Personal Narrative: My Irish Catholic Family

Having been the first born to an Irish catholic family between the periods of 1880-1935 was a journey to begin with. I grew up with famine and death at every corner. The feeling that the community were as thick as thieves and the thought of people stealing and killing each other over anything materialistic was unimaginable. A child that grew up with this much struggle, I could not recall a time in my life that I felt less safe or well off. However, I am certain that I was sheltered from a lot of other things that could have happened to me, mainly because I used to be in my house a lot with my big brother; whenever he did not go to school or help the family out with laborious chores that he had to do daily. Having grown up in a house where only …show more content…
If I had wanted to further my education after high school it would have been almost impossible, because the funds and support were not there. My parents did not speak English too well and were ignorant to the importance of education, not to mention the importance of college. They made it necessary that I attended private catholic school, because for them it was more than just about education. When I graduated high school at eighteen and got married, society accepted that at my age and was very common amongst other women in my age group. It was also common for women of my generation to be a stay at home mother and raise the children. As my mother did when I was growing up, I took care of the children, cooked, cleaned, and made sure the household ran accordingly, while my husband worked and brought home the food and …show more content…
I being a now widowed woman with no education nor a career background made it almost impossible to accomplish any goals in life. The ambition and determination I had enabled me to start my working career as a bank teller and climb the rank in the corporation to eventually achieve the title of an accounting manager rather than just a bank-teller. This new found willpower allowed me to put both of my daughters through college. The second theme in my life that stood out in my mind when conducting this autobiography was the fact of ethnicity and the role it played in my life. Both my husband and I were first generation immigrants from Ireland and our broken English created a financial struggle for my daughters growing up. It was very important for me to attend catholic high school for my education. My mother once told me that it was not all about a better education but more of the fact of having religion in my life through my childhood