Sunday, October 3, 2010

Roggie and Pitchie of Cullomane East

My 87 year old aunt has an amazing memory.  Even though no family history has been written down until now, she has been able to tell me about her maternal granddad and his siblings.

Auntie was born in 1923, and she remembers when Denny Dan Larr Collins died in Cullomane East in late 1930.  She remembers her mother taking her and brother Humpsey (Humphrey) by horse and cart to Cullomane, and how the river was swollen, and how her mother drove the horse right into the swollen river and how terrified she was seeing the water rise up around the cart.

The visit was certainly burned into her memory.  She remembers two children nicknamed "Roggie" and "Pitchie" (that's my best shot at spelling) that were somehow associated with somebody named Dinah.  She can't remember Pitchie very well, but she remembers Roggie a curly haired boy and red-haired.

Grandmom's side of the family had many flaxen-haired and red-haired people in it, indeed, Grandmom's hair was a shade of golden red.  I reminded her that Denny Dan Larr had an older sister named Diana, and Auntie thinks that could be the association.  There certainly isn't anything conclusive about the Diana Collins, age 20, on the shiplist for "Manhattan", 10-Sep-1873, from Queenstown-Liverpool to NY, except that she was from Ireland.  If Roggie and Pitchie were related to Denny Dan Larr's sister and they were children in 1930, they would have had at least been her grandchildren.

This is something no genealogist would know, and the local papers don't print this kind of information. Only some older people locally residing in the area would know.  So if the nicknames Roggie and Pitchie are familiar to you and you remember those children living in or visiting Cullomane East, please let me know!  Better yet, Roggie or Pitchie, if you are out there, please get in touch!

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