LEGENDARY COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 5-13-17

A Tale of Frustration

Once upon a time in the city of Salisbury, Maryland, a situation occurred that has many psychological ramifications. The event happened with my great-grandmother, Frances Kelly, in the 1890’s. At the time she had five children that had been born between 1885 and 1894. She also had a husband that was as pure Irish-Catholic as she was and much older. Although he was born in 1831, their marriage record in Somerset County lists his birth date as 1846. Since she was born in 1851, I guess he thought that five years was a suitable difference in age as opposed to twenty. Among his many jobs was tending the farm of John Tracy, doing maintenance at John Tracy’s Peninsula Hotel and hauling straw to the water works at the John B. Parson’s Home to keep the boiler fired up that provided them with hot water. For this he received ten cents a load. The small brick building to which he brought the straw is still there, alongside the standpipe.

Apparently, he had a habit of drinking a pint of spirits every day and this probably affected his personality to the point that his Irish temper flared up more often than it would have had he been totally sober.

The event that happened was that my great-grandmother became totally frustrated with life and all things in it – an alcoholic husband, five children and grinding poverty. She decided to take her life by walking from her home at the corner of Second and Pearl and walk into the River, thus ending her life and condemning her soul to everlasting damnation, since that was her belief as a God-fearing Catholic. As she entered the River and was about up to her waist, she happened to look up and saw her husband hauling a load of straw to the Parson’s Home. A clear thought of what she was doing and the consequences brought about her next thought- “That old man is not worth losing my soul over”. She then exited the River, went back home and lived until 1919.