Walking Tour of Erin's Children Neighborhood by Eileen O'Finlan

 

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One of the most fun parts of writing Erin's Children was setting it in my own city. I did an enormous amount of research on the history of Worcester, Massachusetts including visiting many sites I would incorporate into the book. I am very fortunate that one of the women in my writing group, Cindy Shenette, is a docent for Preservation Worcester and gives tours of Crown Hill, an historic district not too far from the bustling downtown. When I was looking for a location for a few of my main characters, Meg, Kathleen, and Nuala, to live and work as domestic servants, she suggested Crown Hill and offered to take me on a private walking tour of the area. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I was even more fortunate that one of the residents took me on a private tour of his home which has been kept almost entirely the way it would have looked in the 1850s both inside and out. This house became the home of my character, Hiram Archer.

Being an historic district, Crown Hill residents are governed by strict standards that don't allow for much change to the outside of their homes. There are even still a few gas lamps and hitching posts on the streets. According Cindy, if you removed the modern vehicles and unpaved the roads, it would look pretty much the same as it did in the mid-to-late 1800s.

Erin's Children had been released in December of 2020. Because of COVID, the few book talks I was able to give were virtual. One of these was to a local book discussion group in March of 2021. Because everyone in the group was from Worcester or close by they were all very interested in the real life locations in the book, especially Crown Hill. Like me, many of them hadn't even known it existed. It is close to downtown but tucked just enough away to remain fairly anonymous. One of the group members proposed a walking tour of Crown Hill once pandemic restrictions allowed for it. The idea was enthusiastically received. More than once, we set a date only to have it canceled for one reason or another. We all began to wonder if it would ever happen.

On May 14, 2022 the planets must have finally aligned correctly. We met in a nearby parking lot and walked to Crown Hill with Cindy, our knowledgable tour guide, leading the way and imparting all sorts of interesting information about the original owners of the historic homes and buildings. I interjected with comments about houses and buildings that inspired me when I was writing. We walked the streets where Meg, Kathleen, and Nuala lived and worked, seeing pretty much the same sights (minus the cars and asphalt) they would have seen.

It took over a year to make the walking tour finally happen, but according to the group it was worth the wait. I couldn't agree more!

The walking group tour stands in front of what would become

 the inspiration for Hiram Archer's home in Erin's Children.

Heading down one of the lovely tree-lined streets in Crown Hill

Erin's Children Now Available!

 

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I am very excited to announce that my new novel, Erin's Children, the sequel to Kelegeen was released by BWL Publishing, Inc. on December 1, 2020! 

Erin's Children picks up three years after the end of Kelegeen. Meg has arrived in America, found employment as a domestic servant in Worcester, Massachusetts, regularly sends life-saving money back to her family in Ireland, and saved enough to buy passage for her sister, Kathleen.

Sounds like everything is going just fine, doesn't it? Not quite.

Meg and Rory married just before she sailed for America. They had planned to wed anyway and thought it safer for Meg to arrive in a strange country as a married woman. Wrong! It turns out that a domestic servant, the best job for a female Irish immigrant, must live in with the family she serves. There's no room for a husband and the children who will undoubtedly soon follow. 'No Irish Need Apply' signs among the help wanted ads abound making it difficult for Irish men to find work. When they do, it pays little forcing them and their families to live in squalid housing tenements, if they're lucky. Meeting the rent is hard enough, but they still have to eat.

Meg loves and misses Rory. She came to America with the plan that he would join her and they would make a life together. Used to a one-room, nearly bare cottage, and a diet almost soley made up of potatoes (before the blight left them with nothing), Meg shouldn't mind making the best of living in a tenement. That's what she believed upon her arrival.

But that was before she moved in with the Claproods in their Grecian style home in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Crown Hill. A beautiful house, a room to herself, three good meals a day, money enough to send home with extra to save and a little more to buy clothes as nice as those of her employers - it's all become the norm now. How can she give it up? But how can she give up Rory?

