The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

Aunt Ann always had a strong connection with the family of Aunt Delia's daughter,
Patsy DeAscanis. Here, she is with the two oldest sons, Colmcille, left, and Michael, in
the living room at Champlain Avenue.
casinos looked to attract patrons by running bus trips from
places such as Wilmington in which they would give each
person a $10 roll of quarters. The assumption was the daytrippers
would quickly lose the quarters (and more) back to
the casinos at the slot machines. Not so, for Ann and Tom.
They saw the offer as a chance for a day out at the shore for
the price of a bus ticket, with the quarters as a bonus that
would pay for lunch. On one trip, they were sitting in a
Burger King enjoying their meal, dressed as they would in
comfortable clothes that might not have looked out of place
back on the boreen in Ballinrobe. But to another, apparently
very kind person in the Burger King, their clothes must
have given the impression the pair were a little down on
their luck. He offered to pay for their lunch.
Another incident in Atlantic City involved Aunt
Ann, Aunt Delia and Delia’s daughter getting into a dispute
at a Boardwalk auction. Ann ended up cheering her sister
on as she loudly accused a pair of apparent conspirators in
the audience of bidding up the price of an item Aunt Delia
wanted to buy.
* * *
Above all else, what distinguished Aunt Ann was
her devotion to Uncle Tom. Her feelings were at a level no
poet could describe, Patsy DeAscanis remembered. It was
never clearer than in how she took care of her brother in the
years after he suffered his stroke.
Knowing Uncle Tom as well as she did, and how
he wouldn’t want others to know much about his situation,
Aunt Ann handled as much as she could by herself. She
finally agreed to move him to an assisted-living facility
after he fell and broke his hip on their way home from a
Saturday evening Mass. The only thing she ever
complained about was how she was forever having to
gather up little scraps of paper Uncle Tom would leave
everywhere.
Upon hearing the story, Uncle Jim’s son Pat, who
suffered a stroke himself, had a good explanation. It is
related to the Gospel story of Martha and Mary during a
visit by Jesus. Ann’s care for her brother was very much in
the role of Martha, who had busied herself with many
household tasks to make Jesus comfortable in their home.
Mary, however, devoted her attention to sitting at The
Lord’s feet closely listening to what he said. Pat’s
interpretation was that Uncle Tom’s stroke had left him
concerned more with things on a higher level, as Mary had
been. The scraps of paper he left around, often sharing bits
of wisdom and philosophy, were his way of sharing those
thoughts with his loving sister.
Aunt Ann died Sunday, Feb. 16, 2003. She is
buried next to Uncle Tom in Cathedral Cemetery in
Wilmington. She rests in peace there along with a number
of the other Gallaghers who emigrated to America. There
also are Aunt Delia and Uncle Mike, Uncle Pete and Aunt
May, and Uncle Jim and Aunt Catherine.
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