Family Nibbles

Family Nibbles – Volume 9 is here! This book is about the lives of our Large and Gallagher ancestors, with a little bit of Dugan thrown in.

Family Nibbles – Volume 9

Stories of Our Large and Gallagher Ancestors

Our Gallagher family is Irish, from the farming clachans of County Donegal. They were beholden to estate landlords, with very little control over their own circumstances. They were poor and hungry.

Our Large ancestors are from the coal fields of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny. The Wandesfordes owned the estate and the mines, and wielded control over their tenants’ lives. After Thomas Large died, Bridget and her children left Ireland. It was assisted (or enforced) emigration.

During The Great Famine in Ireland, our ancestors left Ireland for America. They lived and worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines. Work in the coal patch was difficult and dangerous.

Family life was difficult too. From housing to food, medical care to payroll, life was controlled by the mine owners.

In the 1860s, the Patrick and Ellen Gallagher left coal country for railroad work in Missouri.

They bought a farm in Barton County and raised a family. Mike Gallagher married Ellen Dugan, herself an immigrant from County Donegal.

Their children provide stories of yet another generation. Tom Gallagher and his siblings were born and came of age in Lamar, Missouri.

This book also tells how our long-ago ancestors brought current-generation cousins together. Two hundred years after Thomas Large and Bridget Kavanagh married and started a family, their descendants met and collaborated and celebrated, honoring their common grandparents.

Our Large and Gallagher and Dugan ancestors left their homes and families and history. They began new lives in new places. Theirs is the story of immigrants. We’re the results.

All of us have immigrant ancestors. I hope these family stories help us appreciate the hope and struggles of every immigrant family.

Family Nibbles Volumes

• Family Nibbles – Volume 1 Stories of Our Teply Ancestors 1600-1865
• Family Nibbles – Volume 2 Stories of Our Teply Ancestors 1865-1925
• Family Nibbles – Volume 3 Stories of Our Jarvis English Heritage
• Family Nibbles – Volume 4 Stories of Our Jarvis Ancestors 1680-1800
• Family Nibbles – Volume 5 Stories of Our Jarvis Ancestors 1800-1865
• Family Nibbles – Volume 6 Stories of Our Jarvis Ancestors 1865-1920
• Family Nibbles – Volume 7 Stories of Our Jarvis Ancestors 1920-1938
• Family Nibbles – Volume 8 Stories of Our Pensa and Riley Ancestors
• Family Nibbles – Volume 9 Stories of Our Large and Gallagher Ancestors

You can get the books any of three ways: Amazon paperback, Google eBook, or Kindle eBook.

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Amazon Books Paperback

You can get the paperback books at Amazon. Search for ‘Family Nibbles’ or ‘Family Nibbles book.’

The price for each volume is $30. They’re worth every penny!

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Google eBook

You can find the eBooks on Google Books or Google Play. They’re free!

They’re best read on your iPad or tablet using Google Play Reader app. And you can read in Firefox on your Macbook.

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Kindle eBook

You can find the ebooks on Amazon or Kindle Store. The price is $2.99 per book.

You can read this version on any Kindle reader or Kindle app on your iPad.

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Thanks

Thanks to all you readers.

It’s rewarding to collect Family Nibbles stories into this book, but the part I most enjoy is the research and discovery and sharing of our family stories.

Our next series begins with Tom Gallagher and World War I. Then marriage will bring the Rileys back into the story. We’ll continue the Gallagher and Riley stories through the 1920s and 1930s. As you might guess, the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression had a big impact on our family.

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Sources

• Photo composite – Table in Eckley laborer’s house – Mark Jarvis – 2015
• Image – At Gweedore, Co. Donegal – 1880 – French, Robert, and William Lawrence – National Library of Ireland – https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000191670
• Image – Miner clearing coal from seam – Mining Industry is Born – Castlecomer – https://www.castlecomer.ie/history/mining-industry-is-born/
• Image – Hon. Charles Harward Butler Clark Southwell Wandesforde – A New Family Beginning – Ask About Ireland – https://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/environment-geography/physical-landscape/castlecomer-plateau/the-wandesforde-legacy/a-new-family-beginning/
• Image – Miners – Pennsylvania Mines – http://www.miningartifacts.org/Pennsylvania-Mines.html
• Image – PENNSYLVANIA: COAL MINERS. ‘Down among the coal mines – The miners’ pay-day’ in Pennsylvania. Engraving after a drawing by Paul Frenzeny, 1873 – https://www.amazon.com/Pennsylvania-Miners-NDown-Among-Mines/dp/B07C4K5KJT
• Image – Tom Gallagher photo composite – Wikimedia photo of baby
• Photo composite – DNA cousins – Mark Jarvis – 2015
• Music – Medley – Attributed earlier in individual posts