Babies sure do seem to grow fast

By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

This past weekend my grandson was baptized. He wore an heirloom baptismal gown that his maternal great-grandmother had made for her children. Thomas Michael Donnelly was the 11th baby to be baptized in this white-laced gown. He didn't make a peep through the baptism but slept peacefully in his mother's arms.

Twenty-seven years ago, Thomas' father, Danny, was baptized in Kilkar, a remote village in County Donegal, Ireland. Tom and I had just moved to the area the day before Danny was born. When Danny was four weeks old, I inquired about where I would go to get him baptized. We were living near the town of Carrick, but we were located in the parish of Kilkar, five miles over the mountain pass from our cottage. To get Danny baptized, I had to visit Father McBrearty, the parish priest of Kilkar. My landlord Denny had his brother Francie ride his bicycle to Kilkar to make arrangements for me to see the priest. We had no car or phone and only a few of our neighbors had cars and even fewer had telephones. My landlady, Bridie asked a neighbor, Shaun if he would drive she and I to see the priest. It was pouring rain the afternoon Shaun drove Bridie and me over the mountain pass to Kilkar. I was very young, only 20, and when I look at photos of myself from that time I look to be 12 years old.

In Kilkar, Bridie and I knocked on the rectory door and were ushered by a lady housekeeper into a dark office with high windows. Father McBrearty was a tall man with a shock of gray hair and was in a long black robe, with a white collar at his neck. He was sitting at a massive desk and didn't rise to greet us, but indicated with his huge hand to sit in chairs across from him. Bridie seldom left her house and was as nervous as a bird and fluttered her hands and told Father McBrearty that I was from America and had a new baby boy and that I wanted to have him baptized. Father McBrearty turned and glared at me from behind his desk and his eyes reminded me of an eagle ready to swoop up his prey, and stated loudly, "ARE YOU A PRACTICING CATHOLIC?"

I was shaking and I said, "Well, my husband doesn't go to church."

"ARE YOU A PRACTICING CATHOLIC?" he said again not blinking or taking his eagle eyes off me.

"Yeesss," I stammered.

"Come tomorrow at 4:30 and I will baptize your son," he said.

The next afternoon, the neighbor, Shaun drove Tom, Bridie, Denny, baby Danny and me over the mountain pass to Kilkar in the still pouring rain. It had been raining every day since Danny had been born born. Father McBrearty and an altar boy met us in the Kilkar Church, resplendent in their long robes.

The baptism was a beautiful brief ceremony. Danny was wrapped in a hand crocheted pure white shawl that my friend had made for him. Danny whimpered through the ceremony. At the end of the end of it, Father McBrearty swept Danny out of my arms and took him to a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. The statue had votive candles lit all around its base and the priest held Danny high above his head, with the pure white shawl flowing over his arms and prayed aloud in Gaelic. When he did this, Danny quit whimpering and Tom and I looked at each other with wonder.

Later we both said that shivers went down our spine when Father McBrearty did this. We left the church in Shaun's car in the pouring rain. I held my newly baptized baby in my arms and it hit me what an awesome task and responsibility I had undertaken in having a baby and I hoped I was up to the task to raise him well.

After the baptism, the neighbors came to our cottage for tea, bread, and biscuits. They placed silver coins in Danny's little fist as was the custom.

They all said, "What a grand wee bobba ye have and sure enough he will be walking before ye know it."

I thought at the time that it would be ages before he would be walking, but the neighbors were right and now Danny has a grand wee bobba of his own.

Encouraging words work better

By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

It seems that many people I have run into lately have been busy attending graduation ceremonies and open house parties for the graduates. I have been to a number of these events as my daughter, Theresa, graduated from Blooming Prairie High School this year. She is going to the University of Wisconsin at Madison this fall. We spent two and a half days in Madison last week attending orientation and Theresa registered for class. The school received 21,000 applications for fall 2003 and 5,700 were accepted.

It's a big school with large classes and a beautiful campus, I hope Theresa will be happy there. She's my fifth child going to college, and she was the baby until Timmy came along when she was 8 1/2 years old. She's ready to spread her wings and we will miss her when she leaves.

My mom was relieved when each of her children graduated from high school.

Our house was small and there wasn't enough room for the 13 people in our family. I never had a room of my own and I never slept in a bed alone.

Privacy was something I would seek out in a closet when I wanted to read a book by myself. Mom especially pushed the girls out of the house when they graduated. My sister Kate came home from an all night party after her graduation ceremony from high school to find her bed gone. Mom had come upstairs to the bedroom early in the morning and my sister Mary and I woke up to the sounds of her tearing Kate's bed apart. We begged mom to leave Kate's bed alone. But she ignored us and tossed the mattress out of the upstairs window and hauled the iron frame out to a shed. Kate was shocked when she came home and saw her bed gone and started to cry. Mom said she had to do it this way so Kate wouldn't think about moving back home. Kate moved to St. Paul that day to live with my sister Joann and her husband and infant daughter in their duplex. Kate didn't come home for several years. If she did visit, it was for only a few hours and not overnight.

My six brothers came home often for extended periods of time and their rooms remained untouched for years and none of their beds were removed. Mom made special meals for the boys, prepared each one's favorite dessert, did their laundry and picked up after them.

When I graduated from high school, I moved to Boston in the fall to attend school and work. I moved in with my sister, Kate who was going to school at the University of Massachusetts. Mom drove me to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport for my flight to Boston. I was excited about starting a new adventure. When I unloaded my bags from the car at the airport and turned to hug mom goodbye, she said, "Don't come back for a long time. You put me through hell." I didn't feel like hugging her very much after this comment and I couldn't wait to get out of Minnesota.

