At nearly 18 years of age, I am and have been preparing to leave the nest. I’ve been filling out college applications, writing essays, preparing for interviews, and applying for financial aid.
My Irish immigrant grandmother is 95 now, but when she was 18, she boarded a boat alone and sailed to another country in pursuit of a job offer she saw in a newspaper.
My grandmother never received schooling past the eighth grade, but she lived a life full of lessons that school could never have taught her. In the years since she moved in with us, the stories she told of her adventures changed my perspective on education, hard work, and life in general; a change I reflect on now as a high school senior mere months away from graduation.
Bridget “Delia” Shanahan (née Greali sh) was born on March 30– but because she was born at home in a very rural town, her birth wasn’t reported until later, and so her documented birthday is April 6. She grew up on a farm in Galway, a county in Ireland, and was the middle child of eight. She attended a two-room school– one floor for young students, the second for older– and suffered a cruel instructor, who employed painful or embarrassing punishments on students with the wrong answers. “One day, I wasn’t talking loud enough,” Delia remembered. “I was sent down across the road to answer the questions, to shout them up!” Her hands were also struck with a ruler.
She enjoyed school some days, and completed her homework by candlelight. But she left after the eighth grade; while there was a high school available, Delia couldn’t attend. “I had the children to take care of, I had to help my mother,” Delia explained. “I was the oldest girl; there was eight of us, four boys and four girls. I was the oldest girl, so there was plenty to do.” With her father, mother, and two uncles as well, Delia’s childhood home was made up of twelve individuals total– not to mention the livestock– all of whom had to be fed daily. It was up to the women of the house to make sure all were taken care of. “You were needed on the farm, you were needed at home,” Delia concluded. “I was needed to help my mother.”
It was on that farm she stayed for her teenage years, until she saw a job posting in the newspaper and decided to take a big leap. The job was in the city of London– she would first have to take a train to Dublin, then a boat across to England. “She didn’t want me to go,” Delia said of her mother. “That was like going to…[another world.] I went there anyway. I was doing housework.” Delia traveled alone, and found somewhere to room once she arrived. “I guess I was foolish,” she joked as she recalled the journey. “I had no education, really. But I made my own way.”
Going from farm life to city life was a big change, but a pocket of fellow Irish immigrants could be found for a glimpse of home. Irish socials were hosted every weekend, for dancing and conversation with fellow Irish immigrants. It was at one such dance that Delia met her husband, Edmond, a man from County Kerry. Delia was working as a seamstress by then, and contemplating following two of her sisters to America. “I often wondered,” Delia reflected, “if I didn’t come, what would that [life in London] lead up to?” But come to America she did, with Edmond right behind her, though the two were not yet married. Delia worked while Edmond searched for a job, supporting herself and him as well, and they were united in matrimony in 1963, settling down in the Bronx. “I learned more out in my life than I did [at school],” Delia said of the time. “I was a working woman…I worked my way.”
As someone who has always stressed about grades, hearing my grandmother’s story put things in perspective. Of course grades are important. School is important. Academics are what, for many of us, will shape our futures. But they aren’t the only things that are important. Though the world is very different from the way it was in the 1950s, the fact remains: your life ahead will be bigger than your “now.” It will be bigger than everything you may have experienced within the walls of Haldane High School– failed tests, social drama, rejections, heartbreak. I certainly don’t mean you should let yourself go academically, but you should take a step back from the mountain of pressure you may be unconsciously piling onto yourself. Expand your viewpoint on life to include what comes beyond grades and beyond high school: the people you will meet, the things you will learn, the life you will make for yourself with everything you’ve got. My grandmother didn’t have very many years of schooling, but she has always had a courageous heart and an intelligent mind, and she made her way in the world with her own two hands.
