Ripley Roots Stories / In search of the Sullivans

	Ripley Roots

In Search of the Sullivans
by theresa m. ripley

William Raymond Ripley by the grave marker of his Grandfather Sullivan.

What does it mean to have Irish roots? It would have been nice if my father had told me about our Irish forebears. He did not. So I spent several months searching for them and trying to piece together our Sullivan family history. The search has been rewarding and is beginning to tell a poignant story of Irish immigration.

Honora Sullivan Ripley was my paternal grandmother's name, but she went by Nora. Nora's parents, my great grandparents, were Patrick and Honora Sullivan. They emigrated from Ireland in 1863, according to family oral history and moved to Fairbury, Illinois, in 1865. Patrick and Honora Sullivan are buried in Fairbury. They are my basic connection with Ireland.

My father, William Raymond Ripley, was just 8 1/2 years old when his grandfather, Patrick Sullivan, died in 1917. Patrick's wife, Honora, had preceded him in death in 1901. My father lived about 15 miles from his grandfather and considering the transportation of the day, it seems unlikely that my father had much contact with his grandfather and certainly none with his grandmother. What I do know is that my father did not relay a lot of history to me about the Sullivans who came from Ireland; a scattered fact here and there, but not much of substance. This is probably not unusual. My father was a second generation Irish American. His mother, Nora, was first generation Irish American. History tells us that children of immigrants break with the old country. By second generation the connection is often broken. I am third generation Irish American and want to find these Irish roots.

My grandmother, Nora Sullivan Ripley, died in 1954 when I was 9. Her husband had preceded her in death by many years. I remember my grandmother as an overweight, elderly women who had a large house on Water Street in Pontiac, Illinois. She had four apartment units in the house and she lived on the bottom floor in the back. My most vivid memory of her is sitting in a dark, overstuffed chair with little tassels coming out of the end of the arms. There were few toys in the apartment. As her youngest grandchild, I entertained myself for hours with the bobbing duck who dipped its beak into a water glass. My grandmother told me no stories about her youth or her parent's personal history of coming from Ireland. Why should she, since she was the youngest of 8 children with only the first two children born in Ireland. Or perhaps she was just too tired by the time she and I spent time together.

Neither my father or I had much sense of the old sod. When I was a youth, we were too busy being concerned with the land we had in America. The land took many hours in all seasons. It didn't leave much time to think about the land emigrant relatives had left years ago.

Now it is different, at least for me. I have some time, and I have a great deal of interest. I want to know about the old sod. I want to understand why Patrick and Honora left Ireland and came to America. I want to understand what they left. I would like to know who they left and how those family members felt about their loved ones departing forever and probably never seeing them again. I want to know if Patrick and Honora ever regretted their decision to come. I want to know if they kept contact with family back in Ireland. I want to know just about everything there is to know about the family, the land, and the times.

Clearly, that is not possible, but do not fault me for wishing. I find my wish is not unusual. The search for the Sullivans has lead me to contact the Sullivans I knew as a youth. In the process of trying to find the emigrant Sullivans, I am rediscovering the Sullivans who went to church and school with me and shared many holiday dinners. Decades later, just as Patrick and Honora left their home in Ireland, I left my home on the prairie and went "out west." Even though I had a forwarding address, I lost contact with many Sullivans.

Perhaps it is the Sullivans from my youth I am searching for all along. I don't know. If I find the emigrant Sullivans, it appears quite likely I shall also find the Sullivans I grew up with, my brother grew up with, and obviously were ever so important to my father as a youth and until he died in 1977.

Whatever the reason, it is a search that is a part of me now.

I have reconciled myself to the fact I shall never know very much about Patrick and Honora Sullivan. I can turn my wish of that knowledge into a story, perhaps many stories, that will bring me together with the Sullivans I did grow up with on the Illinois prairie.

Theresa Ripley by the grave marker of her Great-Grandfather Sullivan.

To that end, I am imagining Patrick and Honora Sullivan wanted us to know more about them and that Patrick left us stories. His fictionalized stories are imagined to be written in 1915 just two years before his death. The sequence of the stories that follow first describe me at a certain and then Patrick at about the same age, first in Ireland and then in the U.S. The stories go back and forth between my life and Patrick and Honora's life, contrasting the great granddaughter in American and the great grandparents from Ireland.