Blog Party: Women's History Month

One of the three women in this story; Amazing Librarian and I at Ha'Penny Bridge in Dublin.

This experience of mine. The one of discovering my heritage, of knowing, if not yet understanding, where I come from, is due entirely to women. With this being Women's History Month and with My Descendent's Ancestors' "Blog Party" theme being women's history & with this site being new as an unwrapped candy bar, now is a great time to introduce the women of the story.

There are three women in my family who swirl around this story of discovery. Without these women, this story simply doesn't happen.

Let me introduce the heroines of our story:


Kate "Kitty" Curling - My grandmother. Kitty was born in Dublin where at age 19 she joined the Abbey Theatre Company. Her credits include premiering the role of Mollser in The Plough and Stars. She was at the Abbey for five or six years where she met legends including Denis O'Dea, Maureen O'Hara and William Butler Yeats. It was on her second North American tour in 1934 when at a show in Philadelphia she met Joe Wall. In a story that is adorable, mostly in a pre-#MeToo era, he followed her back to Ireland where they courted and married. They returned to the United States where they lived at Running Fox Farms raising children and horses. She made a few appearances in the local theater community, but according to the family's oral history, didn't share much of her pre-emigration history. Kitty passed away in 1976, leaving little more than a scrap book of her American tour and an archealogical record that would go untouched for 20 years.

Aunt Ann - Ann is the oldest daughter, and last surviving child of Joe & Kitty Wall. While Kitty is the Ilsa Lund, Ann is a Alma Maximilliana Karlin. She moved to Colorado with her first husband, became an educator and world traveler. She was the only member of the Wall's that acknowledged me after my parents separated. She has also been a primary source of information on the family. Aunt Ann has been an anchor for me for forty years.

Amazing Librarian - My fiancee'. She goes unnamed here because she is a private person. But Amazing is a research librarian that has been working in the field for almost half of her life. I shared with her the story that Kitty had done an American tour with the Abbey and in very short order she had imaged documents of ships' manifests documenting Kate's transatlantic travel. Amazing was also the impetus of the most recent trip to Ireland and not only sat with me during an amazing two hour long meeting and tour at the Abbey, she also very studiously documented the tour and the conversation. If Amazing has one flaw, it's that she thinks I'm the bees' knees. And on February 18 at Trinity College Library, I asked her to marry me.  And she said the thing that every boy dreams of hearing one day, "Are you shitting me?"

It is no overstatement that these three women are powerhouses in their own ways and times. I am deeply indebted to these women (and many more), and they are vital to the story we have just begun to tell.