The Shanty Irishman and the Lady

By Vennie Anderson

Narrated by a much-loved grandchild, herself now old enough to be a grandmother, the story is about two young people, betrayed by their first loves, who found one another in an unexpected way. Because they’re first cousins, some considered their blossoming love anathema. They didn’t care and spent the rest of their lives unashamedly loving each other.
It is also the story of a family, a mother, father, son and daughter who loved and were loved by the two titular lovers. The book brims with love, between mothers and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren, people and pets!
There is also humor, the best kind stemming from interesting people in unexpected situations and the adage that truth is stranger than fiction.
You may laugh, and you may cry, and when you’ve finished the book, you will know you’ve met real, genuine people, and you’ll probably love them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664189218

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Vennie Anderson.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/11/2021

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

Chapter 1 Marriages and Divorces

Chapter 2 Courtship

Chapter 3 Jobs and Politics

Chapter 4 Role Models

Chapter 5 Christmas

Chapter 6 St. Louis

Chapter 7 Duck!

Chapter 8 The Dilemma

Chapter 9 Pain and Courage

Chapter 10 Curtains!

Chapter 11 My Beautiful Grandma

Chapter 12 There Is No Frigate Like a Book

Chapter 13 Tommy, Me, and Tom’s

Chapter 14 Stop That Fidgeting!

Chapter 15 Remembrance of TV Past

Chapter 16 Do You Know Who I Am?

Chapter 17 A One-Bird Show

Chapter 18 Teepee or Not Teepee

Chapter 19 Dealing with the Real World

Chapter 20 Losing the Lady

Chapter 21 Cleo and Grandpa

Chapter 22 Losing the Shanty Irishman

Chapter 23 A Few More Thoughts

Gallery

DEDICATION

T o my daughter, Kimberly Shannon Wiggins Bear, who is the torchbearer. Kim, besides myself, you are the only living person who has any memory of even a few of the events in this book. I hope those memories are sweet and you treasure them.

FOREWORD

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

—Robert Frost

T his story is primarily about my grandparents and their life-long love affair. Much of the story is also about me, my parents, my brother, my first husband, and my daughter, as well as a few other family members and friends who played a part.

I shed a great many tears while writing this book. Because I was telling a story as familiar to me as my own—truly, much of it is my own—there weren’t any surprises in what I remembered. The surprise, I suppose, is that I remembered so much and so vividly.

Memory is an interesting phenomenon. As I wrote from my original outline, I began to recall many more incidents. For example, I hadn’t thought about the car accident in many years. When writing about our other trips to St. Louis, the wreck came back to me in a rush. The same with the orphanage.

I had to fill in some gaps in a few partially forgotten conversations, but much of the dialogue recounted is nearly verbatim. I believe that’s because the people in this book made such indelible impressions on my life.

I don’t know if readers will shed tears or be surprised, but I hope they will be entertained and enjoy the ride.

CHAPTER ONE

Marriages and Divorces

T his is a love story, make no mistake. To some degree, it’s also a memoir about the significant impact two extraordinary people made on my life.

The shanty Irishman was Thomas J. Shannon, born July 30, 1896. In 1918, Tom was a strapping young marine. He fought in the muddy fields and trenches of France with the American Expeditionary Forces in the War to End All Wars.

The lady was a beautiful young belle named Vennie Bennett, born January 30, 1891. She was wooed by and wed to a man she thought she loved. She thought he loved her. The following year, she had a child with him. Just four years later, she divorced him. We don’t know her reasons, but they must have been compelling.

Both the marine and the belle belonged to the same close-knit extended family. Thomas’s mother, Emma Piper Shannon, and Vennie’s mother, Alta Piper Bennett, were sisters, which meant the two young people were first cousins.

The shanty Irishman was the man I knew as my grandfather. He wasn’t my real grandfather, a fact I didn’t learn until I was in my late teens. His mother and my great-grandmother were sisters, making the Irishman and me some degree of cousins.

The titular Lady was my actual grandmother, Vennie Bennett Brandt Shannon. Vennie never went anywhere without her girdle and wore a hat and white gloves to church every Sunday.

Thomas J. Shannon and Vennie Alta Bennett were indeed first cousins. Both were born and raised in Worden, Illinois, a tiny town in south central Illinois, about thirty miles from St. Louis, Missouri.

Vennie Bennett was my mother’s mother. In 1913, when she was twenty-two years old, Vennie married a preacher’s handsome son, Marcus Brandt, from St. Louis, Missouri. The young couple set up housekeeping in St. Louis. The following year, they had a baby they named Molly Virginia. Molly was after Vennie’s sister Molly. I have no idea where Virginia came from. Everyone who would have known is gone now, and I never thought to ask.

There are so many things I never thought to ask. Fortunately, my grandmother felt certain aspects of family history were important. She passed on to me a number of photos as well as carefully edited family history.

For example, she made sure I knew I was eligible to belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution, commonly known as the DAR. She gave me a penciled list of several of our direct ancestors going back to the era of the War for Independence. She assured me that if I ever wanted to apply to join the DAR, this list would make it simple for me to trace and document my lineage. As it happens, joining the DAR never appealed to me. My personal sociopolitical beliefs and opinions are so far from what I knew about that ultraconservative group that I wanted nothing to do with them. Still, I always got a kick out of knowing I could have joined their snobby club if I’d wanted.

In 1918, around the same time Vennie got her divorce from Marcus Brandt, Thomas J. Shannon married his sweetheart, Bertha Stroud. That marriage was also doomed.

When the United States became involved in World War I, Tom Shannon joined