Essay: Irish Letters: Kate Armstrong Overin

Much of my time from 2008 to 2010 was spent taking courses from Athabasca University. I thought that it might be interesting to convert some of the essay assignments – such as this one – into blog postings. 

One course was called Writing Creative Non-Fiction. Here is one of the assignments that I handed in:

The history of my mother’s family includes many people who are now recorded by just a name and a few dates. For one of my distant relatives though, the details of birth and death remain undiscovered even as her thoughts and feelings were preserved in a remarkable series of nineteenth century letters mailed from Dublin, Ireland.

These letters were revealed to me after the death of my late grandmother. (I have photocopies of others that had been inherited by my cousins). I transcribed, sorted and recorded their contents. Fifteen of these letters were from Catherine Armstrong Overin – whom I refer to as Kate –and ten more were sent from her father. They were all sent to Kate’s sister Mary who married a British Army Sergeant named William McCoy. He was sent to Canada to suppress rebellion. Mary later emigrated and they had eight children.

I have an 1869 card-sized photo of Kate. She stands in a photographer’s studio wearing a stiff formal borrowed dress. She stares at the camera with an expressionless face. This contrasts with the letters which express so much feeling ranging from determination to utter despair.

The first note from Kate is dated August 1837 and is addressed to Halifax. The others were addressed to several small towns in Upper Canada. Kate must have been a teenager when she wrote that first letter. Her mother had just recently died. Kate was living with her father and raising her youngest brother.

In the 1840’s the letters were mostly written by Kate’s father James Armstrong. He had been encouraged to emigrate to Canada,but he writes that I cannot bear intense cold and I'm sure one of your severe winters in that country would kill me. These were the years of Irish crop failures and he reveals that the times never was so bad in Dublin as they are at present. Every year gets a little worse and James often complains about the dear prices and poor provisions. Eventually the Harvest is so wet that a great quantity of the Corn rotted on the ground and was only drawn home to be thrown in the Dunghill. In one note Kate writes that a poor man may walk the old Brogues off his feet before he would meet with a man that would give him one penny to earn.

The father writes that his son, James Junior, has a most infernal Blaggerd Drunken Wife (if she be a wife) and Kate gradually becomes responsible for raising their three children. James Senior writes of Kate that i'm afraid she'l hurt herself by working so hard. Kate spent her life in poverty, caring for the children of others yet having none of her own.

In March 1847 James Armstrong reports, I think that between the famine and Emmagration that Ireland will shortly be depopulated. His own brothers had departed for New Brunswick and Pennsylvania. By 1851 James Junior and his brother Robert were in Cincinnati where they write that we are in the hopes to see my father and Kate out here by Christmas, but that would not happen. A common thread in many of these letters is Kate begging for assistance to escape from her poverty. One time her sister sent an Order for £5 which Kate carefully saves for her own departure.

Kate reports in October 1853 on my Poor darling Father in Eternity since the 15th of  june. Even though he was 65 years old and already in poor health, he had started a job where he laboured from before seven oclock in the morning and he wouldent quit nor Eat anything until the Same hour in the Evening. He died within a week of starting. Kate wishes as soon as ever I can I will go out to America. She has long periods of unemployment broken by intermittent drudgery. She turns her hand to Service again, for in 1857 she writes: I hold the situation of Cook in a House of Lodgers… the salary is very small, and the work very hard. Later she works in Turkish-style steam bath.

As I write this, I have before me a large sheet of paper that was folded and refolded to fit a small envelope. The words on this June 1858 letter express Kate’s great despair. The sepia coloured ink starts with a fine careful hand:
My Dear Sister, Your kind and welcome letter of February came safe to hand. She reports waiting for news of the Wanderers – that would be her two brothers lost somewhere in America. She has almost given up hope since I feel sure that if they were on the land of the living they would not neglect writing a few lines…  it is a Melancholy reflection but it is one I cant shake off, for the feel of loneliness and desolation that the thought brings with it, is very hard to bear up against. She interrupts with I fear I Must give up the writing of this to Night for my spirits are to low… so good night for the present.

On June 30^th she resumes writing. This time her pen drips with a darker ink:
I have snatched another hour from the night to try and finish what I commenced more than a fortnight since. She reports on her very good health and the severity of her work. She has a dread of being any length of time out of Employment and she expresses her love for Mary and her family. Now it is getting late. She sits in her little room, perhaps with some cheap gin and a single candle. Her hands would be red and cracked from years of scrubbing floors. (The very next year lack of feeling in her hands led to a long period of unemployment). As she continues this letter her penmanship deteriorates and the letters get large and sloppy. There are some splotches which my imagination sees as tear drops falling upon the fresh ink.

Kate then mentions Jane, a hometown cousin. She is now Nine Years since she left Ireland and I have never received one line from her since she left. At this point she writes that I am getting very sleepy so I will conclude… I remain your ever affectionate sister, Kate Armstrong. In the letter’s postscript she begs once again for a reply for if you dont I will conclude that you are angry with me and remember that would be a sin.

The bad years continued. In January 1861 Kate writes that it is such a lonely thing to be without one Friend in the whole wide world, to care whether you live or die, sink or swim… I suppose this will share the place of its Predecessors, and be condemmed to oblivion, but though I am prepareing myself for another disapointment still I couldent help making one more effort to try and win you from your silence. But tragically, Mary McCoy’s eyesight had gone, and she never replied. The news was eventually sent by her daughter, Catherine Maria McCoy, who would eventually preserve the collection of letters. At age 56 William McCoy left his blind wife Mary and married again. He had six more children and I am descended from that second batch.

In 1863 Kate’s youngest brother Robert fought in US Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. He was strok with a shell in the side of his head and killed instantly as his widow so graphically described it.

Any good news seemed fleeting. In 1864 Kate writes that after being thrown once more upon the world she is happy to report her marriage to Samuel Overin. He was a widdower, but without any Family. She started to sign her letters as Catherine Overin; but the happiness was short. In early 1870, Kate wrote that she had not written in seven years and had been a widow for five. Her husband had died of cancer. Two years before I took Rhumatism through a heavy wetting I got and was four Months a Cripple in Consequence and then when I thought I hadent a Friend in the World, God was pleased to send me one. Her brother Henry, who had not written since leaving for Australia 15 years previously, sent word and remitted five pounds which seemed like a gift from Heaven.  She writes her sister Mary that though not Superstitious I have been greatly troubled about you in my dreams lately. When Kate addressed that letter, Mary had already been dead for a year.

The final letter was sent in November 1870 to Mary’s daughter. Kate writes that Mary was a good Faithful Wife and Mother and deserved to be long and kindly remembered, peace be to Her Memory.

While other members of my family tree had their lives briefly recorded in letter fragments or old photo albums, Kate remains the one whose fate I ponder over. Did she live to an old age? Did she marry again? Did she escape the drudgery of her Dublin life? Perhaps she emigrated to live with her brother in Melbourne. I like to imagine that her final years were spent in warm Australian sunshine.