Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1899-08-26
CORRESPONDENCE.
A Sons Tribute to His Mother

There has passed away IN your
mountain town an humble individual,
whose biography, if correctly recorded
and written, would be both instructive
and edifying-Mrs. Anastasia Cham
bers, my own adorable. affectionate,
self-sacrilicing mother.
She was born on the west bank of
| the Blackwater river, in Waterford
county, Ireland, midway between
! Fennoy and Lismore. in the parish of
Lismore and "Townland," of Bally-
maroon, of parents who, though re-
duced to poverty by England's tyran-
nous, infamous laws, were descended
from the noblest of a noble race, for
the blood of the O'Mahoney's, the
! Lanes and the Burns flowed in mothers
veins.
She received her baptism in the
little village church in Ballyduff,
where, % years later, she was united
in holy wedlock to John Chambers, of
Ardmoor, Waterford county, a "rol-
licking, handsome, manly fellow" of
her own age.
Mothers father, James Lynch, of Tai
low, Waterford county, himself an
Irish scholar and member of an honored
and honorable family, led to the altar
Ellen Lane, the mother of our subject.
Our mother was born in 1913 4. d.
and married 1886, which would place
her age at the time Of death at Sc years
) years more than her father lived
and 10 years less than was her mothers
age when she died-only | years ago.
OF the ten children that constituted
our family four were born in Ireland
all boys, and one is buried there, in
old Macollop graveyard, at the foot of
klIlWorth mountain, on the shady side
OF the Blackwater river, Just opposite
the humble home of our good father,
erected by his own hands. Times
were hard in Ireland when our
parents began life together. Times
are always hard there, but by dnt
of hard work, self-denial, and great
economy, they We're able, in 1916,
the year the famine began, to pay
their passage to America,' then. as
now, the Mecca of the oppressed of
every land. In those days there were
no ocean greyhounds and the average
voyage was of about 3months duration.
Our parents, | believe, were some
thing like two months in making the
passage, and then, on account of
cholera on board, they were compelled
to land at St. Johns, n. B., instead of
Boston, the original point of desti-
nation.
Four members constituted our
fathers family at this time, | having
been left in Ireland. A younger sister
of our mother, with her husband, ac-
companled our parents on their ven
ture to the New World.
Boston having beer the original
point OF destination, where few rel
atives and many family acquaintance
had already settled. our parents, it
seems, finally reached there in 1917.
That is memorable year in American
history as well as in the history of Ire
land. Gold was discovered in Cali
fornia. The Mexican war was begun,
and famine was devastating the whole
Emerald Isle. Labor was plentiful in
Massachusetts. The great Pacific
cotton mills, at Lawrence, We're being
built, and there our father found his
first work in the United States.
Our good mother regarded the
marriage relation in the light every true
woman should. She believed it to be
her duty to help her husband in every
way possible and honorable, and 50,
with her other household duties she as
sumed other cares-kept boarders, etc.
In writing this somewhat discOnnect-
ed story have omitted, perhaps, the
most trying ordeals Of mothers life.
| refer to the war period. Imagine,
If you can, dear reader, the anguish of
that mothers heart when, hearing the
cannon boom at Antietam, Harpers
Ferry, Martinsburg, Winchester,
Hagerstown. Wllliamsport, Falling
Waters and at Gettysburg, knowing
that her three sons for whom she
would have died were it necessary,
were somewhere among the numbers
at those places, many of them destined
never to return. Perhaps her own
dear boys, whom she loved only
little less than she did her God, would
fall among the slain. When such
thoughts as these were rot racking
her mind the honor and the safety of
her daughters at home were an ever
present anxiety to her. But to the
honor OF American manhood, South
and North, not one soldier on either
side ever molested or attempted in any
way to disturb our family during the
whole of that long, bitter and bloody
struggle, and our home was, as it
were, between the lines most of the
time.
For the benefit Of my relatives who,
perhaps, have not thought of these in
cidents, or who have not learned from
our mother the story of her life, this
imperfect yet truthful biography is
written.
And in the interest of number of
your fellow-citizens, dear editor, | ask
you to publish it, but most particularly
as an honor due to a Noble Mother,
a Sincere Friend, True Woman
! Anastasia Chambers. HER SON