A year after I left home, my sister Mary moved to Madison to attend college. My parents drove her to Madison and dropped Mary off at curb by her dorm with her luggage and left. I always wondered why mom was so tough on us girls. I found out years later that she had wanted to go to nursing school, but her parents wouldn't let her. She was raised on a farm by Ellendale and moved to Clarks Grove when she was 20. She married at age 22 and always regretted that she had never become a nurse.

I think by being so cold and heartless to her daughters was her way of giving us a push. I have had to learn that it is OK to be supportive of my daughters and my sons and to not be angry when they start on their journeys of leaving home for the first time. They have lots of opportunity and I see what confident young people they are. Kind words of encouragement I have found work better to give them that boost in life.

Chicks did not have a chance

By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

I have a rat terrier dog that is a year and a half old. We have had it since it was six weeks old. It is named Scout and I hand-fed it when it was a puppy and we love it to death. Scout is great at killing rats that might be hiding under an old building and she kills rabbits that would eat the garden and young budding trees.

Last week, Scout was barking excitedly at four in the morning down by the barn where we have the new chicks housed. I didn't pay much attention, as I was tired. My son Timmy's bed had broken in the night around 3 a.m. I complained to Tom how he should have fixed the bed as it had been squeaking. He argued back that the bed was a piece of junk that my mom had gotten secondhand when I was growing up. Tom was right this time. Still I was angry at having my sleep interrupted. I put Timmy in our bed and I went and slept in my daughter's room on the top bunk bed.

The next morning, after having a quiet breakfast because we were not speaking to each other, Tom went to feed the chicks. He came upon an ugly sight. Our beloved rat terrier had slipped through a crack in the barn and made sport with the five-day-old multicolored chicks and killed 85 out of 100. Scout didn't eat them, but had grabbed each one and bit its wing. It must have been bam, dead, bam, dead. Fifteen of the chicks had escaped and hid outside.

I went into the house and ordered 100 more online, as I was raising these chicks for my daughter Mary's wedding dinner. I had to pay $40 extra for this new batch of 100 chicks, as they were ordered after May. These chickens are turning into a more expensive dinner I thought. Mary lives in Los Angeles and was home for the weekend. She felt awful about the dog killing the chicks, especially after the hard time I had last week picking them up at the Rochester post office and driving to three post offices before I arrived at the right one. We are all checking twice to keep the barn shut up tight to keep the remaining chicks alive. I don't blame the dog as she was just doing what her instincts told her to do.

When I was young, we had a puppy that got in the barn and killed 200 half-grown chicks that were being raised for winter dinners. My dad was livid and he got rid of the dog immediately. My son raises chicks too, and he had a puppy that wouldn't quit eating chickens. He had to get rid of the puppy, as he couldn't get him to quit killing them. I have hope for our little dog. She is smart. I only wish I had caught her right in the act of killing the chicks, then it would have been easier to discipline her. My new chicks won't be arriving for two weeks. The dog won't be getting near them.

Make sure to count your chicks

By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

This past weekend I received a call late Saturday night and my answering machine picked up the message. On the machine, I could hear peeping in the background and was told my chicks had arrived at the Rochester post office.

I had been expecting the chicks, but I thought they would arrive sometime this week. I didn't have time on Sunday morning to drive to Rochester and Sunday afternoon my daughter, Theresa graduated from Blooming Prairie High School. When I came home from the commencement ceremony, there was another call from the Rochester post office asking me to come get my chicks, or they would be delivered to the Blooming Prairie post office in the morning. I was thinking how those poor babies hadn't had any water since they had been born. But I had company at my house and they stayed until 7:30 p.m. When the company left, I told Tom to get the barn ready for the chicks, and I would drive to Rochester and pick them up. I drove to the downtown Rochester post office and was told this was not the main post office. I got instructions to go to the main post office. This was not the right post office either.

Finally at 9:30 p.m. after driving around and knocking on doors at the main post office, I called home and got the phone number that had been left on the answering machine. I called this number and got directions to drive to where bulk mail is delivered and sent. The woman at the post office was very kind and told the chicks, which would not quit peeping, that mama had come and they would be okay in their new home. I was pretty tired from driving around Rochester when I arrived home at 10:30 p.m. I now know that Rochester has three post offices.

I try and raise baby chicks every year. I usually butcher them when they are six to eight weeks old. I am raising these chicks for my daughter, Mary's wedding reception dinner. I told Mary I had gotten her chicks last night when she telephoned me. I explained to her all the trouble I had in finding the right Rochester post office. I told her the woman at the post office had called me the mama of the chicks. Mary laughed and said, "Yeah the kind of mama that will raise them up and then butcher them.:

Unfortunately for the chicks, Mary is right but for now they have a good life in a dry barn with fresh food and water. They are pretty soft little things that are multicolored which I didn't expect when I ordered them online from Murray McMurray Hatchery.

I would like to raise some turkeys too but they have to be raised in a separate building from chickens as they are susceptible to getting diseases from chicken feces.

We are tearing our big barn down so I have no extra building to house turkeys in. I'm sure Tom is happy with this, as he does not enjoy butchering and can always seem to find another project far away from the house on the day I want to butcher.

He does eventually come and help me, but he is usually extremely reluctantly. For now he can avoid thinking about butchering day while the chicks are growing.