MOTHER'S UNCLES IN THE UNITED STATES
By Sarah Costello

Mother and her brother Martin were brought up by their grandmother, Julia Lydon Folan (Foley). Mother was a baby and Martin was about three years old. When grandmother died, she was a Gerarty (maiden name).

Mother's father, John Folan (Foley), then a widower, and his two brothers, Tom and Jim, left famine stricken Ireland to seek a more prosperous land. That was about 1848. They entered the United States and tried to find work around Boston and New York. They found it very hard to find work as the coast towns were overrun with famine refugees. There was a very decided prejudice against the immigrants of any country and particularly of Catholics. The Know-Nothing Party was then in power in many districts and very popular in others. At the height of its popularity many Catholic Churches were burned, as were the convents.

It seemed to Grandfather and his brothers that about every factory had a sign on it saying "NO IRISH NEED APPLY,” or "NO CATHOLICS NEED APPLY". Laborers were needed in upstate New York where the Erie Canal was under construction. There they got work. Laborers were paid fifty cents a day for a twelve-hour day. Uncle Tom and Uncle Jim were not used to such hard work and such long hours, as they had their own farms when in Ireland. It was less than a year after their arrival that Grandfather died. He was buried at Troy, New York. (It was said that he may have been murdered for his money, as he was saving to bring his family to America.)

Tom and Jim heard that free land could be had in the Territory of Wisconsin. Shortly after the death of Grandfather, Tom and Jim started out for Wisconsin and found some good land near Prairie du Chien, an old town on the Mississippi River. The railroads of that time extended as far west as Milwaukee.

Back in Ireland, now that their father had died here in America, Mother and her brother Martin lived on with their grandmother until their marriages. Uncles Tom and Jim wrote to them to come to Wisconsin and said they would help them get started here, but it wasn’t until 1883 that Mother and Father did decide to come to America. By now, it had been about twenty-five years since the first of our relatives had come over here.

We came to this country by way of Canada. Canada was offering reduced rates on their steamships and railroads in order to secure settlers for its Midwestern lands.

Father got a job in a little lumbering town in Canada shortly after we arrived there. It was just across the border from Detroit. This job was a great help after the expense of getting a family of eight from Ireland to Canada. We stayed in Canada for two years. My brother Jim was born while we were in Canada. My sister, Bridget, was married while there.