THE HOUSE ON THE CORNER OF HARRINGTON STREET

THE HOUSE ON THE CORNER OF HARRINGTON STREET
By Veronica Breen Hogle

I arrived early in the morning from the USA
A taxi took me to the corner of Harrington Street
To an old Georgian house near the center of Dublin
The home where my Aunt Gretta
Has lived for more than 60 years
And where my cousin Padraig and I
Had arranged to meet
So I would have the keys of the house to come and go
As I pushed open the heavy iron gate
Its high-pitched, aging soprano sound
And the hums of the double-decker buses
going to and fro
Gave a familiar greeting to me
But as I walked up the short stone path
Gravel stones were all my eyes could see
They covered the places where grass used to be
And hosted golden dandelions Aunt Gretta made into
Lion’s Tooth Soup

I climbed up the three stone steps
Pressed the brass bell into a long ring
And I looked up the street and all around
But my eyes were pulled back
To the graveled ground
Where daffodils once danced in the spring
Pink and red roses nodded their jeweled
Rain-drenched heads, and on windy days
Pansies and petunias bumped their heads
In their border beds
When Aunt Gretta was out in her garden
Passersby stopped to ask
“What was the hour, and was it going to rain?”
She told them the time and weather forecast, and
“Ah yes, if ye rush, ye’ll still catch the train”
Then she picked plump dandelions to make
Lion’s Tooth Soup.

I walked through the hall with stairways and high ceilings
Past the oak stand
Where umbrellas, coats and hats used to look so grand
And walked down two sets of stairs
I went through glass doors into the kitchen
The wall-sized carved mahogany dresser
With its smoky mirror was in the same place
A jutting shelf held an unopened official letter
Another oval shelf had a little framed photograph
Of Uncle Joe’s tombstone on a memorial card
“He stole away quietly,” the writing said
Reminded me of Aunt Gretta’s shock
When she found her husband dead in bed
“But he is reunited now with their baby son
Keith, who also died quietly in his sleep
And is waiting for him in heaven” the card read
Another shelf had a smiling face of a young girl
With dark brown curly hair, in a small picture frame
Of their only daughter who lives in England
Frances is her name
The large faded portrait of the great maternal grandparents
Hung in the same place on the wall
The Stanley Cooker was still to the good
In days past, it warmed the kitchen
Dried the clothes, and simmered pots of
Lion’s Tooth Soup.

On a shelf above the cooker were porcelain Siamese cats
Mugs with pirates’ faces
And blue windmills on ceramic place mats
That Aunt Gretta and her family
Brought back from foreign places
I looked through the double glass door into the scullery
And in my mind’s eyes
Aunt Gretta was standing near the sink
Conjugating verbs from a ‘How To Learn German’ book
Which was propped against a full quart glass bottle of milk
But when baby Padraig tottered into her skirts
She picked him up and tousled his curly head
“Just look at this boy! My little caboose! Isn’t he a beaut?”
And the two of them looked wide-eyed at me
“Yes he’s a beaut! I said. “With you, the whole world would agree”
Then she shook the wooden spoon at my Godson Damien
Who was doing his sums at the kitchen table
“After ye have finished your school work”
She said to him in Irish
’Ye can have your dinner and eat as much as ye are able of
Lion’s Tooth Soup!”

Now this was first time I was in Aunt Gretta’s house
That she was not there
Apart from odd creaks when I opened the doors
and little groans when I walked on the floors
The old place was as quiet as a mouse
But I felt her presence everywhere
I sat at the table where I used to sit
And stared at her empty chair
Where she always sat and gazed up and out
Through the divide in the lace curtains on the window
And watched throngs of Dubliners pass by
She listened to the church bells
When they rang out the Angelus
At noon, six and the hours in between
The animated voices of school children
In navy and white uniforms,crisp and pristine
And she smiled when people stopped to smell her roses
Standing like sentries inside the iron railings
Guarding the grass where her dandelions grew for her
Lion’s Tooth Soup.

