The “Perfect” Life: I was destined to marry a boy from my hometown, have 2.5 children, a station wagon, a ranch-style house with a white 4-plank fence around it and be a school teacher or a nurse. This was defined as “happily ever after”.
When I was 18 years old, I had only two aspirations. The first was to be what is now termed, a “flight attendant”. Back then it was “stewardess”. The only class I truly loved was geography and my only fantasy was traveling to all those places I had read about. So many years later, I still have that grade school geography book on my bookshelves, even though the countries have changed names, politics and leaders more times than I could ever have imagined. I came from a farm near a little town in Kentucky where not a one of my immediate family, during my childhood, had ventured further than Lexington, Louisville, Frankfort or eastern Kentucky. My mother was a well-read individual with many books on her shelves. But no one ever left my hometown unless they had to and then they hurried back to it as quickly as they could.
When I started this journey of researching my paternal family name, I did not expect to find so many derivations of the spelling nor the number of people with that last name between 1795 and 1930 in Ireland. I also did not expect to find them in the locations I found either. I had been under the (obviously wrong) impression that my ancestor(s) came from what is today called the Republic of Ireland (Co. Cork). As it turns out, they are pretty much completely from today’s Northern Ireland. Of course, back in the day, it was simply Ireland. Most of the time in the census of the United State, they just stated they were from Ireland, if not born in the US. 
The research and effort I have been putting into this project has been exhausting, and at times depressing. I had decided I needed to review all the tabs in my browsers I have open (dozens!) and get some closure on a few. I happened upon things I evidently found months ago and did not relate to at the time. I am easily distracted by shiny objects in the rearview mirror so anything can happen to my concentration. A few open tabs were enlightening, but this one was moderately entertaining. I can’t decide whether the old lady really was a brat and liked conflict or if she was settling some scores. Her will, to me, was a hoot! 
