In one sentence, the history behind my book, The Irish Ties That Bind that will be released on September 22nd, is as follows: I was greatly influenced by strong, resilient women growing up in Beloit, Wisconsin, which continued well into my adulthood, even after I moved to Darlington, Wisconsin, in 1980 to begin my career teaching high school social studies.
By pure happenstance...or so I thought, I ended up teaching in Darlington, where my maternal great-aunt, Sister Mary Francine Bunzel (a...
This is the third book excerpt blog. Specifically, it is about the founder of the Dominican Order of Preachers in Sinsinawa and the two Irish American women who led that congregation for eighty-two years (1867 to 1949).
“Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli was born on November 4, 1806, in Milan, Italy, into a family of merchants and bankers. He rejected the idea of a family legacy built on material wealth,...
This is a second look at some book excerpts for The Irish Ties That Bind, which introduce the four families that left southern Ireland to come to the American Midwest in the 1850s and 1860s.
“Ronald Reagan’s Irish ancestry traces back to Ballyporeen, a town in Tipperary County in southern Ireland. His paternal great-grandfather, Michael O’Regan or Regan, was baptized there in 1829. Baptismal records for Michael’s...
The following is a first look at some excerpts from the Introduction of my book, The Irish Ties That Bind, prepared for a yet-to-be-finalized book blog tour sponsored by The Coffee Pot Book Club:
One interesting historical fact, among many, that did not make into the final manuscript of my upcoming book (The Irish Ties That Bind), was the education of actress Helen Hayes by the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa. From 1910 to 1912, Helen Hayes attended the prestigious Dominican Academy in Manhattan. While attending that school, she honed her acting skills, performing in such plays as Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Old Dutch. The Sinsinawa Dominican influence continued in Washington, D.C....