Mother Married a Hunky

My mother used to say she was Scotch-Irish, although she wasn’t really. (“Scotch-Irish” actually refers to Irish Protestants from Ulster who settled in Pennsylvania in colonial days.) Her ancestry was mostly English, but she was one-quarter Irish and a tiny bit Scots, so that’s where she came up with the Scotch-Irish thing. There is also a persistent legend in the family that we are descended from an Indian chief, one Red Eagle of the Creeks of Alabama.

My father’s side of the family, of course, is entirely Bohemian, both his parents having been born in the Old Country.

My mother was from south-central Illinois where people of Eastern European descent are derisively referred to as “Hunkies,” which I presume comes from Hungarian.

But the provincial down-staters in Illinois aren’t the only ones with ethnic biases. There was no love lost between the Bohemians and the Irish in greater Chicago. Luckily, my father’s family did not hold it against his intended when she told them she was Scotch-Irish. Perhaps adding that she also had Indian blood mitigated it somewhat.

Having set a date for the wedding, my folks were looking for a place to live. She was renting a room, and he was still living at home. Grandma Knez said she knew of an apartment that was available and sent the young couple over to look at it, but with a strict warning. The old Bohemian woman who owned the building hated the Irish, Grandma said, so whatever you do, don’t tell her your fiancée has any Irish blood. (She said all this in Bohemian, of course. She never learned to speak English very well.)

They went over to see the apartment, liked it, and said they’d take it, but the old landlady looked skeptically at my mother and said to my dad, “What nationality is she?” Without missing a beat, he replied “Scotch-Indian.” The old woman gave a curt nod. That was all right – it didn’t matter how ridiculous it sounded, as long as she wasn’t Irish.

I once asked my grandmother why she didn’t like the Irish. She said it was because their children wore rags, but they always had a maid – an odd but very telling observation.

My grandmother worked as a domestic when she first came to this country. If no man is a hero to his valet, I’m sure no uppity Irish lady of the house would inspire admiration in a teenaged servant girl just off the boat with only a nickel in her pocket.