Mary Lue McCune - Childhood in Cedar City

I have decided to publish the history I wrote of Grandma McCune a few years ago. I hope that by serializing this on the web I can make it available to many of you cousins and other relatives who never received a print copy. Hope you enjoy.

Mary Lue Knell was born July 17, 1924 in Cedar City, Utah, the first child of Mary Smith and Karl J. Knell. Delivered at Iron County Hospital by Dr. M. J. McFarland,1 her thick, black hair was so long that she was given a haircut within a few weeks.2 At the time Karl and Mary, both age 21, were living in an apartment over the garage of Mary’s parents, Mary Carpenter and Thomas James Smith.3 It was here that Mary Lue would spend her first few years, as she put it, “soaking in the love that was around—lots of doting people—Mom, Dad, uncles, aunts, great aunts, and grandparents from both sides of the family.”4

At the time of Mary Lue’s birth, her father Karl was a farmer by profession. The son of Olive Philena Emmett and Walter John Knell, Karl was born and raised in Pinto, a small community about 28 miles west of Cedar. While a student at Branch Agricultural College, he met Mary Smith and on graduation day, May 29, 1923, the sweethearts and fellow-graduates were married. On June 21, they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.

When Mary Lue was two years old, her father got a job selling Ford automobiles for Charlie Petty at Petty Motor Company. “He was very outgoing and surely seemed like the perfect salesman,”5 she said of her dad. Little did Karl know at the time what an impact his twenty-five-year career with Petty would have on his family.

At about this time, the young family moved to a new home at 156 South 2nd West, Cedar City. It was there that on August 18, 1927, James Karl, Mary Lue’s only sibling was born. Soon after his birth, while the family was discussing the question of what name to give the newborn, three-year-old Mary Lue suggested, “Let’s call him mud turtle!”6 Mary Lue and Jim “got along very well” as children, rarely fighting or showing signs of sibling rivalry.7

Mary Lue’s childhood in Cedar City was characterized by her close relationship with her family, immediate and extended. Her husband Keith would later state, “One of the things I always remember is Mary Lue’s love for both sides of her family.”8 She loved both the Smith and the Knell families and spent much of her time in association with them. The Smith’s were in the sheep business. Thomas had homesteaded a great deal of land, stretching from Cedar Mountain (near Cedar City) to Nevada, upon which he raised sheep. Growing up around the sheepherders in the Smith family and in their employ, Mary Lue was exposed to some rough language. Unbeknownst to her parents, their tiny daughter began to pick up on a few interesting expressions. Her mother told of one occasion when Mary Lue burst into the house from the rain and exclaimed, “Hell-a-mighty, Dad, it’s raining all over!”9 On another occasion, her feisty pet kitten scratched her. She promptly took the kitten into the kitchen, put it in the refrigerator and shut the door. Her dismayed mother overheard her declare, “That’ll teach you, you little son of a b____!”10 Punishment for such indiscretions sometimes consisted of being placed on the mantle by her father and not being allowed to come down until she had recited the following poem:

I had a little doll


The prettiest ever seen,

She washed me the dishes,


And kept the house clean.11

Her relationship with her grandmother Smith was extremely close. Mary Lue recalled, “my mother’s mother…was very ill and went blind. She never complained but endured. Through this experience, after school I would sit at her knee and brush her long gray hair and we two touched souls. I was glad when I learned how to read so I could take a book from the beautiful library and read simple things to her and play the wind-up Victrola. She gradually got worse and finally passed away [in 1934]. I remember climbing on a stool to see her for the last time.” Mary Lue always felt close to Grandma Smith and believed that “her presence [was] like a guardian angel at times of personal distress.”12

After Grandma Smith passed away, Grandpa Smith moved in with Karl and Mary. He was alone as all nine of his children were grown and gone. Mary Lue fondly remembered his red Ford pick-up truck. “I don’t think he ever learned to shift gears,” she wrote. “He would go everywhere in low gear, up the mountain and down checking his sheep and cattle. At his side was Duke, a German Police dog.” Before the Depression, Smith was said to be worth over $1 million, though one wouldn’t have known it by his appearance. Mary Lue said he dressed like a tramp. One of her favorite stories about him took place around the end of World War II. While visiting Salt Lake City, he stopped at Zion’s Bank in his ruffled sheepherder’s garb. He marched right up to the teller and wrote out a check for $10,000. One of the suspicious bankers was about to call the police on this apparent transient, when the manager looked into it and discovered how much he was worth.13

Despite Grandpa Smith’s rough appearance and countenance, he endeared himself to Mary Lue. He was “an idol to all the grandchildren.” Mary Lue recounted how they would “climb in the back of the truck—sometimes 10 of us—and off we would go. We would stop at the candy store with one dime for candy.” Her regular purchase consisted of 2 cherry baseball suckers, 2 bubble gum balls, 1 stick red licorice, and a 5 cent box of malted milk disks. Mary Lue remembered her grandfather as “a very patient person with a big heart.” She recalled that many of the Piute Indians near Cedar City would come to him for work or a handout. One Indian, “Paul Jake (who loved vanilla because he could get drunk on it), was a pretty lazy but harmless Indian who always found odd jobs at Jim’s and Mary Smith’s.”14 Mary Lue and the other Smith grandchildren would frequently participate in the various workaday activities of the ranch, such as preparing meals for the hands.

