Aunt Mary's Memoirs: Intro

This memoir, written by my Aunt Mary (Mary Elizabeth Byrne Renz), my father's sister, is another wonderful addendum to "Uncle Frank's Farm." Aunt Mary died some years ago when she was almost 90. I remember her as a beautiful woman and she and her husband, Ed Renz, as a handsome couple. I have my grandparents' wedding picture and can see that Aunt Mary resembled her mother--my grandmother--strongly. As all my grandparents did, my grandmother died before I was born, so I never saw that sweet face. Reading Aunt Mary's loving description of her, I felt a pang of loss for the first time.
The writing styles of Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary differ and so do their points of view. One narrative complements the other and readers can ferret out little hints and clues about life on Domino Lane. I've gone to Roxborough and many of the places mentioned, including Holy Family church and school in nearby Manayunk, which the Byrne family attended. I've also visited Villanova College (now University). My father graduated from there eighty-eight years ago.
"O lost and by the wind grieved/Ghost, come back again..." Thomas Wolfe wrote that in Look Homeward, Angel, and it ran through my mind as I visited the old places. I was in search of the ghost of a way of life and my father's ghost, and maybe the legion of ghosts that made me what I am.
Rosemary Byrne Molloy, 2006