MISFORTUNE

I am participating in the #52Ancestors challenge. Each week I will follow a prompt and write about an ancestor.  You can join too, click the link on the top left.  The stories about our ancestors are what helps to keep their memories alive!   

This weeks prompt is MISFORTUNE. 

Escaping a potato famine, losing a leg in the Civil War and later dying in an accidental home fire seem pretty misfortunate to me.  That just seems to be the lot in life for my great grandfather Jeremiah Crowley.  There is still a lot I don't know about him.  He is a very elusive ancestor with  much conflicting information.   It's misfortunate for me  that there are way too many people with the name Jeremiah Crowley in Middlesex County Massachusetts.  It makes it really hard to sort out the correct family.  Who would have guessed Jeremiah Crowley would be a common name?

The first indication of misfortune for Jeremiah is found on census records.  He immigrated from Ireland in 1851 around age six. That is potato famine time. I am not sure if he left family behind but I have not found indication he was living with his parents in America.   Family lore passed through the generations say that Jeremiah Crowley lost a leg in the Civil War. I never been able to find his military record, however an article related to his death says he was "lame".  Death seemed to be a part of his life.  He buried two young sons and I know he was a widower three times.  I am pretty sure Jeremiah was poor his whole life.  For a time he was living in a pauper home, "half blind and crippled".  He never owned a home and census records indicate he was illiterate all his life.  He died tragically in a home fire due to a "broken lamp incident" in the home of his son, my grandfather, John Thomas Crowley.  However, interestingly enough through all the misfortune of his life, one of the articles about his death said that "he made many friends by his genial nature and kindly manners".  

I guess Jeremiah proved the following quote from Epictetus, "it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."