August 6 1955: St Louis–New York; Trans World Airlines, TWA.
Airplane: Constellation.
Captain: R.C. Pinel. Stewardess: Fran McShane.
Weather: Horrible. Lightning and storms.
Two hours late to New York, but safe, which is all that matters.
Visions of the disaster avoided rekindled her anxiety. She thought maybe she should set down her emotions, her hopes and fears about the venture she was embarking on – maybe her diary would survive her? But Marge was not much given to emotional talk.
Sat next to a machinist from Brooklyn on flight from St Louis to New York. He talked constantly – all about California – 3 hours of things I already know. Plane too late for bus to Hotel so took cab. Cost $4.50. Was hungry on arrival so had cake and coffee. Must not have agreed – net 3½ hours sleep. Lonesome – lonesome – lonesome. Wish Daddy and Boys with me. Feel so alone.
Morning, Sunday 7 August 1955
Josephine Lane flew into New York with her son Loras in tow. She was coming up to seventy, but the world held no fear for her. She had raised a family in the days when horses and carts filled the roads of Dubuque County; she and Tom Lane had produced five healthy children – James, Leanor, Loras, Marjorie and John. After Tom died, Josephine had raised them alone.
The Lanes had named Loras for Dubuque’s ancient bishop Mathias Loras and had always intended him for the Church – Josephine knew Tom would have been so proud to see him now; she cried when she thought about it.
But Marjorie had disappointed them. Beautiful, tall and slender with thick brown hair, she had fallen in love with an unsuitable man, a medical student from a German family with no money and fewer prospects. When Josephine forbade them to marry, Marjorie and her beau Michael Hess had jumped a ride to Iowa City and got married in a church where the priest knew nothing of the family’s wishes. For their first years together, they lived in a rented apartment over a hardware store and the farmers paid Doc for his services in eggs and rabbits. The couple were reconciled with Josephine only after Tom died, and for the rest of their lives Marge and Doc Hess kept the secret of their elopement, leaving photographs and letters about it for their children to discover only when both of them were dead.
Marjorie Hess looked at herself in the full-length mirror of the hotel lobby. It was 6 a.m. and she had a quarter-hour to wait for the airport bus. The bright lighting showed off the red Maybelline lip gloss she had bought at Roshek’s in Dubuque before leaving and her hair shone flat and sleek. She smoothed the crimplene of her pale shift dress and adjusted the cameo brooch at her collar. Marge was forty-three but good for her age – the Brooklyn machinist had told her she looked thirty-five, but she knew he was spinning a line – and she noted with relief that the sleepless night had not wiped the bloom from her face.
She was tired, though, and looking forward to meeting up with Loras and Mamma at Idlewild; at least the three of them could look after each other on the long journey ahead.
They were flying TWA to Europe. The purpose of the trip was the business in Ireland, of course, but the always energetic Josephine had extended their itinerary to take in sightseeing for three weeks in France, Germany and Italy. Marge made a resolution to write her diary every day.
August 7 1955.
Hot and humid. Loras and Mamma arrived Idlewild 11 a.m. Was so glad to see them. I’m so tired. Had tea and toast and wrote cards. Name called over loudspeaker and it was Daddy – so wonderful to hear voice and little Stevie, too.
On board now. Stewardess says 9 hours to Ireland – wow!
Weather good. God with us. Going to sleep now. Loras and Mother fine.
Monday August 8 1955. Shannon 6.30 a.m.
Weather: Cloudy and cold. Not used to it.
Passed over Newfoundland and it was so desolate. Arrived Shannon and went thru customs into dining room for breakfast – eggs – toast – bacon. A little Irish boy showed up and proceeded to call Loras His Lordship or ‘Me Lord’. He had car for us with right-hand drive.
Lots of ruined castles and all houses are stone. Each area is divided with stone walls and hedges and everything so green. Gas expensive – $1.50 a gallon. Very few cars – all ride bicycles.