Mary Lue was equally close to her Knell grandparents. The Knell’s were among the few families living in the rural farming community of Pinto. As Mary Lue, wrote, “They lived off the land, worked hard always, loved hard too.” She admired their tender relationship as a couple from an early age. “Such sweethearts I have never met. He saw her in Church when he was 20—she was 10—he said to himself, ‘I’m going to wait for 10 years for her.’ When he was 30 and she 20, he proposed and began a sweet, sweet love affair that just never quit.”15 The Knell’s had raised 5 children without the aid of electricity, running water, or heat. They lived a very self-sufficient lifestyle. They canned vegetables and meat and kept them in a root cellar during the winter, together with potatoes and dried fruits. Mary Lue remembered riding the Knell’s milk cow, Old Blackie, into the barn for her nightly milking.16

Grandpa Knell served missions after his marriage, during which his wife Olive stayed with his family, her in-laws, inducing Mary Lue to remark, “She must have been very easy to get along with.”17 During one of Grandpa Knell’s missions (England and Ireland), he served with Elder David O. McKay. The two companions kept in touch over the years. Grandpa Knell was a student of the scriptures and his spirituality impressed Mary Lue from a young age.

Mary Lue’s memories of Grandma Knell included her sitting by the light of a Kerosene lamp at night, piecing together scraps for quilts and rewarding the grandchildren for their help with sugar cubes. She became the de facto post-master of Pinto Valley since all passers stopped at their big home near Pinto Junction.

Each year, the young Knell family would travel to Pinto to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Grandpa and Grandma Knell and all the Knell cousins. Mary Lue described a typical Knell Christmas during her childhood:

One bedroom was prepared for the big entrance Christmas morning. This room had a big fireplace with about 23 stockings hanging with names of every single man woman and child in the family. As we turned up the Kerosene lamps and lit the big “potbelly” stove, Grandpa threw big, homemade feather mattresses on the floor for the grandchildren. It was the longest night of the year. We lay for several hours, too cold to get up, too cold to go to sleep. At midnight, Santa would go through town and ring the school bell—sure enough he managed to know we were at Pinto not Cedar City. The door to the south wing opened but we couldn’t let him see us. He would be pretty busy for a while, then the door would close. That was almost agony, but to have to get up, wash, eat breakfast before we went in that room was even more so. At last, when every wax candle had been lit on the cedar tree we all went in and sat in a circle. One by one, the presents were opened and seen by all. I suppose Grandma Knell worked all year long to give something she had made to each one.18

During the summer of 1932, Karl and Mary went to Chicago for the World’s Fair and left Mary Lue and Jim at the Knell’s in Pinto. Grandma Knell subscribed to several magazines and “was always winning a little money here and there by entering contests in them.”19 Jim recalls spending the summer with Mary Lue going through their Grandma’s old magazines and clipping coupons that they would send away for free samples of lotions, balms, soaps, etc. They collected as many free samples as they could as a way to pass the time while their parents were away.20

Some of her best friends and playmates as a child were her cousins. She remarked, “As my first cousins entered my life, it truly was as though we were one single family. Mostly we lived within a few steps of each other.” Later, after Mary Lue had left for Salt Lake, “they’d come up from Cedar City and one of the first things they would want to do was to get in touch with Mary Lue and be able to be with her and partake of her warmth and spirit and fun.” She also was close to her Uncles Dell and Burt Smith.

Through her family associations, Mary Lue was introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She wrote, “I was surrounded with love of the Gospel through parents and grandparents. My parents taught me to love truth and two houses away from our home, was Cedar 2nd Ward Chapel. I was very close to Church activity through Primary.”21 On September 8, 1932, she was baptized by Roscoe G. Booth and confirmed by her grandfather, Walter Knell.22 Jim was also baptized at age eight.

In addition to participating in family life, Mary Lue attended grade school in Cedar City. She completed her elementary education to the 6th grade in the Cedar City Elementary School in the Iron County School District.23

The Great Depression hit hard in Utah. In 1933, the state unemployment rate reached its peak at 35.8 and wages for employed workers dropped 45%. Despite these trying conditions, the Knells survived admirably. Karl retained his job with Petty Motor and they benefited from their close and continued relationship with their extended families. Mary Lue recalled, “I can’t remember of really wanting for the necessities of life. We were able to live off the land during the depression. Both [the Smith and Knell] families were able to provide vegetables, milk, meat, cheese, and eggs.”24