While Meg struggles with her internal conflict, her sister, Kathleen, faces the daily invective of the Pratts, particularly Mrs. Pratt and her eldest son, Lemuel. Mrs. Pratt is suspicious, bigoted, and impossible to please. Lemuel seems downright dangerous. The only bright spot is Clara Pratt, the sole daughter of the family. A bright, friendly, but lonely girl, she befriends Kathleen much to her mother's dismay. Eventually Clara is all that holds Kathleen to the Pratts until she is finally forced from the home. Where she goes from there is the start of an adventure she could never have imagined.

Surrounding everyone is the tumult caused by the fight over slavery, the rise of the nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know Nothing political party, and the ever-present specter of a looming civil war.

Meg, Kathleen, and the other Irish immigrants must navigate all these obstacles in a land very different from their own while trying to keep their personal lives together even as their new country seems about to be torn to pieces. They will need all of their resiliance, faith, and mutual support to make it.

To celebrate the release of Erin's Children, I invite you all to join me for my blog tour beginning today. Click here for a list of blog sites where Erin's Children will be featured over the next ten days with spotlights, interviews, reviews, and guest blog posts as well as a chance to win free copies of Erin's Children!

Catacombs Where You Least Expect Them by Eileen O'Finlan

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I've long been intrigued by catacombs – those underground chambers and passageways most commonly associated with Rome or Paris. Their secret nature, association with burials, and use as hiding places long ago captured my attention. I've always wanted to find a way to incorporate them into my writing. Never did I think it would be in the book I'm setting in my own city.

Last October while perusing the gift shop of the Worcester Historical Museum during one of my research trips for Erin's Children, the forthcoming sequel to Kelegeen, a slim volume titled Worcester's Forgotten Catacombs caught my eye. Astounded, I snatched if from the shelf. Could there really be catacombs beneath the streets of Worcester? I grew up in the next town, worked for decades in the city itself, but never once had I heard so much as a rumor about catacombs. I simply had to find out.

According to author Charles W. Longeway, Sr., catacombs do indeed exist beneath the streets of downtown Worcester. Likely built in the 1700s, possibly used in the 1850s for nefarious business such as illegal gambling or being in the more noble employ of the Underground Railroad, they were seemingly forgotten by the late 19^th century. The author claims to have been fascinated by the tales of the Worcester catacombs for over 50 years after unearthing several published accounts of their rediscovery in the 1930s.

The catacombs contain more than thirty rooms forty feet below the ground. Built of brick with massive pillars, elegant archways, and thick, almost sound proof walls, the underground chambers invite speculation as to their origins and subsequent use. The jury is still out on both, though several theories abound. Built in the 18^th century, some say they were created as a foundation in the downtown section of Worcester which was supposedly a mass of quicksand. Others say they were actually the basements and lower floors of the first homes built in the area and later covered over by numerous changes to the grading of the streets.

More intriguing is their possible later use. A 1930 newspaper article claimed them as the site of an 1850 50-round “Fistic Battle” - a bare knuckles prize fight featuring the then famous English heavyweight, Jem Mace.

A 19^th century hostelry sat above one section of the catacombs. It appears to be well attested that the hostelry employed a number of African Americans who may have used the chambers as living quarters. The discovery of a 19^th century bathtub in one of the rooms suggests that some such use was made of them. Since Worcester was an anti-slavery hotbed, the possibility of being a part of the Underground Railroad is a valid theory, though whether they were an official stop on the famous route north or simply a hiding place for runaway slaves is unknown.

What is not in question is the fact that these catacombs exist and have been in existence since the 18^th century. Since Erin's Children is set in Worcester in the 1850s I can't possibly resist making them part of the story. Since what use they were put to in the 1850s is, and maybe always will be, debatable, I have creative license to let my imagination run free. I'm getting near the section of the story where the catacombs will come into play. I have some ideas as to what will happen down there, but even I'm not sure until I actually write it. My characters tend to have minds of their own so I may be as surprised as anyone about what was going on in Worcester's catacombs. One thing's for sure, I will have tremendous fun finally setting part of a story in catacombs even if they are in the most unexpected place.

