The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

Uncle Pat's wife Aunt Catherine is with her daughter Mary Kathryn and niece and nephew Patsy and John O'Brien
as the family was about to head home from a trip to Riverview Park in New Jersey in the late 1940s. The O'Brien
children rode home on the ferry to New Castle. The Gallaghers took the train back to Philadelphia.
always wake her up early so Betsy and her brothers and
sisters could help make those very sandwiches. Turns out,
Patsy did, eventually, know who made the sandwiches.
Aunt Delia would do what she could to make sure
her growing children had the chance to experience the fun
of a trip down the shore to Wildwood, N.J. The ocean-pier
amusement rides must have reminded her of her own trip to
Coney Island. But that earlier experience with a roller
coaster left its mark. She would get Patsy and John on a
ride but would then walk away up the Boardwalk. Other
kids would get a wave from their watching parents when
the ride passed, but not the O'Briens. Patsy thinks her
mother was just a little too scared to see them flying by,
bonnet or no bonnet.
Catholic children from the O’Briens’
neighborhood attended St. Paul’s Elementary School at
Third and North Van Buren streets. Uncle Pete’s son Peter,
two years older than Patsy, was a student there. He would
often visit the O’Brien home with his dog Lassie. When
Patsy arrived for first grade, she went into the classroom of
a familiar nun, who had to tell Patsy she was in the wrong
first-grade room. When Patsy balked, the nun explained
there was no desk for her. Still not discouraged, Patsy told
the friendly teacher that was OK, she would stand. That
nun did end up teaching Johnny O’Brien in first grade, and
many years later recognized Patsy when she was working
the “white elephant” table at a Christmas bazaar. “That
can’t be you, Sister,” Patsy told her, based on her memory
from St. Paul’s. “You were much taller.”
When it came time for eighth grade, the O’Briens
moved to 508 W. 27th St. and Christ Our King Parish.
Patsy, however, convinced her mother and father to let her
finish grade school at St. Paul’s. That year, because home
was too far away, she would frequently go for lunch to her
Uncle Pete and Aunt May’s bar at Front and Franklin
streets.
For high school, Patsy passed on opportunities to
attend Ursuline Academy or St. Elizabeth’s in Wilmington.
Instead, she chose the newly opened St. Peter’s High
School in New Castle. She graduated in 1956 and entered
the school for nursing with the Franciscan Sisters at St.
Francis Hospital in Wilmington. She trained at St. Elizabeth
Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Children’s Hospital in
Philadelphia. From 1960 until 1967 she served at St.
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