in close contact with the family upon their arrival in America and 18 years to the date, he married my great-great grandmother. They must have kept in the Irish community because they had a daughter who married a man with the last name O'day. Then they had a beautiful girl named Margaret Mary O'day. She found some stubborn, German named Willehardt Dahlke and married him. And those two were a match made it heaven if I ever saw one. The fact that those two were together until the day my Grandpa died shows God has a WONDERFUL sense of humor.

So I may not have as much Irish in me as I would like, but I will take a little Irish with a story like my mine over more hot blood any day. Happy St. Patrick's Day Mo Charas!!!! And may your day be blessed with these words from an Old Irish Blessing:

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”