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The Fabric of Hope: An Irish Family Legacy

By Susan G. Mathis

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CHAPTER 1
MARGARET


September 1850
Hilltown, Northern Ireland


“No! I cannot take me family on a coffin ship!” Margaret Hawkins shook her head as she spoke her thoughts aloud to her eight-month-old baby. The drooling baby girl sat on the dirt floor, playing with a wooden spoon, unconcerned with her mum’s words. Margaret stabbed her needle into the quilt on her lap. “How could Father even suggest such a thing? Half the poor Irish people don’t even survive the trip to the New World. No!”
Margaret glanced down at baby Meg and tried to dismiss the unpleasant thoughts racing through her head. She felt much older than her thirty-two years and weary of all the troubles.
She resumed her work, holding up the partially finished quilt to survey the stitching before setting it back on her lap. She took off her spectacles and rubbed her aching eyes, but she was grateful to finally have a few moments to add a piece of her mum’s favorite dress to the quilt. Maybe she would get one of Father’s old shirts to add to it, too.
By the dim morning light of the calfskin-covered window, she sewed. From where she sat, she turned her ear toward the sounds of four of her six children, squealing and playing tag outside in the yard. She chuckled as she heard Susan, her eldest daughter, bossing the others around, as usual.
What a brood they be. Growing up too fast, that they are. I shall add a patch of cloth for each of them, and one day this quilt will tell our family history. Before it be done, it will be filled with fabrics from many of our dear family members who are now here, already in heaven, and one day, heaven bound.
Determined to sew as much as she could while her children played, Margaret hummed an Irish melody while her fingers worked. Though she felt a little guilty for neglecting her job of sewing a quilt for the English baroness who had a summer home nearby, work that would bring needed funds to their home, she had to work on her own quilt. For a little while.
The door to their tiny Irish cottage suddenly banged open. Thirteen-year-old Michael bolted through it, breathless and red-faced. “It’s Grandfather, Mum. Dead in his bed!”
Her hands froze. Margaret held her breath at the pain in her eldest son’s eyes. Yet she could not move or speak or console the lad as her own eyes filled with unbidden tears.
He had to be wrong!
Margaret’s husband, James, quietly stepped in behind their son and shushed him. Then James gently touched her shoulders. “Did you hear him, lamb? Your father be found this morning when Sara called him to breakfast. We must go presently and tend to his wake.”
Her hands began to shake and Margaret dropped the needle in her lap. She let out a piercing wail, covered her face with her hands, and crumpled in the chair.
It cannot be true. It must not be true!
“Ah, lamb. I know…” James bent down and embraced her. His strong muscles held her tightly and stroked her hair.
“Who brought these bad tidings?” she cried.
“Grandfather’s neighbor boy, Conor, came on horseback.” Michael’s voice cracked. “He met Father and meself in the field. ’Twas a good deed he did presently, don’t you think?”
Margaret nodded to her eldest and clung to her husband as she wiped a river of tears from her cheeks.
“We must go,” James said and shook her tenderly. “’Tis important to lay him out before nightfall. ’Tis only fittin’ for a man like your father.”
Her kind husband brushed a wisp of her hair back into place as she trembled in his arms. He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. “Ah, lamb. I know. I know…but we must go.”
The cry of wee Meg brought her back to her motherly concerns. Margaret shook herself, took a gulp of air, and left her husband’s arms, turning her attention to the child. She wiped her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her dress as she picked up the babe and held her close.
“Michael, take the wee one outside,” James said. Michael obeyed and took Meg. At the sight of her son’s sad face, Margaret whimpered and plunked down on the chair.
“He…he can’t be gone,” she sobbed. “Father be healthy and well. He was going to take us to the New World. Now we cannot go. We can’t leave him here…alone.”
“There, there, lamb. The good Lord musta wanted him in heaven with your mum. We must take heart and be on our way.”
Margaret furrowed her brow and stared at her husband. His kind, dark eyes somehow gave her the strength to prepare to go. She stood and began her unwanted task.
James joined her as she silently gathered a few things they needed for burial, along with a handful of cooked potatoes for a meal on the journey, and changes of clothes for each of them. Like a corpse, she plodded through.
Margaret wiped down the already clean, hand-hewn table James had made. She glanced at the three beds—one for herself, James, and the babe, one for the laddies, and one for the lassies—which stood like silent soldiers on the far end of the one-room cottage. As she went over to the lads’ bed and fidgeted with the quilt, she heard the eldest nearly shouting outside the window.
