Family Secrets

A couple of years ago, I accompanied my parents to the funeral of my Dad’s cousin, Mary; she was in her nineties when she died. Mary was a kind and delightful woman, but we have a very large family and it is difficult to keep track of everyone: she was from a branch of the family that I just wasn’t very familiar with. The person who gave the eulogy obviously spoke about Mary, and also spoke about other members of her family, in particular, her parents, in particular her father, whose name was Dennis. They called him Denny. I had always known that Denny was a farmer, which was very unusual considering that he was an Irish immigrant: all of my forebears and many of my neighbors’ forebears were Irish immigrants. Denny was the only one I have ever heard of who came to Massachusetts and became a farmer: most of them never made enough money to buy any land, let alone enough to buy a farm. But somehow, Denny managed it: I knew that, but I learned from the eulogy that Denny was not just a farmer: he was actually a very successful farmer, far more successful than I had ever realized. The person who gave the eulogy waxed poetic about what an enterprising entrepreneur Denny had been, and what a shining example of the American dream. It was an aspect of family history I had never known about. It was very interesting and very inspiring, but knowing what I knew about Irish immigrants who settled in Massachusetts around the turn of the 20th century, it struck me as odd.

Like most who come to America from distant shores, my grandparents and their siblings and cousins came here with nothing; many of them probably weren’t even educated past the third grade, and they came at a time when it was very much sink or swim: there was no safety net, if you couldn’t hack it in America, then you went back to the Old Country. 100 years later, the grandchildren and great children of those immigrants are solidly middle class, and some of us (not me, lol 🙂 are upper middle class, but for most people, it took some years to improve the finances, and it was something that happened over a couple of generations. So, when I learned about Denny’s story, it seemed odd.

After the Church service, while we were waiting in the car at the cemetery, I asked my father about Denny. The person who gave the eulogy had mentioned that Denny was always buying more land and more animals for the farm; I asked my Dad how Denny had managed this: where did the money come from? Immediately, my father said “Oh, Denny was a very hard worker” and then he just went on and on about what an incredibly hard worker Denny had been. I knew that all of the immigrants who came to America during that period of time were incredibly hard workers: they had to be, they could not have survived if they hadn’t been. But, my father seemed to believe that Denny was an even harder worker. That was his story, and he was sticking to it, so I didn’t question him any further, and the conversation turned to another subject.

Then, a very old woman who looked to be about my Dad’s age, in her nineties, knocked on the car window of the passenger side, where my Dad was sitting. It turned out she was a childhood friend of his, they were delighted to see each other again after all these years, they spent a few minutes talking about the old days, talking about childhood memories of Mary and time spent on Denny’s farm, and then this woman looked at my Dad with a gleam in her eye, and she said “Do you remember when they ran shine?”

My Dad smiled. He gave me a sideways glance, and said “Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag now.”

So, it turns out that there actually was more to Denny’s success story than just hard work: much, probably most, not all, but probably most of his enterprises were funded by running moonshine during prohibition. I think this is awesome: but, nearly 100 years later, my Dad considered it a secret he would take to his grave. I think that is awesome too.

*I learned at the reception afterward that Denny’s grandchildren and great grandchildren were well aware, long before I was, that Denny ran moonshine. My Father was the only one who was determined to keep it secret, but it wasn’t really a secret, except to certain distant and clueless relatives like me. Which is just to say, no family secrets have really been divulged in the writing of this post 🙂