Reached Limerick at 9 o’clock and checked into hotel. Loras out contacting the Bishop and inquiring of orphanages. None here. Changed money. Driving on to Cork tomorrow.
In a separate notebook with tear-out pages another hand – Loras’s? – has written:
Mother Rosamund, Sacred Heart Convent, County Westmeath;
Sister Elizabeth, Father Abbey, Castle Pollard;
Sister Monica, St Patrick’s Children’s Home;
Daughters of Charity St Vincent de Paul, Navan Road, Dublin;
Sister Casimer, St Brigid’s Orphanage, 46 Eccles Street, Dublin;
Sister Hildegarde, Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, County Tipperary.
The names are in different inks, some in pencil. It is a hastily compiled shopping list. The last entry is double-underlined.
Tuesday August 9 1955. Cork–Roscrea.
Beautiful country.
Stopped at many orphanages but too many are just little babies.
Visited castle and kissed Blarney Stone. It was quite a chore. Had to climb 125 steps and lay on back. All call Loras His Lordship. Coffee terrible and there is no hot water. All people travel by bike and you see no slacks or shorts here.
At Roscrea now.
FIFTEEN
9 August 1955;
Roscrea
Philomena and Margaret saw the woman in the floral-pattern dress enter the convent through the front door and nudged each other in admiration. She looked so suave and so elegant; her little pillbox hat sat at an unbelievably fashionable tilt and her shoes had heels that went on forever. Philomena whispered, ‘Sure, she looks like a film star,’ and Margaret giggled, ‘Yeah, Jayne Mansfield, I’d say!’ but Philomena had never heard of Jayne Mansfield so the conversation turned to the others in the party. Behind the film star came an older lady and a priest, or rather a bishop or cardinal of some sort – Sister Hildegarde and Mother Barbara were making such a fuss of him, calling him Your Excellency and tripping over themselves to be nice. The group paused to admire the entrance hall and the grand Georgian staircase, then swept out of the girls’ view into the convent offices. On the walk back to work – across the courtyard, past the old monastery ruins, down to the laundry block – Philomena and Margaret seized the opportunity to talk. They had spoken a lot in the last month since they had signed the papers, plotting how they would sneak into the night nursery and lift their children before climbing out the window at the back of the dormitory or breaking open the lock on the front door. More than once they had fixed the night on which they were going to run away, but always something had intervened – a saint’s day that brought extra cohorts of nuns into the convent and made the corridors a dangerous place, a thunderstorm that turned the grounds into an impassable bog, or a nervous headache that put one of the girls out of action. Each time they would choose another day for their escape and begin planning all over again, but eventually the obstacles and the postponements grew so great that their dream had faltered.
Margaret was the first to voice their doubts.
‘Where would you go if we get out of here, Phil?’ she asked. ‘Do you have somewhere? Because it’d be pretty hard for me. I can’t go back to Dublin, that’s for sure . . .’
Philomena nodded sadly.
‘I know. My da’s told everyone I went away to England, so I can’t turn up in Newcastle West with Anthony. No one knows I ever even had a baby and that’s the truth.’
Neither girl spoke as they mulled over what they had long known in their hearts: no one escaped from Sean Ross Abbey and no one got the better of the nuns. Ireland was no place for a mother without a husband and no place for a child without a father.
‘But maybe the game’s not up,’ Margaret said eventually. ‘It’s been weeks since they made us sign those things and nothing�
��s happened. Maybe there’s no one looking for babbies nowadays. Maybe they’ll come back and say we’ve to keep them after all . . .’
That evening in the knitting hour Sister Hildegarde came to see the girls in a state of high excitement. She was a sprightly woman in her early forties, short and wiry with sharp eyes and a brain that always seemed one jump ahead of you. Normally she was cold and reserved, but tonight she was allowing herself a show of unaccustomed emotion.
‘Nancy – Margaret, I mean – Margaret McDonald, come to me over here, will you?’
Margaret looked up, puzzled by the unexpected summons, and handed little Mary to Philomena. Much to Margaret’s surprise, Hildegarde kissed her on both cheeks.
