What’s Not There

It’s not easy to draw what isn’t there anymore. That’s what tracing your immigrant ancestors can lead to. In this case, the house where Irish-born Michael Lynch and his family lived in 1909 is gone. What’s left is a parking lot for the Grant Mill Condominium across the street. Grant Mill used to be enormous—part

Tenant to Tenement

This was the first home of my Lynch ancestors in America. In 1884, John Lynch and his wife, Mary Sullivan, along with their six surviving children abandoned Cahersiveen in Kerry, Ireland, and joined relatives and neighbors who had settled in Southeastern Connecticut. They switched from tenant farming to tenement living, leaving behind a tiny windswept

Looking for Patrick

In the top left apartment of this house in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, in 1885, lived the recently-arrived John Patrick Lynch and Mary Sullivan along with their six children. They were recent immigrants, but Lynches and Sullivans had been in the area for years—some for decades. John and Mary had nine children, but two died at young

Ann & Hope

Ann & Hope has so many connections to me. It’s probably the first place that I saw Santa Claus in the flesh. It’s definitely where I bought my first record: The Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits. My brother Tim worked at Ann & Hope for a while. My father grew up around the corner. What Ann & Hope is, is a huge red brick building in my

Gun Factory

It must have been an odd transition for the Lynches to relocate from farming the oceanfront bog lands of Cahersiveen, Kerry, Ireland, to the factory life in the small industrial city of Norwich, Connecticut, in the 1800s. Among the places that my ancestors worked, was here, at the big now-empty firearms factory downtown. Connecticut has

Upstairs Downstairs

This is not the mansion where Mary Lynch worked and lived in 1900 in Norwich, Connecticut. That was down by the other end of Sachem Street, on broad beautiful Washington Street. This is the multi-family house where she died in 1938. Mary was living at that time with her retired, widowed brother John, her widowed

The Weaver

John J. Lynch, my great-great uncle, lived here in 1900 with his wife Delia. Their home was the left one of the four in this multi-family building. It’s within walking distance of the big factories of downtown Norwalk, Connecticut. Both John and Delia were from Ireland. John worked as a “cotton weaver” according to census

Upper Falls

On a cold clear day in late November, as the sun was setting, I drew at the Upper Falls Heritage Park in Norwich, Connecticut by the remains of an old mill building. Norwich was a town of water-powered industry and in the last century, my great-great grandfather lived here. A few weeks ago, I had

Overseers

The Lonsdale Company (1831-1946) built this big red brick house in 1888. It is identical to the one next to it, and to the others running up Blackstone Street in Cumberland, Rhode Island. This was a row of “Overseers” houses, built for executives of the Londale Company which ran a group of big mills along