“Grandfather be dead I tell you!” Michael shouted as he spread the news to his younger sisters and brothers outside their thatched cottage.
Margaret froze at the sound of Michael’s announcement. She looked at James, imploring him to do something, anything, to stop this terrible day. The sounds of her children’s whimpering broke her heart. James walked over to her, touched her cheek, and left to gather their children to help ready the wagon.
“Me poor babes. How they loved their grandfather. As I did.” she whispered as she picked up the basket of goods. “How can we bear it?”
With the heavy farm wagon loaded and ready, each of them climbed in for the nearly two-hour journey to Father’s house in the town of Newry. The mid-morning sky was filled with billowy clouds that seemed to threaten a spring storm. Margaret took a whiff and couldn’t smell any rain. It didn’t matter now.
As the horse began his gait, she settled beside her husband and held the baby in her arms, fighting the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her again and again. The other children huddled uncommonly still in the back of the wagon. But not Susan.
“What shall we do without Grandfather?” nine-year-old Susan asked, sniffling back tears. “He be our North Star. Least that’s what you call him, Mum.”
James answered before she could. “He be with Jesus now, child, so hush.”
They stopped at the nearest neighbor’s home to confer the news and request help with the farm while they were gone. That done, they resumed the journey to Newry.
They jostled along the rough, dusty road as they passed the endless rolling, green pastureland. Herds of sheep and a few cattle speckled most of the rolling hills, while vast fields of ryegrass sprung up on others. Margaret’s heart tightened as she considered her father’s request to leave this beautiful land she loved.
Baby Meg nursed while Margaret listened to the rest of her brood, all too quiet for her comfort. She shifted on the bench and glanced over her shoulder to see her frail, little two-year-old John staring at the sheep and cattle on the hillside. He seemed unaware of the heartache and sadness that surrounded them, and she was grateful. And though shy Mary, barely four, and energetic Ned, barely six, appeared to know something was wrong, she surmised that neither fully understood.
But her eldest two, Michael and Susan, did. She could hear it in their voices as she strained to listen to their conversation.
“Grandfather should not have stayed alone in that house after Granna died.” Michael’s dark, teary eyes blazed with grief turned to anger. “’Twas a stubborn man, Grandfather.”
“You’re just like him.” Margaret watched Susan toss her thick, unruly braids and wipe her face. Susan’s dark brown eyes glared at him to make her point. “He was a good man, Michael, and we’d best not talk bad about him. We should be thankful he’s with Jesus and Granna. That’s what I think.”
“But he was going to teach me more ciphering.” Michael’s voice cracked.
Margaret pursed her lips and shook her head as she glanced at her daughter. Susan’s eyes were almost too big for her face. Combined with the constellation of freckles dancing over her nose and cheeks, she appeared young and childish. But Susan always spoke her mind, even from as a wee thing.
Margaret heard them, but she couldn’t find the words to end the unwelcome conversation. She knew Susan’s tender heart had always smoothed things over with her brother before, so she waited and listened.
“You can learn to more ciphering in hedge school, Michael,” Susan insisted, placing her hand on Michael’s forearm.
Margaret squinted as a ray of sunshine burst through a bank of clouds and lit up Michael’s curly red hair until it almost appeared to be on fire. Hot tempered he was, yet the tears in his eyes said he was sad and in no mood for smoothing over.
“It won’t be the same.” Michael scowled at his sister, shaking her hand off his arm.
“No, it won’t,” Susan agreed, ending the conversation with another round of quiet sniffs.
Margaret’s throat constricted and she turned back to face the road. Susan had made amends. Good. She patted the baby’s back as they passed the tiny hamlet of Hilltown, where friends and acquaintances waved greetings. Then they plodded on through the larger village of Mayobridge.
As the wagon neared Derry Lake, James pulled under a tree to stretch their legs and eat their potatoes. Margaret handed the baby to Susan and left the family to walk along the shore alone. She needed time to think before she got to Father’s house. Before she saw his lifeless body.
Dear God, I’m all that’s left of me father. He loved me always, even when I married me James, a poor sheep farmer. He depended on us. How can he be gone?
After a moment, Margaret turned and gazed on the man she married, the father of her brood. She looked at her gentle James from afar, even as he made his way toward her. She admired him. Loved him. Still handsome after all these years—short and stocky, with jet-black hair graying nicely at the temples even though he was only a year older than she. Strong as an ox, but his heart was as tender as the lambs he raised.
“Shall we move on?” James asked as they met.
“We must. We have much work to do before nightfall.”

