In case many of you haven’t figured it out, or if I haven’t mentioned it to you in an email, I’m Irish- half to be exact. Both my dad’s parents were born in Ireland and migrated as children to America in the 1920s. Though my dad was born in America he still considers himself to be full Irish. Myself, it never really meant that much to me until I was older. But maybe this little story in honor of St. Patrick’s Day will help those who read this blog understand my politics a little better, and maybe it will help myself as well.

Growing up I always heard, “You’re Irish and you’re a Democrat.” My family was not all that political but would vote Democrat like it’s going out of style. And Irish Democrats just might be.

My dad’s dad was 5 years old when he first came to America, arriving through Ellis Island and eventually making it to Chicago. Upon arriving in Chicago my great-grandpa could not find work, or actually was denied work because he was Irish. After settling on the Southside of Chicago in a very Irish borough, my great-grandpa was told by fellow Irishmen that he might stand a chance at finding a job if he were to change his last name to make it not appear so Irish. Not wanting to return back to Ireland, my great-grandpa dropped the O’ from his last name in hopes of finding some form of employment. To this day there’s no O’ in our name.

I’m not sure if dropping the O’ worked, but he eventually landed a job at a paper mill on the banks of the Chicago River, the same river that is now dyed green every St. Patrick’s Day. My great-grandpa never became a US citizen and died after only 12 years in America. He was actually here illegally and his greatest fear was being found and shipped back.

My grandpa began working at that same paper mill when he was 14. He worked there until 1942 when he volunteered for the army and was sent to England to train for the invasion of Europe. He was part of the fifth wave during the invasion of Normandy and fought throughout the Battle of Bulge and spent some time in Germany during reconstruction. In 1946 he returned back to Chicago. Finally in 1947 he was granted American citizenship for his service in WWII. Until the day he died he said it was the happiest day of his life. His kids would always ask him, “what about the day we were born?” And he always replied, “I was too drunk to remember.”

He made it a point to be sober on his citizenship day, and probably next to being Irish that was the thing he loved to talk about the most. Grandpa returned back to the paper mill to work where he stayed until 1950 because he once again volunteered to go fight in Korea. He said he did it because he feared communism was going to take over the world, that and he wanted out of that paper mill. He returned back from Korea 9 months later and later in life remarked, “signing up to go to that place was the worst mistake I ever made. That wasn’t a war it was a slaughter. Thank God for Ike, he saved us all.”

And once again, after fighting another war grandpa returned back to the paper mill where he worked until the day he died. I was 7 years old when he passed away and since I grew up 500 miles south of Chicago I never spent that much time with him. What I do remember from him and the quotes I use for this post come from his journal that he wrote about his life. He gave a copy to my dad to give to his grandsons to make sure that we never forgot where we came from. I never touched the journal until 5 years ago. It’s over 200 pages about an era that’s hard for me to understand.

Most of the journal contains Irish family heritage that he traces back to the 1700s. A lot of it too is daily journal entries about politics and the world. If in 1952 had Adlai Stevenson, the Governor of Illinois, not been the Democratic nominee for president, I’m willing to bet grandpa would have crossed over and voted for Eisenhower. Maybe he did, because he sure wrote a lot about Ike, but if he did I’m sure he wouldn’t admit it publicly. He also wrote a lot about Kennedy and said the saddest days of his life was the day Kennedy was shot and the day my dad left for Vietnam.

The last lines in the journal are a note to my brothers and me. “Boys, I worked too hard for too long for you to go off and forget where you came from. Everything I did was for you and your children. You’re Irish and you’re a Democrat.” They ought to get a rich man to vote like that.

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Irish, St. Patrick's Day