The next day, I visited her in the hospital
And found her sitting in a wheel chair
Outside her curtained cubicle
In a room where three other women
Were deep asleep in bed
“Aunt Gretta?” I called
And she cocked her head
“Who’s there?” she asked
“It’s me, Vonnie,” I said
But her hearing aid was in her pocket
And glaucoma clouded her eyes
I took her face in my hands
And repeated her name and mine
Then she cried with delight
“Ah! Is that you Vonnie!”
Her fresh face and mop of steel gray hair
And matching gray eyes gave a youthful look
To the woman who will be 96 in June
I told her she looked smashing. She laughed and said
“Ah! It must be because I ate so much
Lion’s Tooth Soup!”

I told her I remembered the Saturday night one November
I arrived unannounced at her door
With a suitcase in my hand the year I was seventeen
She already had ten children of her own. Still she said,
“Come in. You must be hungry. Sure what is one more?
As long as there’s a light in the window
There will always be a welcome at the door”
And she gave me my first bowl of
Lion’s Tooth Soup

She reminisced about the family, people from olden days
And the years when I was young
“When I heard stiletto heel shoes clattering
Down the outside cement steps into the kitchen
I knew it could me no one else but you
And that you would cut, perm, or color my hair”
She brought up the great times we spent in Paris
“But as good as the French are at cookin,” she said
“And I adored their skinny, long, crusty loaves of bread
But still I have to say that while in France, I could never find any
Lion’s Tooth Soup”

I brought her a stash of Baby Powers
And with the face of a child she asked me
To put one under her pillow to have before bed
And one in her drawer to help her pass the long hours
She clasped one in her hand and said
“Get some water. We’ll have a little party
And we’ll share a few Powerful moments”
While we drank the little bottle, she whispered in my ear
“A Baby Power is -- as good – if not better-- than
Lion’s Tooth Soup!”

When I left the hospital, she was all aglow
I rode on a double-decker with screeching brakes
Back to the house with the musical gate
As I rested on the sofa, my eyes landed on ceilings
That were as ornate as iced wedding cakes
In the home where she and her husband Joe
Reared a family of one daughter and nine sons
While he worked on the railway on a coal fed steam engine train
Aunt Gretta ran a boarding house with a daily refrain
“Would you like to try a bowl of
Lion’s Tooth Soup”

That evening at twilight, I sat on the stone steps outside
And watched the crowded double-decker buses
Thunder to and fro
Silhouettes in taxis and lovers laced at the arms
Also passed by
I ate fish and chips soaked with malt vinegar
The church across the street rang out the hours
And I saw the sun sink down in the sky
But then, the lights from the street lamps
Shone on the gravel stones
That buried the place where there used to be flowers
And I felt sad
But then I remembered that under the eaves
That very morn,I heard blackbirds, thrushes and robins sing
Their sweet, mellow tones gave a big welcome to spring
And my heavy heart became glad
And in my mind’s eyes, I remembered Aunt Gretta
At her efforts to educate the neighbors
She caught when they threw weed-killer
Over the railings onto her dandelions’ heads
“No. No,” she insisted, “Dandelions are not bad
They are full of vitamin A, B, C, and D,”
The people didn’t answer, they went back inside
“Dandelions also have iron, potassium and zinc”
She called to their closed door
She cupped her mouth and shouted once more
“And they make the most nutritious
Lion’s Tooth Soup.”

It was a little after five in the morning
I paused to listen to the songbirds outside
It was time to get up, leave the old house in the City of Dublin
and return to the place where I now reside
in the City of Buffalo, New York, USA
I walked down the steps
The iron gate sang its old, familiar song
“Good bye, come back again some day”
But while the taxi driver loaded the luggage
I stole one last look around
Through the wrought iron railings
At the graveled ground
I saw the light in the kitchen window
And I brushed away the tears
Because all I want to remember is
The deep affection and mutual regard Aunt Gretta
And I shared over so many years
I will never forget her welcome
when I knocked on the door of her house
on the corner of Harrington Street
That Saturday night over half a century ago
And she smiled and said,
“Come in. You must be hungry. Sure what is one more?”
And she gave me my very first bowl of hot
Lion’s Tooth Soup.
– The End -

Story ID:	3655
Written by:	Veronica Breen Hogle (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Irish Cultural Events
Story type:	Family History
Location:	Dublin Dublin Ireland
Year:	2008
Person:	Gretta Earls Lynam