* * *

By early afternoon, the grieving family entered the bustling town of Newry, the place of Margaret’s birth, her father’s home, and his soon-to-be resting place. Margaret kept her eyes straight ahead as they rounded the corner to his neighborhood, purposely avoiding the gaze of anyone who looked their way. By now the neighbors surely knew the sadness that had befallen them. Margaret was keenly aware that by sunset, friends and neighbors would come to say goodbye to Edward Caulfield, this good and wise man, this rock of the Newry community.
When the family arrived at the five-room, whitewashed, thatched home that was Father’s, James clucked his tongue and tugged on the reins as the creaking wagon rolled to a stop. Wordlessly, Margaret passed Meg to her husband before climbing down to the ground. She dusted her heavy skirt and stared in silence at the house, then put one foot in front of the other, forcing herself to face whatever came next. She left James outside with the children and went to her father’s room, alone, to bid him a private farewell, to be with him one last time.
There he lay in his bed, still in his nightclothes, as if he were sleeping. But he wasn’t sleeping. He was white and lifeless and…gone! She sucked in her breath as the reality of his passing filled her heart. She perched on the edge of his bed and touched his hand as a barrage of memories flooded her mind. She remembered the warmth of his love for her, and she began to wail. While Margaret didn’t want her cries to frighten the children, she knew her grievous wails permeated the walls, yet she desperately needed to let out the depth of her pain.
Before she came out of her father’s room, Margaret steeled herself for what had to be done. She had to be strong. She had to do her duty.
She squared her shoulders and determined to carry on as her father’s only child. She turned into the kitchen, nodded to her brood, and silently waited as James took the children to say their goodbyes too.
When the children returned, Margaret shooed them all out of the house to play in the yard, save Susan. She bid Susan to wash the dishes and tidy the kitchen while she took to a flurry of work, preparing the body for the wake. With the help of Sara, the plump, elderly housekeeper, Margaret lovingly washed her father’s body and dressed him in his best Sunday suit. Then Sara helped her lay the body upon the dining room table, as was the custom. Finally, Margaret adjusted the pennies on his eyelids, tenderly brushed his gray hair off his forehead, and bent down to kiss his ashen, wrinkled cheek as Susan came out of the kitchen and silently watched her mum.
“’Tis a handsome job, me lady,” Sara said. “Such a kind man, he was. Such a grievous day.”
Susan stood timidly against the wall, her big eyes staring at her lifeless grandfather. Margaret knew her daughter well; Susan needed to be busy at such a terrible time as this. She kissed her daughter forehead, gave her a cloth, and bid her to dust. Susan scurried to the living room and began to furiously wipe down the furniture.
As they worked, several times Margaret noticed that Susan sneaked glimpses of her grandfather through the wide doorway. When she came in to dust the dining room, Margaret heard her mumbling to herself.
“Can’t be touching no dead body,” Susan whispered as she dusted the table legs. “Even Grandfather. Gray and cold he looks, like he’s needing a hug.” Tears rolled down Susan’s cheeks, but she brushed them away, trying not to let her mum see her.
But Margaret did see. “Come here, sweet child, and put these cups on the drain board.” She pointed to the cups as she touched Susan’s shoulder, and the poor lassie fell into her arms.
“Oh, Mum, ’tis such a tragic day.” Susan pressed against her mother’s body, her shoulders shaking.
“’Tis true, sweet lassie, but we’ve no time for this.” Margaret smoothed her daughter’s hair and hugged her. “People will be here afore long.”

* * *

By and by the first neighbors and friends came through the door. Margaret took in a deep breath, smoothed her skirt, and prepared for a long evening of greeting guests, enduring neighborhood gossip, and hosting an event she wished had never come.
The house soon filled with familiar faces, including the minister, and the evening slowly wore on, with many prayers and people and promises of heaven. The shrill wails of the keening and drone of the Gaelic prayers sounded like fingernails on a butter churn to her ears, and she shuddered. But surely, she could pay no mind to it nor think about her own deep heartache, at least for the moment. The mourners kept on coming; the long queue stepped through the door into the crowded room to say their goodbyes.
Neighbors and fellow churchgoers waited patiently to give their hugs and condolences. Several brought food and drink that Sara gracefully tended to and even accepted help from her closest friends. A few men sang hymns of hope.
In between the waves of people, Margaret walked around, numb, listening to conversations while she tried to keep an eye on the children—all six of them. The children stayed quiet, and she was glad of it. Even baby Meg barely cooed when she passed her to James. Michael sat in the dining room, stiffly staring at his grandfather, while Susan bustled about the crowd, trying to serve and do anything she could, as if she was trying to make the night pass quickly.
Those two be like night and day! But I be blessed to have them all.
Margaret scanned the room for the others. Ned and John had chosen a far corner to quietly play with a handful of pebbles, while Mary sat on the lap of one of the grannies, sucking her thumb and absorbing all the love she could. She caught Mary’s eye and nodded, pleased she was content.
For more than two hours, neighbors, friends, and strangers continued to file past her to see her beloved father. She tried to smile and be grateful for their love and concern, but it took all the strength she could muster.
I’d rather be in the corner with Ned and John.
A gruff, deep rumble of a man’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Excuse me, lass. Today be a grievous day to be telling you this, but your father be owing a mighty lot of death tax.” Margaret turned to see a rotund, white-haired man staring at her.
“Pardon me, sir?”
“The tax will be taking it all.” He shook his head and waved his arm to indicate everything in the house. Without another word, he moved into the dining room to view her father’s body.
Realizing the implications, panic coursed through Margaret. She scanned the room for James and his comforting strength, but when she didn’t see him, she felt the room spin, let out a deep groan, and fell into the nearest seat.

