By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
My great aunt was born in Ireland almost a hundred years before me. I entered this world a decade after she died. Given such deep temporal chasms, I’ve long feared that despite diligent research, I could know only her basic biographical facts. But now I think I know her voice too.
Her name is Mary J. Leonard, the oldest daughter of Thomas and Catherine Leonard. She was born in Limerick in April 1865. Three years later, her younger sister (my great grandmother) Kate was born. Their younger brother Thomas came along four years later in 1872. There also were four other Leonard brothers (Patrick, David, James, John) and one more sister (Nora). Catherine Leonard had 11 children, so apparently there were three other Leonard children, but I do not yet know their stories.
At about age 17 Mary left Ireland for New England. Why? My guess is family economics. I imagine Mary spoke up and offered to emigrate from Ireland to America to help the family financially. She likely started her solitary journey from Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, the last stop for the Titanic on its doomed maiden journey thirty years later. Mary arrived safely in New York City in the spring of 1882 after a two week ocean voyage.
What were the prospects for such a young Irish girl alone in America? Mary attended school in Ireland only through eighth grade, but could read and write English. As the oldest sister, she had experience caring for her younger siblings. All this made Mary more than qualified to satisfy the high demand for Irish female domestic servants in America in the late 1800s.
Young females comprised half of all Irish immigrants during this time, most of them daughters of poor tenant farmers arriving to take jobs as maids, cooks, and nannies. There were certain economic benefits from these relationships. Employers usually provided room and board at no cost, allowing young workers like Mary to save and send money back to family in the old country.
Yet, the circumstances also could be difficult. The typical domestic servant worked over ten hours a day, seven days a week, with little time off. Living conditions could be poor and some workers were abused physically.
One historian has described the typical Irish maid’s day as follows: “She was to rise early, about 5:30 a.m., in order to complete the dirtier work in the morning so she would be neat and presentable for the mistress’s afternoon callers. Before the family came down to breakfast, the girl was to clean and polish the stove, sweep the first floor carpets, dust the furniture, sweep the front steps, shake the mats, prepare the breakfast, and set the table. While the family ate, the domestic was to make the beds and dust the bedrooms. Each family chamber was to be thoroughly cleaned once a week, the carpets taken up and shaken, the floor scrubbed, the curtains shaken, and the furniture cleaned.”
Fortunately, Mary Leonard avoided the worst of these possible domestic situations. She worked as a housekeeper for the family of Dr. Ezra Brainerd, the president of Middlebury College in Vermont from 1886 to 1908. Dr. Brainerd was an accomplished scholar, and taught a diverse set of courses on rhetoric, English literature, physics, and applied mathematics. He even established a global reputation in botany as an expert on violets.
Dr. Brainerd and his wife Viola Rockwell had five daughters and one son. The Brainerd home, called “Springside” (see Middlebury College photo above), was built in about 1836 on four wooded acres located at 39 Seminary Street on a hillside about a mile from the college. Dr. Brainerd purchased the home from his father-in-law, a wealthy sheep merchant.
The large three story brick house had a porch with a southern exposure and was surrounded by a wrought iron fence enclosing broad lawns and multiple gardens where Dr. Brainerd planted his various collected species of violets. In the back of the property stood a greenhouse and a henhouse dubbed the “poultry cathedral.”
The Brainerd family hosted a number of activities at the home, including social events and weekly college faculty meetings in the front parlor. At the annual president’s commencement party, according to one Middlebury College newsletter, the home’s “verandahs bloomed with Japanese lanterns, while inside the table lamps and many bracket lamps cast a gala glow over the bouquets of garden flowers in every window and corner.”
During these busy times, Mary Leonard likely appreciated the large kitchen fireplace with two ovens and a basement spring, which gave the home its water and its name. Mary worked for the Brainerd family until about 1890, when one of the Brainerd children—Alice Beaumelle “Babbie” Brainerd (married name Nelson)—was 7 years old.
Although just a young child when they met, Babbie remembered Mary well and with great affection. In 1951, Babbie wrote and published a book titled Four Ducks on a Pond, recounting her family’s adventures at their Springside home. Mary Leonard was a featured character.
In Babbie’s short stories, I first heard my Aunt Mary’s voice.
(Part 2 tomorrow, Mary Leonard’s young voice emerges.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah—and about his family’s roots in Burlington, Vermont—was published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