‘Margaret my girl, you should be proud,’ Sister Hildegarde began. ‘Today we have been honoured by the presence in our midst of a bishop from America. And not just any bishop, I’ll say. This one is a big bishop – the bishop of a place called Illinois. Now just imagine what sort of a lovely life your Mary will have in a place like that!’
Caught between the sister’s gushing amiability and the import of her words, Margaret’s reply was a confused stammer. ‘What do you mean, Sister? Does the bishop want to see my daughter?’
‘No, no, no, girl! Goodness, what a nincompoop you are. It’s his sister, of course. The Bishop’s sister is going to take your daughter to America!’
Watching from the other side of the room, Philomena saw her friend burst into tears and hurried over to comfort her as Sister Hildegarde swept out into the corridor.
The weeks that followed were hard for Margaret. Not only did she know her child would soon be taken from her, but she had the additional burden of knowing that Mary would be separated from Anthony, and she herself would be parted from her best friend.
Philomena did what she could to reassure her – she told her Mary would have a far better life in America than anything she could have expected in Ireland, and what firmer guarantee of her future happiness than having the sister of a big bishop to look after her?
In her brighter moments Margaret acknowledged the truth of Philomena’s arguments, but at others she was disconsolate. She kept saying, ‘We should have stood up to them; we should have refused!’ The woman she had thought of as a Hollywood film star now appeared little better than a child thief.
The two of them spent the evenings watching the children playing together in the nursery and thinking their own, now diverging thoughts. Philomena squeezed her friend’s hand and said, ‘I know one young fellow who’ll be heartbroken when Mary goes,’ but in private she breathed a silent sigh of relief that her Anthony at least was not being taken from her.
10 August 1955
The letter was addressed to Sister Barbara personally, but she saw it was copied to the superioresses of Castlepollard in Westmeath, St Patrick’s Home in Dublin, St Clare’s in Stamullen and the Sacred Heart Adoption Society in Cork.
The head of the Angel Guardian Adoption Home in Brooklyn, New York was writing to warn all of them that the National Conference of US Catholic Charities was having difficulties meeting its obligations over the vetting of American couples seeking to adopt Irish children. The NCCC, she wrote, could no longer guarantee the bona fides of all those who applied to take children from Ireland; in particular, she warned, ‘we have reason to believe that would-be American adopters who have already been rejected for serious reasons in the US are now turning directly to Irish adoption societies for their babies’.
Mother Barbara sought guidance from the archbishop’s palace and was told to disregard the letter.
SIXTEEN
9–10 August 1955;
Roscrea–Dublin
If Sister Hildegarde had found it hard to contain her excitement at the events of that afternoon in August, Marjorie Hess seems to have been somewhat more phlegmatic. The evening entry in her diary reads, ‘Mother Barbara and Sister Hildegarde had Mary and gave me many other ch[ildren] to see.’
But the following morning Marge and Loras went back to Sean Ross Abbey and made another visit to the children’s nurseries. It was during the girls’ working time, so none of the mothers was there. Mary recognized Marge from the previous day and did not run away as she usually did. She was two and a half years old and Sister Hildegarde had trained her to sing a song called ‘Over the Mountains, Over the Sea’ and to recite the Lord’s Prayer for visitors. As Mary was singing, Anthony stood close by, prompting her when she forgot her lines; at the end, he gave her a hug and a kiss.
Marge laughed to see the fondness between them and asked Sister Hildegarde what the little fellow’s name was, but Hildegarde said she had no idea. When Marge bent down to ask Anthony what he was called, he mistook her approach for an invitation to give her a kiss, which he did – with great aplomb – on her cheek.
Marge giggled and said, ‘How delightful!’
Mary’s song had been taught to her with a purpose in mind. The lyrics ran, ‘I see the moon and the moon sees me; / God bless the moon and God bless me. / Over the mountains, over the sea; / That’s where my heart is longing to be . . .’
Any American mom with a heart would find the appeal hard to resist.
