ROOTS

Got to enlarge to read this 1956 local newspaper notice about my Irish-born paternal grandparents celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. The family laugh is that it says they met in the 1880s or '90s at "The Essex County Country Club" but doesn't add: where she was a scullery maid and he was a footman. He died not long after this and she "took to her bed" to follow him, almost willing it, as it seemed to me. Her last words to me were: "I can hear your grandfather complaining' to the angels for not cookin' the scrapple the way he likes it, so I've got to go take care of him."