Fergal Patrick Joseph Gallagher: Biography
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I was born in Grafton, North Dakota, to Farigal Gallagher and Marguerite Gagnon on April 1, 1936. My fathers nickname was FagIm glad they never stuck that on me. Mother is of French Canadian parents, so Marguerite was a little too much for English speakers, so it was shortened to Margaret and then Mugs. My two brothers, Michael and Robert, are both two years younger. We were known as Pat, Mike, and Mustard.
This was a hard time in the Dakotas as it was the depth of the Depression, and there was no market for the wheat, barley, and potatoes that the farmers grew. The area was a complete farm economy. If the farmers were not making it, neither was anyone else.
We lived on a farm that had been homesteaded by my grandfather Farigal Gallagher. My father did not have any ownership in the land, having given it up for money to go to the University of Chicago with the idea of becoming a physician. I understand that he did not make the grade at school, and he and my mother came back to North Dakota to help my grandfather Gagnon during his dying days. After he died, they went out to the farm and lived in the old Gallagher homestead.
Fergal Patrick Joseph Gallagher
I was born in Grafton, North Dakota, to Farigal Gallagher and Marguerite Gagnon on April 1, 1936. My father’s nickname was Fag— I’m glad they never stuck that on me. Mother is of French Canadian parents, so Marguerite was a little too much for English speakers, so it was shortened to Margaret and then Mugs. My two brothers, Michael and Robert, are both two years younger. We were known as Pat, Mike, and Mustard. This was a hard time in the Dakotas as it was the depth of the Depression, and there was no market for the wheat, barley, and potatoes that the farmers grew. The area was a complete farm economy. If the farmers were not making it, neither was anyone else. We lived on a farm that had been homesteaded by my grandfather Farigal Gallagher. My father did not have any ownership in the land, having given it up for money to go to the University of Chicago with the idea of becoming a physician. I understand that he did not make the grade at school, and he and my mother came back to North Dakota to help my grandfather Gagnon during his dying days. After he died, they went out to the farm and lived in the old Gallagher homestead
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Fergal Patrick Joseph Gallagher - Fergal Patrick Joseph Gallagher
Copyright © 2013 by Fergal Patrick Joseph Gallagher.
Copyedited by Alekzandra T. Lanoy
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4931-1823-6
eBook 978-1-4931-1824-3
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Rev. date: 12/28/2013
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
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1-888-795-4274
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140845
Contents
Chapter One
Surviving the Depression
Early Life in North Dakota
Chapter Two
Anchors Away
A Career in the Navy and Navy Reserve
Chapter Three
Gallagher Family, Homes, and History
Chapter Four
Family Stories
Chapter Five
Family Photos
Chapter Six
Genealogy of the Gallagher and Gagnon Families
Tracing Gallaghers to the Tenth Century in Ireland
And the Gagnons Arriving in North America in 1640
Genealogy of the Campbell Family
Ireland Land of the Gallaghers
27300.pngTo my family.
My wife and helpmate for fifty-five years,
Darlene Mae Gallagher,
and
Our children,
Fergal Patrick Joseph Gallagher Jr.,
Kevin Michael Gallagher, and
Bridget Ann Gallagher Mascillino
and
My friend and editor, Tony Ruggiero,
And Carla Gavilianez,
design editor.
Chapter One
Surviving the Depression
Early Life in North Dakota
Surviving the Depression
image006.jpgWe lived in this house from my birth to 1944. My father is holding a puppy with our cousin Bonnie McEwen Suda.
This is not a traditional or professional book. I have not had any formal training in English or writing, other than a lifetime of reading, correspondence, and writing newsletters. It is written mostly for the benefit of my family and friends.
I was born in Grafton, North Dakota, to Farigal Gallagher and Marguerite Gagnon on April 1, 1936. My father’s nickname was Fag—I’m glad they never stuck that on me. Mother is of French Canadian parents, so Marguerite was a little too much for English speakers, so it was shortened to Margaret and then Mugs. My two brothers, Michael and Robert, are both two years younger. We were known as Pat, Mike, and Mustard.
This was a hard time in the Dakotas as it was the depth of the Depression, and there was no market for the wheat, barley, and potatoes that the farmers grew. The area was a complete farm economy. If the farmers were not making it, neither was anyone else.
We lived on a farm that had been homesteaded by my grandfather Farigal Gallagher. My father did not have any ownership in the land, having given it up for money to go to the University of Chicago with the idea of becoming a physician. I understand that he did not make the grade at school, and he and my mother came back to North Dakota to help my grandfather Gagnon during his dying days. After he died, they went out to the farm and lived in the old Gallagher homestead.
