Despite the restraints of Catholicism, my Irish family maintained an unflappable belief in ghosts, folk magic, and superstition. My great-grandmother, Katherine Fox, immigrated from County Sligo, Ireland to New York City around 1912. She showed intense devotion during Mass by kneeling directly on stone floors rather than on the cushioned kneelers, yet she also believed in the tangible presence of malevolent spirits who could only be warded away via the repetition of a specific prayer. She feared both mortal sin and the little people. As an adult, she taught my grandmother how to read tea leaves, a practice they maintained each Sunday in their dining rooms for over 40 years. Legend has it that my own birth appeared in my mother’s cup. Folk practice and Catholicism merged in other ways: we solicited local friars to pray to Padre Pio to heal my grandfather's cancer, but we also placed coins on his eyes to pay the ferryman and assure safe passage after he passed. The women of my family told ghost stories from Ireland while cleaning up dinner, a practice my mother would extend by "collecting" American ghost stories during summer vacations, whether they were compiled in official sources (like the pictured souvenirs) or came from  park rangers who gave her their tales surreptitiously. Ultimately, this melding of magical and religious traditions has encouraged me to see beyond the physical world, enabling me to understand how a good story wields both power and wonder.

– Amanda E. Hughes

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more