The Irish in Boston

1 Family 3 Decker Houses

When my three daughters were children, they loved hearing Nana, my former mother-in-law, tell stories about growing up Irish in Boston. If there had been a caste system in Boston, the Irish would have been at or near the bottom. In the days following the turn of the century, signs were everywhere, “Irish go away!” and in store windows, “Irish need not apply”.

As a result, the Irish, like the Chinese, lived together in ethnic communities. Nana explained how the four and five decker houses filling the communities were of one family. Upon their marriage, a new couple just built their home above the rest of the family —with the family all together, there was safety in numbers.

Nana’s parents had a small candy shop in the community. As a child, when she wasn’t helping out in the shop, she loved watching the electric streetcars clattering back and forth ringing bells; the hustle-bustle of people in the square; even the ragman with his horse-pulled cart was a source of wonder.

One day, Nana told my girls a sad story about their grandfather. Mama told her when it was time for Daddy to arrive on the streetcar every day. When she was three years-old, she was sitting outside on the concrete steps waiting for Daddy. She heard the streetcar clatter on the tracks ringing its bell, saw it stop, and watched as Daddy walked down the steps to the street, smiling and waving at her.

Daddy didn’t see the streetcar coming from the other direction. When it hit him, he was thrown off to the side, right in front of the candy store and his little girl’s horrified stare.

Nana lived to be a few months shy of 100, but she was never able to forget the shock and sadness of that day. She ran to her daddy and knelt beside him as people crowded around. Someone went for a doctor, but it was too late to help him.

The last thing she heard him say was, “I love you, sweet one. Be a good girl for Mama.”