Mending the Family Tree

My family tree has a few broken branches. I have been trying to mend some of them.

My father grew up in a nondescript Christian church. His grandfather James Joseph was born in Philadelphia, my great-great-grandparents having just emigrated from Ireland. My great grandfather’s turn away from God and His Church came after his first wife died tragically. That was all I remember my father ever having told me about his grandfather. I found James Joseph’s obituary online some months ago courtesy of findagrave.com and was dismayed to see that as much space was given to a listing of his various Masonic lodge and temple memberships as it did to his surviving family members. That prompted me to spend a day traveling several hours in search of his grave where I would offer prayers on his behalf to break the Freemasonic Curse. What I discovered was heartbreaking. James Joseph’s wife of five years died only months after their three-year old first-born son passed away. That cold cloudy November afternoon grew chillier. The sadness of the world enveloped us. He had already lost his own father at the age of ten. His older brother, his only brother, had died at age 19 when James Joseph was just 11 years old.

James Joseph attempted to restart life a few years later. He married his first wife’s older sister. They went on to bring four children into the world. Their only daughter was named after the wife and sister they had lost. Grief would prompt them to relocate to another state. Death brought his body back to the side of his sister wives and his baby boy. Standing before their well-worn grave stones, I noticed in the far corner of the family plot a newer or noticeably less weathered grave marker, that of James Joseph’s only daughter, my great aunt Martha. My father had been the executor of her estate. Aunt Martha lived many years far away in Phoenix, Arizona. That is where she died and where I had presumed her burial to have taken place. It could well be that the last time any human being had stood at the same spot was when my parents and priest brother attended to her funeral rituals… thirty years earlier. The smallness of the world embraced us.

My father’s conversion into a full-blooded Christian ensued a few years after he married my mother, herself a recent convert. When their oldest son was about to start Kindergarten in a Catholic school, Dad wanted to be prepared for the questions his boys would bring home from school. So, he sat in on a catechism class taught well by a Jesuit priest. By the end of the class he came to the conclusion that the continuity of Christian history required him to join the ragtag band of Catholics, much to his dismay. He also credited his conversion to the prayers of a cloistered nun whom he had known as a young boy. The nun, Sr. Mary St. Clement, was his great aunt, one of James Joseph’s younger sisters. Speaking to them through the grill of the convent, she promised my dad and my aunt that she was praying for them all the time. I can only imagine how much she prayed and offered penance for her own brother. She was 16 years old when he first married and 20 years old when her nephew died.

My next road trip to visit a family grave will take me to Philadelphia to pray for the two brave souls who brought my family name from overseas, to thank them for all they suffered. And then I shall drive a few more hours North to lay eyes on the grave of St. Mary St. Clement, to join her in praying for our brothers and sisters. 

The nearness of heaven will envelope us.

Every marriage changes the world. Every baby changes the universe. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. May His name be blessed!