Claiming My Heritage

My mom was 100% Hungarian. She was brilliant. She was taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph. T hey made sure that she went to high school during the Depression, at St. Luke’s in Ho-Ho-Kus on scholarship. She met my dad there, but that is another story.

She lived in a dorm at the Villa Marie Claire in Saddle River. She was a member of the glee club. The nuns taught her songs, and they taught her the Irish jig.

Everything the nuns taught my mom she taught me and my sister. So when it was time for the same Sisters of St. Joseph at the school my sister and I attended to mount a show in honor of our pastor’s silver jubilee it should not have been a surprise that the E__ sisters contacted me and my little sister to join their presentation.

Linda (grade 8) and Merrilee (Grade 7) would sing Londonderry Air. My sister and I would, in an interlude, dance to The Irish Washer Woman.” We were probably picked because we had costumes, tap shoes, and could Irish jig.

I was in 6th or 5th grade. My sister was in 4th or 3rd. There’s a history here. My mom made beautiful St. Patrick’s Day outfits for me and my sister for a few years. She would send us to school with notes to the nuns that our uniforms were at the cleaners. We’d be all greened up on Paddy’s Day.

So we had the duds. We also took dance lessons, so we had the tap shoes. And, of course, we knew the steps.

There was a moment, not long afterward, that Regina O’G__ decided to attack our performance by stating in class that Irish dancing was not done with tap shoes. It hurt. I had not engineered a particle of our performance.

For years classmates attacked me saying I was not Irish. I sloughed them off, but it hurt. A lot.

I did some genealogical research about 18 years ago. I am indeed Irish on at least three threads on my dad’s side.

No, Regina O’___ I did not get to go the Irish dancing schools in Westchester — (the closest ones to us). But I did jig.

I think Father Harkins enjoyed our performance.

Years later I lived at a dance studio in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Nuns contacted us with a request. An Irish nun wanted to borrow tap shoes so she could do a dance for her sisters on St. Patrick’s Day. I rest my case.

Now I know that jigs are fine taps or not and that my relatives in Ireland welcome me with open arms.