UN: britto08
LN: Connoly
DH:
Sean Lonan (20)
DW:
Bridget Roisin (19)
-DD:
Rosaleen Maeve "
Rosie" (nb)
Beginning Year: 1891
Old Country:
IrelandNew Country: USA
At first
Bridget was ecstatic to discover she was pregnant. Then she felt a terrible, overwhelming homesickness. Though she was very happy in her life with
Sean and she had grown to love
Brooklyn, she missed her parents and her sisters and brothers so much it made her cry sometimes, though normally
Bridget was not one given to crying.
Sean tried to comfort her, but he could not really relate, as all the family he had left was in
Brooklyn.
Bridget consoled herself as much as she could, and her natural high spirits would often reassert themselves. She was, after all, a young woman married to the man she loved living in a comfortable home about to welcomea baby into a land with far more opportunity than she had ever had. She felt she truly had little to complain about.
Just before she was due to give birth, a letter arrived from
Bridget's mother
Maeve.
Bridget's elder sister,
Fiona (four years her elder) was to be married to her long-time sweetheart at last. This sent
Bridget into depression all over again, as she could not believe she would not be there to witness this wedding they had all so hoped for. But she took heart, knowing that her sister's fiance had planned to come to
America, so she hoped she would seeher sister soon. Soon after the day for the wedding had passed,
Bridget gave birth to a baby girl, a beautiful little thing with dark red hair and dark blue eyes. She looked so much like
Bridget's mother that they at once decided to give her the middle name
Maeve after her. For a first name, they had long settled on
Rosaleen for a girl. In a poem that
Bridget had often read to
Sean,
Rosaleen was used as a name for
Ireland (to hide the poem's Irish patriotism from the English). They had liked the symbolism, and
Sean had liked the closeness to
Bridget's middle name. So she was christened
Rosaleen Maeve, but everyone calls her
Rosie, for her increasinly-bright red hair.
Rosie is a happy and healthy baby, very sweet and always willing to be cuddled and loved and played with.
Bridget is as healthy and as happy as she has ever been, and pride in her daughter makes her own blue eyes sparkle more. She misses her family terribly still, but starting her own has made her realize she will be just as happy here.