Lost and Found Immigrants

[by Fred Lynch near Boston]

Continuing on my sketching journey of ancestry and immigration. 

When investigating my long-gone immigrant ancestors, I often find more immigrants living in the same houses, and filling the same neighborhoods. In this American drama, the set remains the same – only the cast changes. In the small, crowded city of Chelsea, Massachusetts (near Boston), the working class immigrants that were primarily Irish and Russian Jews in 1900 are now primarily Hispanic. Actually, Chelsea is one of three cities in Massachusetts in which Hispanics are now the majority population (67%). The biggest immigrant groups here currently are from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. 

In the middle of these little row houses, behind the brick wall, lived my immigrant ancestors/great-grandparents Daniel and Kate (McMahon) O’Connor. They started their family there, and stayed for only a year before moving elsewhere in the neighborhood. Walking along nearby Broadway, the only Irish-named business that I could find was a funeral home.