Are you Irish and/or of Irish descent? Did your Irish ancestors live 1863 – 1939? Read about their contemporary, Harriet Susannah Ellis. Reading this book will provide insight into what life was like for any of your ancestors who lived during Harriet’s lifetime (order here).
BOOK SYNOPSIS: Rising from Obscurity chronicles a rural Irish woman’s life (1863 to 1939). Details about Irish life and genealogical research are woven into the tale.
LIFE OVERVIEW: Harriet was born in Co. Sligo the day the U.S. Union Army reorganized during the U.S. Civil War – meaning she was born in Yeats Country two years ahead of William Butler Yeats. Ireland’s emerging railroad system allowed her family to move all over Ireland as her Schoolmaster father moved from job to job. She married in Dublin the year James Joyce was born in that city. Harriet spent the longest period of her life in Co. Wicklow. Stories survive of her reading turn-of-the-century news about the Boer War to an illiterate neighbour. Harriet spent forty years raising children with a blind spouse. She emigrated the year after the Titanic sank (three years before the 1916 uprising). She died the day the Soviets invaded Poland. Two grandsons participated in D-Day, while another participated in the invasion of Japan.