Mary Eary Farrell 1905-1952

Mary Eary Farrell was my maternal grandmother. She died the year I was born.

Obviously I don't remember anything about her. In fact, while growing up, I never heard any stories about her. I have been searching every free genealogy web site that I've found, without success.

The facts that I do know about her are that she bore 15 children, including one set of twins and she died after an infection or possibly cancer. Her youngest child was just a toddler at the time, not much older than I was.

As a child, or even a young adult, it never struck me as odd that I knew so little about her. There were so many family secrets that we didn't dream of bringing up, except perhaps in secret with a close cousin. Most of my cousins didn't know any more than I did even though we gathered weekly at Grandpa Joe's rural home and played in the dirt and the puddles.

It wasn't an especially large home, but it was comfortable. As I recall, the upstairs consisted of two large rooms with an open wall between them. There were beds and dressers and lots of child sized pallets on the floor. There were probably 4-5 bedrooms downstairs along with a large living room and and huge kitchen. We often looked up from our play in the back to see one of our aunts checking on us through the kitchen window.

One of my vivid memories is the giant (at least to me at the time) block of cheese on the kitchen table. Even with 60 or more cousins, aunt, and uncles, we could always run into the kitchen for a snack of cheese. Week after week, there was always cheese on the table and more in the fridge. I don't every remember running out or being hungry at Grandpa Joe's.

I think Colby cheese is still my favorite snack.