Kathleen Cummings was born in Dorchester some 66 years ago to Larry and Betty Cummings, who had left Ireland for Boston in the 1950s and set up home in the neighborhood on Draper then Templeton streets before moving to the South Shore a decade or so later.
Over the years, Kathleen, now a professor at Bridgewater State University, and her siblings listened as their parents told stories about their lives in the old country, about their emigration experiences, and about how things were when they were settling into life in a new world named Dorchester.
In a recent interview with The Reporter, she recalled a time when “the whole family was gathered and my dad was telling a story, and everyone was laughing.
“I said to my siblings, ‘I really should write Dad’s stories down, put them in a binder, and give you each a copy because someday he won’t be here, and I want to have his stories.’”
Cummings has followed through on her own suggestion and compiled her parents’ recollections into her first book, “From the Top of the Bog to Boston: A 20th Century Irish Journey.”
On this coming Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m., she will discuss her work at an event hosted by the Dorchester Historical Society at Boston Collegiate Charter School on Mayhew Street.
As memories of parental storytelling quickly turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years of research within the family, Cummings, noting how “at first, my dad did what he always did; he wanted to get you to laugh,” said, “but I’m a history professor, and my questions became far more poignant and more personal, and then the answers stopped making me laugh. Some really shocked me, some made me cry.”
After long talks with both parents, she said she “was left in an altered state. I had these pages and pages of interviews with my parents, and as a historian, I felt like I had to go off and do lots of research to put them into historical perspective.
“When I was through, which took many years, I knew it wasn’t a binder on a shelf anymore; it was a book.”
As Cummings wrote, she imagined her family’s friends and a “small Irish audience” enjoying the book. What she didn’t expect was for it to resonate with so many.
“What I realized the book did,” she said, “is it allowed people also to dig into their lives and share their stories. Inevitably, it becomes this jumping off point for people to go back, especially immigrants, and talk about their experiences.”
In that sense, then, it’s a book for anyone from anywhere, and not just the Irish experience, but the immigrant experience.
The book surely will also resonate for those in and around Dorchester as the chapters explore the neighborhood’s rich diversity of today against the historic backdrop of the steady flow of Irish immigration to Boston extending back to the Great Famine some 175 years ago.
Although her parents only lived to read the first four chapters, Cummings has kept their legacy alive through every page of her book, through which her three adult children can learn more about their grandparents, and one day introduce them to children of their own.
“I autographed copies to all of my grandchildren and wrote them each a note,” she said. “By the time they’re old enough to really appreciate it, I probably won’t be here anymore, so I think it’s a nice way to sort of leave my voice behind for them.”
“I’m very much looking forward to speaking at the Dorchester Historical Society [event on May 18],” she said, “because I feel like in many ways I’ve come full circle with the book.”
Copies of “From the Top of the Bog to Boston: A 20th Century Irish Journey” will be sold at Sunday’s presentation, They can also be purchased on Amazon.
