March 3rd is the anniversary of the birth of Anna Meany, born in Ennis, the county seat of County Clare, in 1856. Her father was Patrick Meany and her mother was Mary Calinan. She met Jeremiah O’Sullivan in Chicago after they had both immigrated, separately.
According to Jim, she gave us the bent wrist which you will see among Sullivan men during athletic activities, and which he believes accounts for the fact that many of our relatives can all throw a baseball exceptionally well. It's like the off-set shovel or hammer, Jim explains, more torque, speed and power. He found it in her from old pictures, clear as a bell.
Anna and Jeremiah had six children, and her youngest was John Jeremiah "Lefty" Sullivan, my grandfather. Jim adds that she was unabashed about the fact that he was her favorite and used to save one corner of the cornbread full of extra raisins for Lefty. She used to take him by the hand to witness the cleaning up of her incontinent brother, Uncle Pat Meany, who was a hopeless drunk who was paralyzed when, as a switchman, he fell off a train and suffered the injury that crushed his spine. He couldn't walk or care for himself, so lived with Anna and Jeremiah and their children. This is the reason Lefty never drank.
When Lefty and Booma/Mom married, Anna said to Booma, "I got him this far without the craitchur, now you take him the rest of the way." The craitchur is the p'cheen, the wild drink.
Hardly anyone could rein in the more brutal aspects of Jeremiah, but by all accounts, Anna did it best. She would make Jeremiah sit on a chair in the center of the kitchen until he calmed down. Lefty sure loved her. She died in Chicago on August 21st, 1920.
Please watch over us, great-grandma Anna, like you did over Lefty, with all the ancestors.
God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.
Love, Patty
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