The Keohanes Move To Belmont

My grandparents were living in East Watertown within walking distance to the shops and fire station in Coolidge Square in the early 1920s. That was very handy for my grandmother with two small babies. My mother said that when Ma took her and Jim for a walk, Jim would yell "see the ball, see the ball" when he saw the ball at the top of the flagpole at the fire station - then he would run into the fire station calling 'Dada, Dada!!" With no freezers in those days and small ice boxes, I suppose Ma walked down to the grocery stores, the bakery, and the butcher's several times weekly - if not daily. She might have bumped into Hannah Burns, the wife of Johnny Murphy's great-great uncle Patrick Burns who lived nearby on Mount Auburn Street. Or perhaps she bumped into Johnny Murphy's great aunts Bridget or Julia Burns who lived near Sacred Heart Church with great-great uncle David Burns. They were all from Gortdromagh in Sneem - less than 2 miles from Loughane where Ma came from. I suppose Nellie and Hannah Keohane might come out on their days off or her sister Nellie Moriarty on her day off - we just learned she was out here until at least 1926. Relatives are living in Roxbury, Somerville, and Cambridge - the apartment on Adams Street was close to a trolley stop so it wasn't that difficult for visitors to get there.

I just found that note that my mother wrote - the landlord on Adams Street was very fussy - he didn't like kids. Ma was worried when she was having my mother about going home to a cranky landlord. But he died while she was in the hospital - it wasn't like today when a woman has a baby and is home a day or two later! John Keohane never told Ma until she and my mother were coming home - he was afraid she would be upset. I guess there was a nice tenant in the house - she was nice to Ma and liked Jim. 

I am sure that Ma and John Keohane wanted to buy their own home. Owning property is very important to the Irish after all the years they were tenants at the mercy of absentee English landlords. So maybe it wasn't too much of a surprise when John Keohane came home one day and said he had found a cheaper apartment in Belmont, which was very rural in those days. With the cheaper apartment, they could save more money. But my mother said Ma was flabbergasted when she saw the house up the hill on the top of Concord Road! It was a downhill walk to Belmont Center, but then there was the walk back up while carrying bundles or pushing 2 babies and bundles in a baby carriage. The house was on a lane off Concord Ave with meadows at the other end. 

This picture was taken from Concord Ave side in 1979.

The Keohanes rented the left side of the house - the Gardiners the right. The new apartment was very remote compared to the house in East Watertown, which was within easy walking distance of everything. My mother said Ma almost died when she saw the place and where it was located. John Keohane must have been familiar with the area from working at McLean Hospital.  There was no electricity, no gas, no hot water - just a coal stove in the kitchen and a black pot belly stove in the 2nd floor bedroom. There was nothing on the 3rd floor. My mother remembers seeing living room and dining room furniture up there and lots of dead flies on the floor. There was no bathroom - only a toilet shared between apartments - it was just a toilet - no sink. Ma had to bring in kindling wood and light a fire even when it was 80-90 degrees to heat water for tea, cooking, bathing, washing clothes. Ma used to heat the iron on the stove. What a change for Ma - it must have been like going home to Loughane without the rocks and sea view. She had been working as a domestic servant so was used to a few modern - for those times - conveniences.

The Keohanes rented the left side of the house.

This is the back of the house.

My mother and Hannie talked about taking baths on Saturday nights  for Church on Sunday morning. There was no bathtub as we know it. They would pull out a big tub, and Ma would be boiling kettles and pots of water on the stove. One after another, the whole family took a bath in the same tub and in the same water. Imagine being the last one in?

My mother said when the electric light did come, they all went down to the street to look up at the house lit up with electricity. She said John Cummins brought Ma an electric iron - he was the only one who gave her anything after all the meals, etc. that she had made for the single Irish lads. 

John Reardon holding Hannie and Ellen with Jim in back. John was John Keohane's first cousin - John Reardon's mother was Ellen Keohane - John's aunt - his father, Patrick Keohane's sister. We have already seen that John Reardon came out to my father.

