Like rushing to a station
To find the train has gone
I am catching up on stories long ago
I felt a pang of sadness
To hear that she had died
So young so young
In Chicago
In the January snow
A birth with complications
The little baby died
Five days later Ellen too was gone
An Irish bride four children born
Her story sadly closed
And lost to me these hundred years
But now it can live on
Her photograph entrances me
On her wedding day
Hair high up pinned back and all
On her head a spray
And Michael there beside her
Big and powerful man
Life was all before them
Joy and tragedy
There’s a simple stone in Hillside
Among the thousands there
Ellen Devanie 1923
Soon there comes centenary
I’ve caught the train at last
I salute you granddad’s sister
The future and the past
Brian Fahy
6 November 2021
+ Thanks to my second cousin, Michael Devanie, in Wisconsin, I now know the story of Ellen Fahey Devanie. Her burial place is world famous. Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chicago, is the resting place of archbishops and gangsters, including of course a certain Al Capone.
Erris Poetry 