A Memorable Occasion for St. Paddy's Day
Mary Farrell knew how to throw a soiree
Eighty-one years ago today, Mary Farrell threw quite the St. Patrick’s Day wingding. Her “A Bit of Ireland” party is especially interesting to me, because it happened right here, in the home in which I now live.
Mary was the mother of the legendary prison chaplain, WWII hero and local bon vivant, Rev. Lawrence Farrell. (See a link to my story about the Happy Chaplain below.) Mary was also quite the social butterfly around town, a member of civic organizations, church guilds and women’s clubs.
When St. Paddy’s Day rolls along each day, I like to think about the gathering of women who assembled in this house on Monterey’s Spaghetti Hill in 1944. Mary Farrell really knocked herself out for this occasion, reciting poetry to piano accompaniment and recounting her adventures in Ireland with her son to an appreciative crowd.
The event was described on the social pages of The Monterey Peninsula Herald a few days later. This is the story:
MRS. FARRELL PROVIDED A MEMORABLE OCCASION FOR THE MONDAY CLUB
Unmistakably a “wearin’ of the green” occasion was the meeting of the Monday Afternoon Club at Mrs. Mary Farrell’s home on Jefferson street, Monterey, this week. Although Mrs. Ney Otis was program chairman for the day, the theme of which was “A Bit of Ireland,” Mrs. Farrewll had spent so much time in Ireland that Mrs. Otis was quite content to turn the entire afternoon over to her.
A large Irish flag was effectively draped in one corner of the living room and the green and gold of flowering branches of the canary tree carried out the color scheme. Mrs. Farrell served her dessert on green trays and provided a tiny French bouquet of spring flowers surrounded by paper lace and ruffled green crepe paper on each one. The ice cream was decorated with a real shamrock.
The program was opened by Mrs. Farrell’s recitation of Thomas Moore’s poem, “Meeting of the Waters” with legato accompaniment on the piano provided by Mrs. William Cummings. Mrs. Farrell then proceeded to reminisce on her visit to Ireland in 1932 when she attended the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin with her son, Father Lawrence Farrell who is now a chaplain with the army in England. She also reviewed “In Search of Ireland” by H.V. Morton and, by special request, closed the program by reciting “The Low-backed Car.”
“Mrs. V.O. Ward turned in her resignation which was accepted with deep regret.
What a day it must have been in this house.
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The Happy Chaplain
Rev. Lawrence Farrell fit right in. He was a genial chap, fresh out of a Catholic seminary, the son of a Welsh tavern owner who had married an Irish woman. He was from Monterey’s Spaghetti Hill, but he had somehow latched on with a bunch of soldiers from Newfoundland who fought Nazis across the pond in Europe.