Mary Pat Kelly Galway Bay Book

Sitting on the balcony listening to the birds and waiting for the sun to rise in Boca Raton. My sister Mickey and I arrived here at my mom's after being on the road. Good to see her and meet up with Martin, my husband. And guess where he was yesterday? Visiting with his childhood friends from his town in County Tyrone. Ten or more families vacation nearby.

Fun to think back at the audiences on our route. We had a great afternoon at Riverlights Book Store in Dubuque with more Kelly cousins who all remember visiting Sister Mary Erigina there. She opened so much to me and I visited her often until her death at 107.

Still amazes me that she knew Honora well. Mickey and I went to see the BVM sisters at Mt. Carmel and talked to some in the Infirmary who remembered Sr. Erigina "She called everyone 'doll'," they told us. Yes I remember that. I'd talked about her the week before at Evergreen Park Library. They applauded when I said she taught first grade for 75 years. What a wonderful audience--over a hundred and the library ran out of books to sell! That was the week Galway Bay was #1 in Chicago.

The group in Nashville at Davis-Kidd Book Sellers had a special reason to relate to Galway Bay. Many were members of the Mulloy family --descendants of the family who shared land with the Kelly’s in Galway in1840. The joys that Galway Bay brings!

Sister Henriette DeLille is becoming more real to me. I just visited her little chapel in the Cathedral and then spoke to one of the Sisters if the Holy Family. I'll send them a book. Her cause for canonization is proceeding. I'm thinking of my friend in Hyde Park who is related to her and feeling close to Mother Henriette and praying to her for the health of two friends.

Crossing Lake Pontchartrain and now its Paul Bradys song I hear. Bayous and a speed boat racing us.

Tonight I'll stay in the Bourbon Orleans Hotel which occupies the building where the Quadroon Balls were held and later it became the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family an order founded by Sister Henriette DeLille, a free woman of color.

In Galway Bay she is a character who welcomes Honora, Maire and their children. Magically a woman who came to the reading at 57th Street Books in Chicago is a descendant of a cousin of Sister Henriette's! Marie Laveau is a character too. Wonder what other magic awaits us at the Maple Street Book Store.