On the first page of my grandmother’s album, she put this picture at the top. I am embarrassed to admit how much time I spent on Google street view, trying to locate this building. The census documents show a few different addresses but none of them are precise enough for me to confirm this building has been torn down.
I don’t know anything about this picture: was it where Nelson’s parents lived? Is the stream in the picture part of the river that fed the Laxey Wheel? I just ran across a site with pictures of the Laxey Wheel and the mine, which is interesting to imagine my great-great-grandfather, and uncles, working in them. Terrible to imagine, but interesting to be able to picture.
What I do know is that Nelson’s mother, Jane McHarrie, was born in 1856 on the Isle of Man and died in 1920, also on the Isle of Man. Her parents were John McHarrie and Isabella Gilmour. And she married John Thomas Marr sometime around 1877, maybe, since her first child, Bell, was born in 1878 when she was 22. Her last child, Hannah, was born when she was 44. Not unusual, right? A child every two years? Again, terrible but interesting. She must have been exhausted all the time. Her husband, Thomas, lived to 70 which would be considered a ripe, old age, I think.
None of which is probably interesting to anyone but me, particularly since I remember clearly what it was like visiting the Isle of Man and staying with Lillian, whom my grandmother referred to as her cousin. I think Lillian’s mother was Nelson’s sister, Mary Louise. Then again, if Mary Louise had been Lillian’s mother, wouldn’t she have been buried with her husband? So, maybe I am wrong about that. (Why did not I pay more attention?!) I found the picture of their tombstone.
I just wonder what made Nelson, out of the 10 children, decide to leave the Isle of Man and go to Bisbee, Arizona. There were generations, on both sides, who lived out their whole lives on the tiny island. (It is 33 miles long and 13 miles wide, small enough that my father biked around the island in a day, when he visited in college.) The Irish Sea was too rough to cross by plane or boat for several months out of the year, and the farthest anyone else went, it seems, was to Manchester, England.
And then, he did not go back home for over 50 years. Nelson did not see his parents before they died, or any of his siblings until he was 72 years old. I know this is a typical immigrant story but it still was hard, even if it was typical. I mean, the reason no one ever left is at least partly because the thought of never seeing your family the rest of your life was too painful.
Maybe when I learn more about my great-grandmother, Jean, I will learn more about why Nelson left the Isle of Man.