Happy St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2013

Today is March 17, St. Patrick's day, and also a day in which we celebrate things that are Irish and green, such as enjoying Shamrock shakes, mint chocolate chip ice-cream, Leprechaun pie, Irish stews, soda bread, Richelle's cornbeef and cabbage dinners, parades, festivals, and wearing green or risk getting pinched."  Some of us hear more Irish melodies being sung in March than any other time of the year.  Lanny sings along to some Irish melodies on a CD he has that we like, one in particular is the "Irish Lullaby."  Two tunes I grew up with are "Oh Danny Boy" and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."  Others I especially like are "How Are Things in Glocca Morra," "When You and I Were Young Maggie," "The Gypsy Rover" and others.

I thought I would relate an experience from GGGrandpa Alexander Baird's autobiography in which he tells about his 2^nd wife Sarah Mary Theresa Delacy from Dublin, Ireland.  I think he met his match when he teamed up with her.

Grafton Street, Dublin, Ireland

Alexander writes, “The minute I got discharged (from the U. S. Navy) for the second time, I got married to a fine young woman I had known for four years, but never expected to marry. She was quite a young thing. When I first saw her she was tending a young baby with one John Lethgow, a boarding house master. Her father and mother were both dead. She was sent out from a convent in Dublin to an uncle. When he died, She had had no friends alive but some cousin, a priest by the name of Allen. He it was who sent her to America to her uncle in Boston.

After we got married we left Boston and went to Hamilton in Canada. We stayed at the Bermeral House with one Tom Meldrom, for quite a time. I was spending money pretty fast, spreeing around, and I don't mean drinking, for at this time I did not do that to any extent. After a time I went to work on a schooner on Lakerey. I left her and went as a brakeman on the Great  Western Railway.  

In case I forgot to tell you, my wife's name was Sarah Mary Teresa Delacy, born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father's name was Felix Delacy. 
She told me she had a brother, who had died, by the name of William Delacy, in Ireland. 

I got along well on the railroad sometimes until one night we were coming down what was called the Capetown Grade. We were called to put on brakes. They were then on the top of all freight cars. Well, I was running from car to car at work (there was about two inches of snow on top of the cars), when all of a sudden my foot slipped and down I went between the cars. They were so close together that I caught on the bumpers. I got up after a time. No one had seen my fall but that fall hurt and broke me as a brakeman. Always after that, when on top of cars, putting on breaks, I had to stop and step over the divide between the cars. My heart or something failed me. I was a doomed brakeman.

I knew if I told my wife I wanted to go to sea again, there would be trouble. So I thought it over and decided to set out again and tell her in a letter I had gone back to the navy again. So one night I got to the Niagara Falls, as that was the end of our division. I with fifty cents in my pocket crossed the Niagara Falls Bridge, got on board the Central, escaped without telling anyone and bummed my way to Albany, New York....I went directly to water Street to the Rendezvous and shipped as a seaman once more in Uncle Sam's Navy. The day after shipping I went aboard the North Carolina again, passed inspection and once more was in more native element.

(The USS North Carolina served as a storeship at the New York Navy Yard. Of the American ships-of-the-line, the Columbus, North Carolina, and Delaware saw substantial service before the Civil War. The North Carolina reportedly carried over 100 guns during some Mediterranean cruises. (Taken from Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial:Those Old Ships of the Line.)

After two weeks I began to think of my poor little wife in Canada. I sent her a letter telling her where I was, that I would never leave the navy, but that I would let her have half my pay and that I hated the cars. In the meantime the Cumberlin was putting out for the home straight, and getting ready for sea at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. She had got her crew and was nearly ready to sail, when one day Mr. Savage came on board the North Carolina. He saw me and came up to me with, “Hello, Alex, is that you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Well,” said he, “I am going out in the Cumberlin. I want you, my boy, to take your old place with me, as quarter master. Will you go?”

“Yes, said I, “I will.”

Said he, “I'll send for you in two or three days. Get all ready. In the meantime I'll see the captain about the transfer.”

“Alright,” said I, “thank you, sir.”

But alas, I little knew what a wife I had got. But I found out! Shortly after my talk with Mr. Savage, the boatswain mate sang out, “Alexander Baird, you are wanted at the masts.” That is where all sailors are called to, so up I went little dreaming what I had to meet at the mast. But there, big as life, was my little wife. A hat box in one hand and a bundle of clothes in the other for me.

Well, I was dumb shot. I looked and looked; but I could say nothing. At last I bluttered out, “Sarah!”

“Yes,” said she, “Sarah!”

“Well, I said, 'what do you want?”

“You.”

Me? I've shipped!”

“I don't care if you have shipped ten times over! You are my husband and you can't ship without my consent! And that you or them that shipped you will never get unless they ship me too!”

I got her down on the berth deck, tried to coax her every way I could. But, “No! No! No!” was all that I could get out of her. She came on board three days running. On the last day she came I told her I was going on board the Cumberlin and that she was now ready for sea. When she heard this, she ran from me to the captain in his cabin. Shortly I was called by the captain. He told me that she had the bests of me, as I had shipped without her consent. It would be fifteen or twenty days to get returns from Washington and in the meantime I would be a prisoner. To save this he would give me fifteen days' liberty, and by that time my discharge would be here. I could either come and get it or he would destroy it, as it would be of no use. So she got me out of the North Carolina just as I stood, not a rag but was on my back.