An Irish Sibling Rivalry

Margaret Connors, my mother, was the youngest of four sisters, whose mother died when she was six years old. Several years later, all married: Helen, the oldest, to a lawyer; Ann, the next in line, to a retired IRS examiner after a long engagement; Josephine, to a dentist; and ditto for mother. Ann and Josephine were childless, the latter having died a few years after marriage. Aunt Helen had four children; Mom had three.

It seemed to me that there was a sibling rivalry between the youngest and the oldest sister, more on the former’s part: Helen was perhaps not the surrogate mother Mom wanted her to be. No doubt Helen also needed such a mother and was too young to be one herself. My mother might have been unnerved by her sister’s good fortune: did she not watch three nephews and a niece attend prep schools and Ivy League colleges, watch two of them become lawyers and one of them the Connecticut Amateur Golf Champion twice? For her part, I had to work my way through two years of prep school and an Ivy League college on scholarships, while my brother joined the Air Force before graduating from high school. My sister did go to college without financial aid but not to one in the Ivy League. Perhaps the worm of envy was at work in her: Helen’s husband was a brilliant and very successful lawyer, while her husband had a drinking problem and died at the young age of 50, leaving her an estate insufficient to provide a decent standard of living.

In time all seven cousins married and started families. Since my Aunt’s children were older, her granddaughters came sooner. None were named “Helen”. My mother surmised this represented a lack of love. The neon sign in her mind flashed “advantage”: one of her granddaughters certainly would be named “Margaret” and fantasized she’d have the respect her sister never had. Her granddaughters did arrive with names she never heard before – Jeannine, then Julianne, then Christine - but, horrors, no name-sake. Panic set in. At a Thanksgiving gathering she announced that the granddaughter named “Margaret” would inherit her diamond-engagement ring, to which she emphatically pointed. Since my wife was pregnant, we decided to name a female baby “Marguerite”, a name we liked and thought it would please her, although we had no interest in the ring proposal. Immediately after our son was born, I telephoned her.

“Hi, Mom: I have great news for you: Joanne just gave birth to a healthy boy. Had the baby been a girl, we planned to name her after you, ‘Marguerite’.”

“My name is Margaret, not Marguerite.”

“Marguerite is French for Margaret.”

“I’m not French; call her “Aloysius” for all I care. My name is Margaret!”

A few years later, to secure a passport for a visit to Ireland, Mother requested her birth certificate from the Town Clerk. The name appearing on it was “Marguerite O’Connor”, which she greeted with the shrug she saved for everything her sphere of influence. She never mentioned living as an alias. Sometime later, another granddaughter was born, named “Margaret”. Aunt Helen also had a granddaughter, named “Helen”. I never knew who came first.

 

William H. H. Rees – October 24, 2014