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Date:         Sun, 8 Nov 1992 11:10:45 +1100
From:         LNCJB@WOMBAT.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Re: Standard Time
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

>> her...she initially refused because of the age difference he was 26 and she
>> 46, but eventually when she realised that his motivations were honourable and
>> he really did love her, she relented and they were married in Dec. 1915. My
>									^^^^^^
>> mother was born the following year. Sarah and Albert (my grandparents) had a
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> loving marriage that lastest 31 years until Albert's death in 1947... Sarah
>> died exactly 12 months and 1 week later in 1948.
>>
>> Carolyn (whose still trying to trace her long lost relatives in the US, but
>> no-one seems to know any McAloney's).

>Wow - giving birth at age 47 (!!!!) would take some doing TODAY,
>with all the help modern medicine can offer, but in 1916, it was some
>feat.

It seems that my mother lied to me or perhaps it was her mother lying to her.
After getting a lead on Roots-L from Nancy, I posted a query on the McAloneys
and received a reply that there are 7 McAloneys still on the phone in the
north-eastern area of Ireland. Of course, I immediately rang my older sister
to tell her the good news and found out that she had a copy of my mother's
birth certificate, which I didn't even know still existed. That showed some
very interesting dates..... hitherto undisclosed..... Albert McAloney (born
March 1st, 1892) married Sarah Wallis (nee Meakin - born January 29th, 1872)
on March 10, 1915. Margaret Isobel McAloney was born on July 2, 1915.... not
1916 as we had always been told. So Albert and Sarah were both three years
younger than we had always been led to believe and my mother was conceived out
of wedlock....... Hmmm, now I guess I know who I take after. :-)

>Any medical problems as a result? Obviously nothing serious, as
>you are here...

My mother always had severe bronchial problems..... it was her chronic
bronchitis that was the major contributor to her early death at age 49
(revised age). Albert's heavy smoking habits, Sarah had always accused as
being the culprit, although her symptoms never subsided when she married my
non-smoking father and moved out of that smoke-filled atmosphere. There were
no other health problems until she reached puberty, when at age 13 she was
severely injured by being kicked in the stomach by a teenage boy. Mum had a
lot of gynaecological problems after that. She had 7 pregnancies, but only
three girls survived...... 2 miscarriages; 1 still birth and my little brother
born July 19, 1959, died four days later.

>can you say more about the relationship - very rare and
>advanced for its day, but nowadays it's almost commonplace...though 20
>years still seems to be the upper limit of societal tolerance ...

According to my father (still living), Albert and Sarah were his idea of the
ideal couple..... the house was always full of humour. My middle son, Tim
(that's Craig the Giant Chook) bears a strong physical resemblance to Albert,
but he also seems to have inherited his personality as well, or so my father
believes. My father was often the butt of Albert's jokes. As a young man,
Dad used to work with Mum's oldest half-brother Bill, who was still living at
home at the time. Dad was the oldest of 9 children and the only bread-winner
that family had, so he rarely had much to eat for lunch. Mum who was in her
early teens at the time always prepared Bill's lunch for him, including his
favourite homemade gramma pie, which Dad always managed to get a piece of. Bill
got so annoyed at having Dad eat his lunch that Albert came up with the idea
of baking him his own special one filled entirely with seeds... Mum went along
with the joke. When Dad ate the pie seeds and all with nary a complaint, every
one felt really guilty and invited him around for dinner to make up for it.
They couldn't get rid of him after that, so Albert started making jokes about
the only way they would ever get rid of him was to marry him off to Mum.....
I wonder what Albert thought when his joke turned into reality. :-) Dad
freely admits that the quality of the food was an irresistible enticement, but
he still claims that his main reason for frequenting the McAloney household
was to watch the interaction between Sarah and Albert, who he loved more than
his own parents. He claims that they were the model for his marriage with Mum
..... as a teenage friend once remarked "your parents are great - they're just
like newlyweds" and that is the way Dad always saw Albert and Sarah.

Even though Albert was only 6 years older than Sarah's oldest child, none of
her children ever questioned the age difference - all my half-uncles and aunts,
years after his death, still spoke of him affectionately as 'Darkie' and
recounted his escapades in the spirit of memoirs of a much-loved parent. Not
once did I ever hear them refer to their own father, who they were all old
enough to remember at the time of his death. That always struck me as very
strange.

>>Agnes
>who has to cope with her (much younger) beaux's dumbfounded - and
>somewhat intolerant - parents...

I can see Tim marrying an older woman.... in fact, I will be very surprised if
he doesn't....he has a personality that is too overpowering for a woman his
own age and takes a lot of maturity to be able to cope with. If your beaux
fits into the same category, there will be no problems with any age difference
once you can get away from small-minded people who think that chronological
age is the only measure of maturity or compatability for prospective marriage
partners. If he's mature enough to prefer older women, then your beaux's not
going to be much concerned about what others think... only what you think will
matter to him.

Carolyn
PS. It is pure coincidence that my perfect man is only 2 years 2 months and
1 week older than me.... the other men in my life have ranged from 18 years
older to 5 years younger, age has never meant anything to me - it's the
quality of their equipment and how they use it that counts...... Umm, I mean
their brains of course. :-)