A Recipe for Homemade Soap
(Found on the Internet but as I remember)
-30 pounds of lard
-16 quarts of rainwater (soft water is preferred)
-8 cans of lye (or your own concentrated) wood ash lye made by running rainwater over ashes)
Boil for two hours, add one gallon of rainwater, pour in molds or in a pan, and cut into bars when solid.
This product can be used for all cleaning around the house and barn. Some women would add essence oils, if available, for use around the home and for bathing.
I will illustrate some of the things they had to do just to stay alive.
Soap. There was no money to buy soap for either a bodywash or for cleaning clothes and general cleaning around the house and barn, so they had to make their own. This was done in the fall of the year along with butchering of the hogs. During the year, you had to acquire ashes from hardwoods, which were not too common out on the prairie.
Food storage. Very few people had refrigerators or iceboxes. So food was stored either as a dried product, such as beans and peas, or in the root cellar for produce such as potatoes, rutabagas, parsnips, carrots, artichokes, cabbages, winter squashes, onions, and brussels sprouts. Our root cellar was in the basement, which was just a dug-out section under the kitchen of the house. It was also our place to go to if we saw a tornado coming (more on that later). The kitchen cooler was the cistern. We had a wooden basket on a rope on which we placed our milk, buttermilk, and leftovers from a meal. The temperature was about fifty-five to sixty degrees year-round.
Garden. Everyone had a large garden, and it was everyone’s responsibility to help with it. The garden provided all the vegetables that you are used to getting fresh from the store, frozen, or canned. I know that I was working in the garden by at least age four. Almost all the garden vegetables could be stored. The only exception being lettuce, radishes, sweet corn, summer squash (zucchini), and summer onions—these vegetables we stored in the root cellar.
We had three places to store vegetables and other consumables: the root cellar, the cistern and hanging room in the ceiling in the kitchen, and the back-porch ceiling and cabinets. The root cellar had different bins and product in the bins, such as dirt, straw, moss, or twigs. I don’t remember exactly what was kept with each product except that the potatoes were kept in soil or sand. Herbs and chili peppers were hung to dry on the porch and were kept near the stove in the kitchen during the winter months.
Canning. Mother canned almost anything that grew in the ground or lived on the farm. Canned foods were really good to eat; they were not the bland-tasting canned food that you get in the store.
The foods that you found on the shelf down in the root cellar were string beans, yellow beans, corns, peas, beets, tomatoes and tomato sauce, lima beans, succotash, dill pickles, sweet pickles, bread and butter pickles, and watermelon pickles. My brother Mike and I were kept busy shucking, peeling, trimming, or running back to the garden for more produce. The process also took a lot of water, which had to be pumped out of the cistern. It also took a lot of firewood and coal to keep the monster stove going. The canning process reused every part of the container—glass jar, rubber seal, and metal lid. They were carefully cleaned and sterilized in boiling water; once bought, they were used over and over again. The seals did wear out and had to be replaced as cash became available.
One of my favorite canned foods was canned chicken. It was simply half a chicken cut up and stuffed into a quart jar with a little salt and pepper then put through the canning process. It was cooked longer than any of the vegetables. It made the best chicken and dumplings or chicken and homemade noodles you have ever tasted. The canning process seemed to concentrate the flavor of the chicken in the small amount of broth. Mother also canned some of the tougher cuts of beef, such as shinbone and tailbone meat. This product made soup that was marvelous. Again, the secret was in the concentrated flavor. The plus with the beef product was the tenderness of the canned meat.
Headcheese. Mother was noted in the community for her headcheese. She made headcheese for our use, and neighbors would drop off a head and pay her for making a batch for them—a good way of having cash to buy kitchen essentials, like flour, sugar, molasses, spices, salt, pepper, yeast, and baking powder. Headcheese is simply a hog’s head cooked whole very slowly with the cook’s own secret flavoring. I know that one ingredient was a little cider vinegar; it seemed to give a flavor boost, but you did not taste the acidity in the final product. Once the head had cooked to perfection, the kettle was taken off the stove and allowed to cool. When cooled, the brains were scooped out and the tongue and other meaty parts were cut up into small pieces and put back into the broth. The mixture was poured into large trays and put out on the porch to cool and jell. It was great for lunch or a snack after school. I have been eating headcheese ever since but have never tasted any that can compare with Mother’s.
Soup. One cooking secret that almost