Shamrocks

"...in heaven a noble work was done, when God gave us a mother..." I'd heard all my life that we were Irish. We'd wear green on St. Patrick's Day, and my mother had bright red hair. Beyond that though, I didn't know a single thing about our Irishness. Our family was from Indiana, just as Hoosier as they come. It seemed everybody as far back as we could remember was born here.But long before our family ever came to Indiana, our mothers walked the hills of the Emerald Isle. Our St. Patrick's Day green and my mother's red hair told me as much, but until I began researching our family history as a teenager, I'd never known our ancestors' stories. And I'd never guessed how much our Irish family story would come to mean to me - or how much it already meant to our family.Journey with author Katie Andrews Potter as she traces her maternal heritage back from the present day to the days of the Irish Potato Famine. Katie weaves her story as a family historian and as a mother herself in with the stories of each woman in her matrilineal line. From daughter to mother, the stories she uncovers are those of sorrow and of loss - and yet ultimately of faith, hope, love, and the resilience of family. Shamrocks is a tapestry of stories of many generations of women, yet it tells one tale: that of an Irish blessing upon each new son and daughter. It tells of the blessing of motherhood, and the strength of family.