Paul Richardson: The Irish connection

(Paul Richardson's The Horse I Rode In On column is a regular feature in the Neosho Daily News, Seneca Post-Dispatch and the Turner Report.)

“May you be in Heaven an hour before the Devil knows you are dead”. A few years back I greeted my dear mother with this phrase which prompted the question from her, “Where did that come from?” Posed not from the possibility that I was looking for her demise, but as most people when they give me that strange quizzical look of; “Where did that come from inside your head?” “Why Dear Mother, that is an old Irish toast.” She promptly replied, “I know we are just mutts, so where is the Irish connection?”

Well, with a grandmother bearing the name of Margaret Elizabeth Sweeney and the fact that Uncle Carl stated to me years ago, that the family dropped the “Mc” in the bay when they got on the boat, one must have a clue.

Ancestry and heritage were not items of importance to my family. We knew we were “Heinz 57 mutts” and were quite comfortable with that fact. However, the family also guarded an extensive family history. The Richardsons possessed family history to pre-revolutionary days in the colonies. There was documented history of some of their arrivals as stowaway passengers having left England due to their position as indentured servants. 

Later during the Revolutionary War, two distant female cousins operating under the cover of darkness, took it upon themselves to blow-up the flagpole at the British encampment at Martha’s Vineyard. 

It was a defiant act, but I would guess in a guerilla warfare setting might have had some motivational value. For years members of the family worked in the shipyards. Eventually a portion of the family migrated west landing in Nebraska. 

Whether the winters there proved to be of such a harsh nature or for some other unknown reason, the residency in Nebraska was terminated and my Great Grandfather John Richardson moved to southwest Missouri.

Portions of the family history that I am personally knowledgeable of still stands today. My Grandparents A.W. and Maggie were living in a stone house on the west side of Missouri Highway 60 when my father was born. The house still stands and is directly across from Swartz Tractor, just about a mile north of the 60/86 junction. 

My great-grandparents lived in the two-story frame house immediately to the south and closer to the now existing highway. The farmland around that area was occupied by the Richardson Orchards. There is an old black-and-white photograph in City Hall of a scene from that era of an event in downtown Neosho where a huge arch is made entirely from apples. I have often wondered how many of those apples came from the Richardson Orchards.

The Sweeney family moved to Missouri from Indiana at some point after the turn of the century. I can recall stories told by my Grandmother about her and her brother Earl and their memories from Indiana. 

My great-granddad Sweeney was an engineer, civil engineer specifically, with a railroad company. I regret that I did not gather more history on the family from Uncle Carl. I can only hope that my cousins Linda and Jodi are able to identify all the photos and info that had been accumulated. My Grandmother did transfer to me, during my teenage years, an accumulation of letters and postcards that she and Granddad A.W. had sent to each other around the years of 1910-1912. Most of these seem to be from the time that they were courting. The Sweeney family had settled just to the west of the Richardson Orchard. I believe that the original house still stands.

So anyway, enough history as that is adequately covered by some other writers who contribute columns to these publications. The point is, I do know which horse I rode in on and where it came from. My dear mother’s family is every bit, if not more, interesting and has an entirely different story to tell. Maybe some other time.

Out of total cat-like curiosity, the good wife and I submitted some samples for DNA testing. As we suspected the Irish component was extremely dominant in both returning documents. By the way, there is an interesting story of how I went a couple hundred miles away, married a girl and found out that her family had connections not only in southwest Missouri, but through marriage to my dear mother's family. What is guy going to do?

So, on this St Pat’s weekend, “As you slide down the banisters of life may the splinters never point the wrong way” and some other pithy stuff! Happy St Pat’s and don’t forget to get your green on!