The St. Patrick's Day Parade, Annie Moore, and the Legacy of Faith
The St. Patrick's Day Parade, Annie Moore, and the Legacy of Faith
It stands to reason she would have witnessed the St. Patrick's Day Parade at least once.
After all, she was Catholic and Irish and baptized at St. Patrick's Church in Cork, Ireland, in 1874 by Father John Falvey. When she arrived in New York in 1892, the 'new' parade route had just been established—a march up Fifth Avenue, right past St. Patrick's "New" Cathedral, where today's parade will proudly follow.
Her name was Annie Moore.
And she was just an ordinary girl who became a cultural icon at the hands of fate.
On December 20th, 1891, at age 17, she and her two brothers Anthony (11) and Phillip (7) boarded the Guion Lines ship, the S.S. Nevada, from Queenstown, Ireland, bound for America. They spent 12 long days, including Christmas in 'After Steerage, Starboard' steaming into New York Harbor late in the evening on Thursday, December 31st.
But it would be the events of the next day that would have her name echo through time.
The S.S. Nevada was anchored at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, along with the S.S. Victoria and S.S. City of Paris, waiting to disembark their passengers. But Annie's ship would be attended to first.
The paddle wheel steamer 'John E. Moore, ' adorned with ribbons, bows, and literal bells and whistles, pushed up against the massive steel hull of the 3600-ton ship to take the first group of immigrants to Ellis Island.
And as the wooden gangplank dropped on the stone pier, the first person to stumble across was Annie with her brothers in tow.
Under the shadow of the torch-bearing Lady, the 17-year-old girl from County Cork would be the first person to be admitted to the United States of America through the just-opened Ellis Island.
She was ushered to the Registry Desk amidst the fanfare, where her name was recorded in history. An 1892 New York Times article reports that the first Commissioner of Immigration, Colonel John Baptiste Weber, handed Annie a $10 gold Liberty coin, to which she gushed that 'it was the first United States coin she had ever seen and the largest sum of money she had ever possessed!'
Speeches were made, welcomes extended, and Ellis Island was christened as the new point of entry for the over 12 million others who would pass through its massive arched doors over the next 50 years.
Annie and her brothers joined her anxiously awaiting parents, Matthew and Julia beginning a new chapter in their lives. Settling in her first New York home on Monroe Street.
Annie Moore didn't choose to be thrust into the limelight—but she became a fabled icon to Irish immigrants. But her brush with celebrity was fleeting, as she went on to join the masses of immigrants and share in their similar fate—a life filled with hardship and struggle. A life all too familiar to most first-generation immigrants.
She would live out the rest of her life all within a two-block radius of St. James Church on James Street in Two Bridges. A neighborhood commonly referred to as 'The Lung Block' due to the high incidence of Tuberculous which was due in part to the poorly ventilated tenements that often had no windows.
The neighborhood also sported several brothels, the stench from the Fulton Fish Market when the wind was out of the East, and dangerous criminal elements in the adjacent Five Corners neighborhood.
But that was life in Two Bridges.
She married Joseph 'Gus' Schayer, the son of a German Catholic immigrant family, who worked at the Fulton Fish Market — a market that also employed the young Alfred E. Smith, who would rise to become the Governor of New York and the first Catholic Presidential Candidate. Together, Annie and Joseph had 11 children, tragically, five of whom died before reaching the age of three. In 1924, after a life marked by resilience in the face of hardship, Annie died at the age of 50.
There have been attempts to romanticize her life as the wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked young girl who had come to America full of big dreams and high ideals. But to do so would be a great disservice to the realities of her life.
Her life was typical of many first-generation immigrants of that time. They didn't have an easy time of it. But it was through their sacrifice that their children, and their children's children, would have the opportunity to soar in a nation whose skies have no upward limit.
Today, Irish Americans stand proudly on the shoulders of those who made the treacherous voyage across the oceans. Those who bore the hardship—those who paid the price. Just as St. Patrick carried the Faith to the shores of Ireland, the Irish brought their Faith to the shores of America.
That's why today, under a clear blue sky, tens of thousands gathered along Fifth Avenue for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. They're here to honor the legacy of Ireland's Patron Saint and celebrate the enduring spirit of those who, like St. Patrick, carried their Faith from distant lands to the heart of the greatest city in the world.
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Dad was among the last immigrants to be processed at Ellis Island, which made this post mean all the more to me. LĂ¡ fhĂ©ile PĂ¡draig sona dhuit'.