After tom and Julia (my great grandparents) were married in 1910, they began having children. Their first, James ("Jimmy") was born in 1912 and seven more followed: Tom (1914), Rob (1916), Catherine (my grandmother - 1919), Jack (1921), Agnes (1923), Marion (1926) and Ed (1931). Tom died in 1933 and so, of course, there were no children.

Julia, a widow at 43, never remarried.

When I was first researching the family history back in high school I asked my grandmother about her brothers and sisters, noting especially the gap between my Aunt Marion and Uncle Eddie. Except for that five year period, Julia reliably had a baby about every two and half years. But between the last two was a big gap. I assumed that a baby died at birth but my grandmother, who was certainly old enough to remember told me that no, all of the babies lived. Then I assumed there must have been a miscarriage or two but again, she said there were no babies lost either. I told her I thought the gap was strange and she dismissed it. "Things happen," she said. "It was a long time ago."

I let it slide, but I didn't let it go.
I found out a lot of interesting things in the first couple of years of research (like who was buried in my great grandfather's grave with him and that my grandfather had a sister who died years before he was born), but that gap constantly nagged at me. And I kept asking my grandmother about what she might remember and she kept dodging the question until I guess she decided I got old enough or maybe that it didn't matter anymore; that there was no reason left to protect that particular memory. I think she realized that it wouldn't matter to me, or that it wouldn't change how I felt about her mother.

And she was right.

"There was a woman who lived in the neighborhood," my grandmother told me. "You contacted her for only one reason, she came to visit for only one reason. She had something and she gave it to the women and after they took it, if they were pregnant the babies went away. I saw her at our apartment talking to my mother and my mother saw me. We never talked about it, but that was when no baby came."

Julia took something to force a miscarriage. She was clearly early enough along in her pregnancy that the loss was relatively unnoticed - she was not remarkably ill and the only reason my grandmother knew anything happened was because she knew who the woman was that came to the house and the reason why she would have been there. I do not know if any of her brothers were aware of the visit, although I think it likely that they would have been oblivious to who the woman was and what she brought with her. This was the 1920s and pregnancy, both having one and ending one, was much more the purview of women.

Clearly Julia was pregnant between her last two children and decided to end the pregnancy.

I wanted to know why. My great grandmother quite famously loved babies. She was known as a stern mother but became quite sentimental over babies. Although I can appreciate how difficult her life was at that point - seven children and a husband who drifted in and out of employment when he wasn't passed out drunk - abortion was still a major step for her. The way my grandmother talked about this mysterious woman however (I have forgotten her name unfortunately), it was not unusual for the neighborhood. While she was clear that this woman was no one's friend - she was never part of the daily conversations among women on the steps or sidewalk or in the park - she was well known. In other words, while hers was not a relationship anyone would admit to, it was significant to the women in the area. Simply put, they needed her and sometime between Marion and Eddie, Julia asked her to call.

I know the reason why. Years later my grandmother found out and she told me and it was startling - shocking. But that is a story for later as this is a story of the 1920s and poor women having so many babies that life became one of work and hunger and struggle and love was lost. Living was so hard that loving became a luxury.

I know that Julia loved Tom in 1910 but I do not think that was necessarily true by 1925, or 1930, or certainly by 1933. I think by then the disappointment and lost promises had become too great. I wish he had been a better man for her - I wish he had been a better man, period. If he had I think a lot of things would have been different and there would have for sure been nine children instead of eight.

[Post pic of Tom Lennon Jr, circa 1916; Catherine Lennon 1923; Thomas, Jimmy & Robie Lennon circa 1922; Julia in the window with Robie, Catherine, Jackie & Jimmy, 1928.]