Pictures courtesy of Charles W. Longeway, Sr.

and

BuzzMediaLife - "This Week in Worcester"

Many Thanks to Worcester Resident, Randy Bloom

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As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, I’ve been researching Worcester history and the neighborhood in which some of the characters in the sequel would have worked and lived as domestic servants. Randy Bloom, a long time resident of the Crown Hill historic district of Worcester generously opened his 1856 home to me for a private two-hour tour.

Like the residents before him, Randy has kept the interior of his home true to its original. What a treat it was to meander through all those rooms – three floors in the main house plus a two-story carriage house – taking the original gas lighting fixtures and coal burning fireplaces, reproduction wallpaper perfectly replicating the original, the floor-to-ceiling windows and the French doors leading from the parlor to a glassed-in porch, which in the 1850s was use as a greenhouse to lengthen the growing season and as a solar collector to add warmth to the porch and parlor in the colder months.

As I walked through the house and grounds, I was struck with inspiration for exactly how this house will fit into the sequel. I’m not telling, though – no spoilers here!

Again, my gratitude to Randy for his generous hospitality!

Original gas lighting fixture in the dining room. The extra gas jet (visible at front center) allowed for an attached rubber tube to hang down and connect with a gas lamp in the center of the table.

Kindling and coal were burned in the basket at the front of this fireplace. Though the mantel and surround appear to be marble they are really soapstone painted to look like marble right down to the gold veining.

A Walking Tour of My Next Novel

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Ever since I decided to set the sequel to my debut novel, Kelegeen, in Worcester, Massachusetts, I’ve been seeing the city in a new way. I grew up and still live in a town that abuts Worcester and work a full-time job located in downtown Worcester. I’ve spent countless hours in the city of Worcester. I even rented a house there many years ago. Naturally, I thought I knew Worcester. I know how to get to a lot of places in the city and even when lost, I’ve been able to use landmarks I can see in the distance to figure out in which direction I should head. Of course, now that I have GPS, I don’t need to do that, but sometimes I do just to know I still can.

Recently, I discovered Crown Hill, a hidden jewel in a section of Worcester I never knew existed. My friend and fellow writing group member, Cindy Shenette, is a docent for Preservation Worcester. While discussing where my Irish domestic servant characters would have lived and worked, Cindy mentioned Crown Hill.  This, she said, is where Worcester’s middle class resided. They were the folks who could have afforded to hire one, possibly two, domestic servants. Perfect! Luckily for me, Cindy conducts walking tours of the Crown Hill area and offered to take me on a private tour. Naturally, I jumped at the chance.

On a lovely morning in late June, Cindy picked me up and off we went. The tour began outside a house a on the corner of Pleasant and Oxford streets. It was built in 1844 by Asa Walker, a merchant tailor who owned a store on Marion Street. Asa lived there with his wife, Lucy.  Made of brick, the house is unusual for the area since most were made of wood.

Greek Revival home of Asa and Lucy Walker built in 1844

Across from the side of this house stands a brick building that is now Rob Roy Academy Hair and Beauty School, but in the time of my story was the Pleasant Street Primary School. Could this be where the children of Meg's and Kathleen's employers were educated?

Originally the Pleasant Street Primary School - Now the Rob Roy Academy Hair and Beauty School

As the tour continued along Oxford Street, Crown Street, Congress Street and the sections of Pleasant Street and Chatham Street that pass through the Crown Hill area, we saw a plethora of homes that would have stood at the time of the setting of my novel. Most were Greek Revival along with a few Italianate and Second Empire houses.

Greek Revival House

Elijah and Mercy Brooks House - Served as a parsonage for a nearby Quaker Meeting House

Two views of an Italianate house

As we strolled along, the morning grew warmer and we were grateful for the tree lined sidewalks. We stopped to note the few remaining gas streetlamps (still in use!) and hitching posts for horses (not still in use).

Gas streetl lamp - still in use

Since Crown Hill is a designated historic district there are strict rules governing what residents are and are not allowed to do with the outside of their houses. Though now, many of the Greek Revival houses are painted in various colors, in the mid-1800s they would all have been an off-white, making the street resemble a row of ancient Greek temples. As Cindy noted, if all the vehicles were removed, the paved roads replaced with dirt, and the houses all painted the same color, it would look pretty much the same as it did back then.  It didn’t take much imagination to picture myself as one of my characters walking down these very streets. What an amazing feeling to enter into the world of my characters!