On the way from the abbey back to their hotel Marge told Loras that she liked the look of young Mary McDonald. Loras said how pleased he was to hear her say so – he had been predisposed towards Mary ever since Monsignor O’Grady sent him the letter from his sister in Roscrea. ‘And you know what, Marge? I think that lovely little colleen looks just the image of you when you were her age! If that’s not an omen, then I don’t know what is!’
Marge smiled – she knew Loras wanted her to go ahead and adopt Mary, and she knew he had her best interests in his heart.
‘Why, Loras, that’s some kind of miracle, is it not – you remembering how I looked when I was Mary’s age? Because you would only have been three years old yourself!’
Brother and sister burst out laughing and the banter between them continued until they were nearly back at the hotel.
Late the following morning, after His Excellency Bishop Loras Lane had said Mass for the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts in the chapel of Sean Ross Abbey, Josephine Lane, Loras and Marjorie squeezed into the Ford Popular hire car that had so impressed the nuns of Roscrea and made room on the back seat for Mother Barbara, who was carrying a little girl on her lap. Mother Barbara was full of excitement. She spent most of the journey through the farming country of the Irish midlands, seventy miles along minor roads through impossibly green fields, saying the rosary and exhorting Mary McDonald to stop squirming on her knee.
At 2.30 p.m. the little party had an appointment with Rita Kenny, head of the Irish Passport Office, at 78 St Stephens Green in Dublin.
The meeting began cordially and ‘the Bishop and his friends’ were offered tea and biscuits. Rita Kenny made a fuss over young Mary, but she asked Mother Barbara a few pointed questions about the child’s state of health, in particular about a nasty rash on her face. Mother Barbara was reassuring and mentioned the many other children Roscrea had sent through the Passport Office.
‘Sure, they were all healthy, were they not?’ She smiled challengingly . ‘So why would we be sending an unhealthy one to the sister of His Excellency?’
Rita Kenny looked dubious.
‘She’ll have to undergo a thorough medical examination before the US authorities will admit her, you know,’ she said, her eyes never leaving Mother Barbara’s.
‘Yes, of course she will,’ Marge cut in, hoping to defuse the tension that had arisen. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
Loras wrote down the details of the doctor accredited by the US embassy. But Mother Barbara was a forceful woman, accustomed to authority and keen to show the bishop who was in charge of things.
‘I trust everything is in order now, ’ she said firmly, ‘so would you please let us have the passport? His Excellency is a busy man and we need to get to the American embassy before it closes.’
Rita Kenny was a good Catholic an
d she respected the high offices of the Church as much as anyone, but she was also a state official and entitled to a little respect herself.
She stood up.
‘Right, well, if you wouldn’t mind waiting a few moments, I’m needing to consult with someone before I can take a decision. Excuse me, please.’ And she left the room.
The little party waited for her in uncomfortable silence.
Ten minutes later Miss Kenny returned with a middle-aged man in a brown tweed jacket and dark green tie, stocky but not yet fat, with a reddish, freckled face and straw -coloured hair that stood up in a tangled thatch.
‘Your Grace, Reverend Mother, ladies. This is Mr Joe Coram; he’s in charge of our policy on adoptions.’
Bishop Lane made as if to stand, but Joe motioned him not to put himself out and came over to shake hands. It gave him time to weigh the fellow up: Loras was powerfully built with broad shoulders under his black cassock, a plump face and an easy smile that revealed the gap between his two front teeth. Joe couldn’t help thinking how Irish he looked, how different from the pinched, ascetic features of John Charles McQuaid. And yet, if Joe were honest with himself, he would have acknowledged a squeak of pleasure in holding the whip hand over a bishop whose Church had made such a fuss about its uninfringeable right to dispose of Ireland’s children. They may have been physical opposites, but when Joe looked at Bishop Lane he saw Archbishop McQuaid, and he was seized with an irrational, irresistible desire to do everything in his power to block this adoption.
The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Original Edition) Page 6