Secrets

Grandma never talked about her family.  She would mention her brothers from time to time--I knew they were John, Thomas, Andrew and Harry.  Her mother, Mary Elizabeth Diamond was a Protestant, born in England, who converted to Catholicism when she married her father, Andrew Riley.  James Riley, her Grandfather, fought in the Civil War, and her uncle, Tom Riley, was a member of the NYPD.  That is all I really knew when I began to research the family.

My great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Riley, died in August 1943.  She had a stroke on the 5th Avenue trolley, and was taken to Kings County Hospital.  Grandma wanted to transfer her Mother to a private hospital , saying that 'my Mother worked hard all her life; she had nothing, and now she's dying in a public hospital."  It was sad, and Grandma, being a good Catholic, probably felt guilt that her Mother died on the way home from a visit with her.  

But I can only speculate if there was a deeper layer to Grandma's emotion.  Mary Elizabeth Riley's grandfather, Henry Hignell, died in the Joint County Lunatic Asylum in 1892--it was in Abergavenny, Wales.  The Diamond family had emigrated to New York in 1881.  Henry's sister, Mary Hignell, was literate--she signed the parish register at her brother's wedding, so I presume she wrote the family in New York when her brother died.  It probably became a source of shame, guilty and sorrow that a loved one died in a pauper's hospital.  I'll never know for certain, unless I unearth a cache of family letters discussing this subject.

I felt such pity for Henry Hignell, as well as for the Sisters, Sarah and Mary, who had to make the decision to take him to the workhouse.  Did his daughter, Mary Jane Diamond, ever feel guilty that she had not insisted her Father come to America with them?  Perhaps he was too hard for her to manage, along with her daughter, Mary Elizabeth, and her son, Charlie.  John Diamond may not have been thrilled with supporting another adult.  If I were a novelist, I could speculate until the cows came home, but as a genealogist ( amateur) I want to stick to the facts.