* * *

When the last mourner had left, Margaret slumped down on a dining room chair. James kissed her, brushed his hand over her thin hair, and left her to nurse the baby. Meanwhile, James gathered the children and readied them for bed, creating makeshift pallets for the older children on the living room floor and putting Mary and John foot-to-foot on the sofa. No one wanted to sleep in Father’s room. No one would.
Tears flowed as Margaret bid the children goodnight and shuffled back to the tiny guest room. Too quiet. Deadly quiet. In the morning I will see me father, me precious father, put in the cold, hard ground. How will I ever bear it? She lovingly burped Meg, kissed her, and laid her down to sleep on a bed she made of a quilt. The windowless room and deep darkness closed in on Margaret, so she opened the door and found James in the hallway.
James entered the room and the two donned their nightclothes. Margaret told him about the tax man. “He said Father would owe a lot of tax. James, what will we do?”
“The Lord knows, lamb. We shall trust Him.” James took her in his arms and held her close. She had stayed strong all evening, but now she had to mourn.

* * *

The morning dawned with a cold, misty fog. Margaret put on her spectacles and steeled herself for the day ahead. Today she refused to cry.
Not today. Father would not want it.
Margaret hugged each of the children as they awakened and bid them to don their Sunday best she brought from home. She gave each of them a hearty bowl of porridge and tried to cast an air of strength so the children would follow her lead. Even when James entered the kitchen, Margaret smiled and gave him a reassuring nod.
All day long she bravely held true to her determination. She stayed strong, unwavering—all through the eulogy and even when they lowered her father into the musty, wet ground. Her silence and strength were the last gifts she could give to him.
After the last mourner keened her sorrow, Margaret still refused to shed a tear, didn’t whimper or moan or wail. Yet she knew her eyes betrayed the fear that had taken hold of her no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Emigrating to the New World without her father’s leadership? How could she leave him behind and move on? And what about the tax man? A terrible many unanswered questions filled her mind even as the pain of her loss filled her heart.

* * *

The next morning, Margaret awoke to the rare smell of bacon. Where was she? What had happened? Finally her mind became aware of her reality, and she began to cry uncontrollably.
James entered the room, hurried to her side, and took her in his arms. “’Twill be all right, one day. Can you smell the gift from the O’Brian family? Let us enjoy the bounty, if only for a day. ”
Margaret found strength and peace in her husband’s arms. She took several deep breaths, blew her nose, and rose to dress for the day. After she gathered her composure, James handed her a sealed envelope with her name on it, written in her father’s hand.
“This, me love, be from your father. His solicitor delivered it just now.”
James kissed her, patted her shoulder, and left the room. When the door closed, she slowly put on her spectacles and began to read.

Dearest Margaret,

You have been the joy of me life, the sunshine of me days. Your sweet family has filled me quiver to the full. If you are reading this, you have laid me to rest. I am with Jesus and your mum, and I am content. Do not mourn, daughter. We will meet again one day.
I must ask you to do something very brave. Our homeland, our beloved Ireland, has not been good to us these many years, and I fear it will continue to betray its people with even more sorrow.
You must go on to the Promised Land without me. Your husband’s Uncle John has invited you to join him in Canada. I plead with you to take your sweet lads and lassies and make a new life there. Our great Ireland be no longer a good place for our family. It be a cursed land that will take your children from you if you stay.
Go, dearest daughter. Flee this place! Flee the hardship, the hatred, the hunger, the cruel landlords, the British rule. Find a new world that will allow you to worship God and grow food aplenty.
No doubt the journey will not be easy. But determine to start anew. Move to the new land that awaits you. Be strong for your father, for your husband, for your children, and for all the generations to come who will find a new life in that new land.
Your mum and I will look down from heaven, urging you on, praying for you and your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren to come. They will know what a strong and brave woman you are, and they will be thankful.

I am proud of you, daughter. Godspeed!
Your most affectionate Father

Margaret sat for a long time, holding the letter to her breast. How can I leave me homeland, me precious Ireland? How can I be strong when me heart is filled with fear and hopelessness? How can I be brave and obey me father’s last request?

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