Tour guide and fellow writer, Cindy Shenette

Author, Eileen O'Finlan taking notes while happily walking the same streets as her characters

Solo Writing Retreat by Eileen O'Finlan

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It's time to seriously focus on the sequel to Kelegeen, so I spent the last week of February secluded in a hotel suite in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the sequel will be set, to work undisturbed and undistracted.  I arrived at the Residence Inn in Worcester late on Monday afternoon.  Once I was settled in, I got right to work.  The suite has a great little work area with the most comfortable chair ever – I wish I could have taken it home!

The first hurdle was getting on the Internet.  I was given my WiFi password when I checked in, but getting to a screen that actually asked for it seemed an impossible task.  I finally stumbled upon it, put in the password and I was off and running.  The table is right in front of the windows, so during the day the sunlight helped a lot, which is a good thing since the lighting in the suite left a lot to be desired as did the lack of dish liquid and a frying pan, but I digress. 

I wanted to get as much as I could out of this week, so I made it an early night.  I had not realized just how exhausted I’d been until I tried to wake up the next morning.  Even after my brain woke up, my eyelids refused to open.  I think it was around 11:00 a.m. before I dragged myself out of bed.  Yikes!  Most of the morning already gone before I could even eat breakfast, shower, and dress. 

Assuming, I’d have no problem getting online, I fired up the laptop only to find that I had no Internet connection.  After trying in vain to retrace the steps that finally connected me the night before, I gave up and asked the guy at the Front Desk for help.  He obligingly came to my room and had my laptop online in about two seconds.  For those who don’t know (until then, that included me) when you can’t reconnect to a public WiFi connection, try going to a site called purple.com.  It reroutes your computer to get you back online.  Who knew?  I sure didn’t.  Good thing Front Desk Guy knew.  Thank you Front Desk Guy!

I spent the rest of the day with my eyes glued (not literally – I mean, ouch and yuck!) to Erin’s Daughters in America:  Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century by Hansia R. Diner.  Between reading, note-taking, and checking information online, the afternoon flew by.  I did make a point of ungluing my eyes long enough to walk all the hallways on all four floors of the building just to keep my circulation going.  There was little chance of falling asleep at the desk despite feeling like I could nod off at any minute (still in the extreme exhaustion phase) since the air around the desk felt as icy as if I’d opened the windows.  I hate being cold, but, hey, it kept me awake and working.

I went to bed extra early that night, hoping to make up for my late rising.  It didn’t work.  Well, I did get up a little earlier than the previous morning, like around 10:30.  It dawned on me that I needed this week as much to rest as I did to research and write so I decided to stop mentally berating myself for sleeping late and make the most of the time I was awake. 

When I finally finished Erin’s Daughters, it was time for my tour of the four floors.  I remembered seeing photos of various places in Worcester in the hallways of each floor so this time I took my camera.  Meg, my main character, would have arrived from Ireland on a ship and docked in Boston Harbor, then taken a train to Worcester.  I know the current train station wasn’t built until 1911 so I’ve been trying to figure out where the station would have been in my story.  One picture might have given me a clue.  It’s the outside of a building with the words Boston and Albany – New York – New Haven and Hartford – Boston and Maine engraved in the façade.  Hmmm…could this have been the original station?

Research brings both answers and questions.  The more I find out the more I need to know.  So along with my notes I have a growing list of questions, most of which have to do with the who and where in Worcester in the 1850s. 

After checking the website for the Worcester Historical Museum I found that they have a plethora of information on Worcester in the 19^th century.  I gave them a call, only to find I was speaking with a woman who took the online course in Church History that I just finished teaching.  What were the odds of that?  She informed me that the museum’s archivist is an expert on Irish immigrants in Worcester.  Pay dirt!  I made an appointment to meet with her so the last night of my solo retreat was spent writing out those all-important questions I want to ask her.

Oh, and one more thing – Chapter 1 is well underway.  The sequel has officially begun.