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Legacies: She brought her dream across the sea from Ireland
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An occasional series about southern New Jersey residents who recently died, leaving lasting marks on their community, their neighborhood, their friends or families.
An Irish teenager named Annie Moore was the first person to enter America through Ellis Island's famous immigration station, in 1892.
Sixty-two years later, one of the last people who passed through the landmark was a young Irish Catholic woman, devout and fun-loving. She dreamed of raising a family that would surround her all her life - something she considered impossible in her beloved, starving homeland, where so many children headed to America at the first chance.
So Bridget McFadden saved her brood a trip to America, doing her children a favor even before they were born and before she met their father and became Bridget McMenamin. And through 84 years of life, which ended June 29, she never regretted it.
"She loved America with the same passion she loved Ireland," said William McMenamin, one of those three children. He is named for the gregarious Irish fellow who met Bridget at the annual Donegal Ball in Philadelphia, married her and moved with her to Atlantic City.
A new seaside life reminded Bridget happily of her native Carrigart, at Ireland's northern tip. Her childhood was no postcard picture, however; she lost her mother to appendicitis at 3 and her father to World War II at 15. She waitressed in Scotland and England before moving to America.
In Atlantic City, the waitress and her bartender husband raised a daughter and twin boys, who grew up to become Sgt. Mary McMenamin, Capt. Michael McMenamin and Capt. William McMenamin, of the Atlantic City Police Department.
"She was proud, but like any mother, she was scared," said Michael, his grandfather's namesake. His wife, Sgt. Monica McMenamin, is on the force, too.
When she worried about what her children faced on the beat, Bridget dealt with it in her usual way, turning to a tattered and loosely bound journal of jotted prayers.
"She lived a faithful life, but she didn't preach it. She kept it to herself," Mary said.
The book accompanied her everywhere, and inevitably began to collect the miscellany of daily life, like coupons and reminders of due dates for bills.
Bridget pivoted easily between sincerity and teasing. She spurned a young Michael's request to pray for his lottery ticket's success, then told him why her book had gotten so thick: "I'm praying for you and Billy to settle down."
When Gayle McMenamin, William's wife, first met her future mother-in-law, the tales of hardship in Ireland took her aback.
"I would feel so spoiled," Gayle said. "The things she went through."
Even before doctors replaced both her knees, a hip and a shoulder, Bridget implored her children to experience as much as possible in their youth.
The McMenamins finally returned to Carrigart in 1987 to see the relatives they had left behind more than three decades before.
"Everyone cried when we came in, and everyone cried when we left," Mary recalled.
It was an interesting trip for the children, who heard everyone speak in the Irish brogue their mother had kept but they had hardly noticed before.
"When it's your family, you never hear it," William said.
She could scarcely be found without a cup of tea and an Irish scone - and a piece of candy to slip to one of her five grandchildren when their folks weren't looking. For better or worse, Irish recipes dominated the kitchen, William said: "Potatoes, butter, more potatoes, more butter."
The senior William McMenamin died New Year's Eve in 1994, the year his twin grandsons were born on St. Patrick's Day. Bridget was every bit his match in outgoing personality - "She could make everybody feel equal, and she held the room," son William said - but she lost some of her spark that New Year's Eve.
"She gave love and she was surrounded by love, and that's all my mom ever needed," Mary said.
It wasn't long after her husband died that Bridget McMenamin agreed to be interviewed for an Ellis Island documentary. Her family watched the clip Wednesday, as they had at her funeral two days before.
Onscreen, Bridget McMenamin sat in a comfortable chair, recalling the circumstances of her immigration. The eight days at sea - not exactly a pleasure cruise. The joy of finding a job only five days after arrival. Clearer than any other memory, she said, she could picture the Statue of Liberty growing larger as her ship came in.
"I'm shivering now just thinking about it!" Bridget McMenamin exclaimed, as her grown children sat silently. It was suddenly difficult, listening to that County Donegal lilt that never sounded like anything but Mom to them.
E-mail Eric Scott Campbell:
Posted in Atlantic, Legacies on Saturday, July 11, 2009 3:45 am Updated: 5:30 am.
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