52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

The theme for this week is “Close to Home.”When I think of “close to home,” I think of how close my parents homes were to each other when they met. My parents are John Fitzgerald and Mary Flannery. They grew up in rural Waupaca County, Wisconsin where Irish immigrants and their families settled. John and Mary met at a dance, a common way for young people to meet in the 1940s. I never saw them dance together, so I am sometimes humored by that image.

I would guess that John and Mary grew up about six to seven miles from each other. There was a blueberry marsh between their homes. Highway 22, a major county highway, separated the blueberry marsh into north and south sides. Of course, the side a family lived on, was determined to be the “best” side by residents of the area! In fact, those living on the south side of the marsh were called “swampers” by those on the north side. My Aunt Margie remembers being called a “swamper” “from when I was a little kid.”

There was great discussion in my mother’s family about the north side of the marsh, where they lived, being the best side. When John and Mary married, they settled on Mary’s side of the marsh, i.e., the best side. As kids, we would pass through the marsh to visit each side of the family. While the issue of which side of the marsh was best did not seem to be of concern to my dad, I guess we grew up thinking we lived on the best side!

The photo at the top of this post is from Flickr.com’s Ireland collection. It was taken by Lubre. I chose this photo because it reminds me of the stone fences in Waupaca County near the blueberry marsh.