Monday, July 14, 2008

The Kellys

This is a photo me at Bachelor's Walk taken in 1963. Bachelor's Walk is the place where my grandparents met each other.


My grandmother on my mother’s side was Isabella Gibson, she died when I was quite young so I only have the stories my family told to me and no real first hand memories.
She married Arnold Kelly. I was told that they first met at Bachelor's Walk in Portadown. She and grandfather had ten children. They lived in Seagoe, just outside of Portadown, County Armagh.


Isabella had a habit of standing at the half-door enjoying the outdoors. One day she saw a man she knew. She called out to him, "Are you going out for breakfast Mr. Jordon?" He answered, "Yes, Mrs. Kelly."

She invited him in to eat breakfast not only that morning, but also every morning that he was on that shift. He was very happy to accept the invitation. The first day, grandmother must have been pushing all her country cooking on him. Eventually he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. Grandmother asked him what was the matter. He replied, "Mrs. Kelly when you eat for half an hour, you get tired."


One night he was contentedly sitting in his easy chair at a lovely fire. He said, "I wish someone would take a clean plate and put me on it and carry me to bed."

Two of their children Isabelle and Sammy were about 3 years apart with Isabelle being the older of the two. They were always playing jokes on each other. One day, Isabelle was going to town (about a one mile walk) to do some shopping. She wasn’t intending on buying anything, but she didn’t want to be seen coming home empty handed. So, she fixed up a parcel that contained nothing but a pair of well-worn shoe brushes. On her return journey home, she walked with the parcel dangling from a string on her wrist. As she entered the house, she saw that Sammy and his friend were seated at the table.

Sammy called out to her, "Hi, Isabelle. What do you have in your parcel?" I think he knew the answer. She tried to keep the parcel from Sammy, but he grabbed it and soon had it open. Sammy and his friend had a great laugh at Isabelle's expense. She was embarrassed and told her brother, "You wait. I'll get you some day!"

Her opportunity came a short time later. She was in town and spied her brother in the middle of a group of girls. They were laughing and talking and Sammy was acting like a big shot. She quickly went over and slapped him on the back and said, "You had better get off home, boy. My da wants his coat you borrowed," Then Isabelle walked off leaving a very embarrassed Sammy with the girls he was trying to impress.


In the country people would visit their grandparents on Sunday afternoon. Everyone came to grandmothers house on most Sundays. She'd make pancakes for all that showed up at her door. She usually had a good supply of flour but she'd had so much company this particular day that her sack of flour was almost gone so she had to stretch the pancakes. As more people came, it ended up there was more milk than flour in them. Her niece had brought a boyfriend along for the visit and meal and he made fun of the pancakes. He'd been there a while watching her cook and could see them become thinner and thinner. There was deterioration in the quality of the flapjacks. Making fun of it, he took it upon himself to greet any newcomers at the door with "Come and see Mrs. Kelly's window blinds!" (a bit shear like lace curtains, they contained more holes than pancake).

1 comment:

theridion said...

Your welcome Edna...will probably add pics of European historical sites upcoming. Have a nice day.