Reads Poems

Family

I grew up in the midst of 50 or so first cousins dristributed between the families of my mother (Conlin) and father. Two of my mother's seven sisters became nuns the others married men named: Conlin women married men named Bennett, Crawford, Heintz, McCabe, and Walsh; my father's two sisters married men named Hall and Barry!

Family album preamble

My great grandparents, Patrick and Mary Swift of Maysville, KY, were killed in a fire that destroyed his pharmacy (and residence upstairs). I don’t know how their daughter – my father’s mother Berenice, then around 8 years old, survived, but she was thereafter raised by her cousin or aunt, Mary Reilly, of Springfield, MA, where she later met my grandfather Frank J. Read, from a large family in Milford, 40 or so miles east.

Photos of Mary Reilly and Mary Berenice Swift, and Frank J. Read and his bride, Miss Swift.

Mary Reilly
Mary Reilly
Miss Mary Reilly of Springfield, MA
Miss Mary Reilly of Springfield, MA
Nana Read w/ cousin Mary Reilly
Nana and Mary return from European cruise
Frank J. and Berenice Swift, Springfield, MA c. 1913
Frank J. and Berenice Swift, Springfield, MA c. 1913
Nana, Aunt Mary, Frank J. Read, 1940
Nana, Aunt Mary, Frank J. Read, 1940
Open album
Wild guess – Patrick Swift?
Mystery couple
Handsome couple