My mother also remembers gooseberries growing wild around the house - she and Jim would eat them. She said she and Jim used to play around the yard - the front and back of the house, in the lane, up to the field. Sometimes the farm hands would stop the wagons and take my mother and Jim up with them to ride to the field for haying and other work. She had a hazy recollection of a wind mill. These farm hands probably worked for the Atkins family who owned a huge portion of the surrounding lands - their mansions were on the opposite side of Concord Ave. and a little closer to Belmont Center. I think I read that the Atkins donated the land for Beaverbrook Reservation in Belmont. They owned the largest sugar cane plantation in Cuba - Soledad. Johnny Murphy's aunt Bridie Murphy worked for and retired from the Atkins family.

My mother said the Gardiners were an old couple. Mrs. Gardiner was very good and helpful to Ma - she liked to hold the babies. Mrs. Gardiner was from Mattapan. When she was a kid, my mother thought she would never get to Mattapan. She thought it was someplace wonderful and important. Imagine when she started dating my father from Lower Mills! Mrs. Gardiner always had lemon drops for the Keohanes when they would visit after they moved. 

My mother said that they had good times there in Belmont - obviously from a child's perspective. The Irish guys and girls would come out on their days off - especially on Sundays. They chipped in for an accordian. John Keohane made home brew. They would drink and eat, play music - there was a lot of set dancing, late nights. Mrs. Gardiner would leave her door open for the coats, etc. I'm sure there would be singing and dancing like back home in Cork and Kerry. They would pull out the metals balls and bowl down Concord Avenue like they did back in Kinsale.  Ma kept the bowling balls under the kitchen sink. 

I have an article from a magazine - maybe an Irish American magazine - that quotes a man from Durrus, Co. Cork describe road bowling game: "It's a bit like a country man's cheap equivalent of golf ... the aim is to get the bowl from one fixed point in the road to another in as few throws as possible." The article reports that a single game, called a score, can take sixteen to seventeen throws each and almost two hours to travel just the 1.5 miles of the course. The same Cork man goes on to say "Road bowling has its own pace and and there's nothing hurried about that. Actually the throwing itself is only half of the sport, the rest is all the socializing and, of course, the betting."

Road bowling was very popular in West Cork - John Keohane used to bowl at home. The article goes on to say: "Coins are tossed and the running order is fixed. The bowlers are handed the 29lb spheres of cast iron and start banging them against the tar macadam and walls to knock the smooth edge off their surfaces ... Taking a long run up, he makes his approach like a fencer, leading on one foot before taking a few short steps whilst winding his arm around and around, making one final leap and sending his bowl in a wonderful arc up the gentle hill. The large group of awaiting Spectators indicate their approval with huge whoops of encouragement ... Road Bowling is very much a team event. When the bowl - pronounced to rhyme with 'owl' - reaches its final rating point, the 'chalk man' lives up to his title and registers the spot and the thrower's initials on the road with a distinguishing chalk mark. Then the opponent's entourage spring into action. Each bowler has a number of advisors or 'road showers' backing him. One of these stands beside him counseling him on the bet line to throw and another couple stand further down the road to place handfuls of grass on the road as targets to aim at."

The history of Irish road bowling is uncertain. Some say it was introduced by Dutch soldiers in 1689 when William of Orange arrived in Ireland. Others say it became fashionable in Ireland thanks to the Yorkshire linen workers. Or maybe it dates back to the Red Branch Knights and their "Ball Game.' It was widespread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and played throughout the 32 counties of Ireland.

I would have loved to see my grandfather and his friends road bowling along the roads of Belmont Hill! I saw road bowling in 1977 when my father, Beth, and I were heading to Ballythomas on the coast road - it might have been near Skibbereen when we came across them. We had to stop to let them play past us. I had never heard of road bowling so didn't know what was going on.

You can just see the bowl beyond his left hand.

Jim with the accordion. My mother with her fingers in her mouth - Hannie - John Keohane.

John Keohane pouring Ned Shea, who is holding Hannie, a glass of home brew. Matt Tuohy/Toohey is playing the accordion. Jim is up behind the guys - my mother is leaning onto a man who looks like he is holding another bottle of home brew and a glass in his hands. I do not know who he is but wonder if he is the John Cummins that my mother mentions.

Notice Hannie watching Ned Shea drinking the beer. Ned Shea is a neighbor from Kinsale - he ends up getting married and living in Watertown - I knew his daughter Linda.

Notice Ma on the left collecting wood for the fire so she can feed everyone. I think Matt Toohy is from Kerry - there was an accordion player of the same name who played in the dance halls in Dudley Square in the 1940s-1950s. If this is John Cummins, he is another neighbor from Dunderrow.

This time Matt Tuohy/Toohy is holding on to Hannie. The kids seem to like the single guys, and the guys don't seem to mind the kids. Maybe they remind them of home. 

Aunt Nellie Keohane and Matt Tuohy - it was probably Aunt Nellie who was taking all the pictures.

Jim went to school in Belmont. He would get haircuts from the guy up the street. Jim and my mother went to a birthday party for one of the kids up the street. My mother vaguely remembers playing with the Kerrigans - "Jim & I would run & laugh up in our yard so they would think we were having a great time."

Pictures of the birthday party my mother and Jim went to in Belmont - Jim is on the right in the sailor suit - my mother is right in front.

I'm not sure when the family moved to Belmont, but Hannie and Peggy were born while they were living there - both in February. My mother said when Ma had Hannie, she had to walk down the hill in the snow to take a taxi to the hospital with John Keohane.  Hannie talks about her father coming home from work in a snowstorm to find Ma in labor. He had to walk back down the steep hill to Belmont center to find a taxi - and what kind of taxi did they have back in the 1920s? Hannie said it was a horse and cart!! Then they had to pick Ma up - I suppose the Gardiners looked after the children - how was Ma going to call anyone - there was no phone. Hannie said it was a terrible drive to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Brighton in the snow. When they got there John Keohane got out and was banging on the doors which were locked - he was yelling for help. Finally, a nun came out and scolded John Keohane and Ma for all the commotion. Poor Ma!!

The funny thing about this story is that years later the Navins told us this same story except Ma was pregnant with their mother - my aunt Peggy Keohane Navin!!

I found Hannie's birth registration on www.familysearch.org.

Place of birth was St. Elizabeth's hospital in Boston, Suffolk County. Registration #2094.

Hannah Teresa Keohane - female - born alive on February 14, 1924. Father:  John Keohane - 648 Concord Ave., Belmont - White - 34 years old - born in Ireland - occupation: motorman.                               Mother: Margaret Moriarty - 648 Concord Ave., Belmont - White - 29 years old - born in Ireland - occupation: Housewife.

Attendant at birth: Physician J Stanton, 320 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. was present at birth.

The birth registration was received in Boston on February 16, 1924; it was received in Belmont on July 17, 2024!

I guess Hannie and Peggy were baptized at St. Joseph's Church on Common Street in Belmont. I tried to get their baptismal records  - I sent the dates and a donation - but never got a response. It would be interesting to see who their Godparents are. I didn't find Peggy's birth certificate either. 

My mother said Aunt Nellie came one Thanksgiving after work to find Ma sick with the measles upstairs in bed with the kids. Only the carcass of the turkey was left after Dad feeding a crowd. 

The Keohanes are listed in the 1925 Belmont Street Directory - note the misspelling of Keohane -  "Koehane - John (Margaret) motorman, h 648 Concord av."

John Keohane

Pat Murphy

Hannah Riordoan - John Keohane's first cousin (remember her mother was Ellen Keohane Riordan - she was John Reardon's sister - we saw him above) stayed in Belmont. Hannie said Hannah Riordan walked down the hill to meet Dad - he thought it was a ghost and was scared - she was a big woman. She slept on the couch in the kitchen.

Hannah Reardon, Jim, Ma and Peggy might have been the baby in the crib.

Another of my mother's memories is walking on the walls down the hill going to the stores - running under bridges and hollering to hear an echo.  Ice cream in a drugstore - "mine fell on the floor once when I gave a big lick." "Walking down to meet Ma coming from church - me & Jim - Ma came the shortcut & had to come looking for us.  Ma would go to Mass at 6:30 am - John Cummins told her that she should be home in bed.

Ellen holding Peggy - notice the stone walls in background.

John Keohane had a garden up the lane. My mother remembers Dave Cosgrove - we talked about him in the previous blog post, Matty Tooey, John Cummins, and John Reardon coming to Belmont. She said Brother Tim Cummins liked Aunt Hannah O'Sullivan of New York - she was Ma's half sister. She is not sure if Con Butler or Jimmy McCarthy were in Belmont. 

I don't know how long Ma and my grandfather were in Belmont, but they are listed again in the 1927 Belmont Street Directory as Koehane - John (Margaret) motorman, h 648 Concord av. So we know that they were there for part of 1927 at least.