In early 1936, Charlie Petty decided to open a Ford dealership in Salt Lake and asked Karl to be his sales manager there. Karl and his family had made several trips to Salt Lake before to visit Mary’s sister, Ann Wright who lived on Michigan Ave. On one of these trips, just prior to their move, Karl located an apartment on Westminster Avenue, just above 1300 E. and made arrangements to rent it. It was difficult for Mary Lue to move so far from her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Mary Lue’s 12th birthday—July 17, 1936—was to be the day of the big move. They packed all their furniture in a large moving truck and prepared to leave the house. The night before they departed, Karl decided to park the truck under a pagoda garage at Grandpa Smith’s place. When he drove under the stone archway that spanned the Smith’s driveway, the bicycles, which were tethered to the top of the truck, caught on the two-ton lintel stone, dragging it out of its place and onto the top of the truck. Fortunately, the stone just missed the cab of the truck and the passengers were safe. Mary Lue recalled, “We didn’t even have the heart to survey the damage that night but left the next morning for our new home. Much of the bedroom furniture was completely crushed but they were all ‘just things.’”25

NOTES

1 Mary Lue Knell (McCune), Birth Certificate, in Mary Lue McCune, Book of Remembrance.

2 Darcy McBride, Reminiscences, 1.

3 Ibid.

4 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 1.

5 Ibid.

6 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 18.

7 James K. Knell, Interview, 1.

8 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 17.

9 Darcy McBride, Reminiscences, 1.

10 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 18.

11 Darcy McBride, Reminiscences, 1. Additional verses:

She went to the mill
To fetch me some flour,
And always got it home
In less than an hour;

She baked me my bread,
She brewed me my ale,
She sat by the fire
And told many a fine tale.

12 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 1.

13 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 17.

14 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 1.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 James K. Knell, Interview, 1.

21 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—2, 1.

22 Certificate of Baptism, Mary Lue Knell (McCune). Roscoe Booth was a priest in the Cedar 2nd Ward. It was common practice at that time to select a priest in the ward to perform baptisms.

23 James K. Knell, Interview, 4.

24 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.

25 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 1.

David Lester McBride's Mission Apartment

After a 6-month haitus, I am finally writing another post. Rummaging through my dad's office, I found one of my great-grandfather David Lester McBride's old priesthood manuals, A Seventy's Course in Theology. The Seventy's Course was a series of priesthood manuals authored by B. H. Roberts and originally used by, you guessed it, Seventies Quorums, between 1907 and 1911. The book in my dad's credenza consisted of volumes 1 and 2, bound together.

I have long been familiar with these manuals; even read lengthy passages. In fact, I'll admit I envy somewhat the brethren who used this course for their lessons. The subject matter is often intriguing, with lesson titles such as "The Inexorableness of Law" and "Patristic Notions of God." But it was not the content of the manuals that caught my attention yesterday.

David Lester wrote his name inside the back cover, along with the following address: "287 Bainbridge St. Brooklyn." We knew great-grandpa was serving a mission to New York at that time. Now we know where he lived for at least part of the time. Here is a Google Maps satellite view:




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There appears to be a building there that may have been his apartment building, though it is difficult to be sure. Here is a Google Street View shot:


View Larger Map

Need to do a little more research on this on. If I remember correctly, the newspaper report of his funeral included a short account of a talk given by one of his companions. I'll have to dig that out. Also, we have a photo of him with his companion taken during his mission. Need to post that, too.

More photographs of Mullenark

Here are some nice, medium resolution photos of Mullenark Castle I found the other day. The first one is of the front of the building. Nothing new, but kind of a nice shot.

The second is interesting because it shows one of the front towers at the vantage from which grandpa's fellow platoon members would have seen them. Fairly imposing, when you consider, as Frank Perozzi said, there were snipers firing at them from the turrets as they dug their fox holes.

The third photo is of the mill house just to the southeast of the house. The moat ran right along this structure and it was positioned near the mill pond, too.

The last photo is of one of the walls surrounding the estate. These were the walls grandpa spoke of using to skirt the property and make their way into Schophoven to the northwest. According to the photo's description (as "translated" by Google), the damage to the wall was sustained during World War II. It's conceivable that the scars were inflicted by the artillery preparation that preceded the infantry assault on Mullenark the night of December 13, 1944.

David Lester McBride's Draft Card

David Lester McBride and Annie Leishman Brown McBride were married 18 January 1911, the outset of a turbulent decade. Neta was born late that same year, Reba joined the family early in 1913 and Annie Ruth was born in 1915.

Direct U.S. military involvement in World War I began on 6 April 1917 after three years of stubborn isolationism. Initially only 32,000 men volunteered. The commitment to send a large U.S. force to Europe led to the passage of the Selective Service Act. Under its mandate, three draft lotteries were held during the next 18 months. The first, which was held on 5 June 1917, required that eligible men born between 1886 and 1896 (ages 20-30) register for the draft. The second was one year later to the day, for those who had turned 20 during the previous 12 months. Of the combined 11 million men who registered for these two lotteries, almost 2 million were actually drafted. Unfortunately, this was not enough.

At the request of the War Department, Congress amended the Selective Service Act in August 1918 to expand the age range to include all men 18 to 45. Suddenly 36-year-old father of 4, David Lester McBride, was draft eligible. He was to report to the Cache County draft board on September 12 to register for the third draft lottery.

The previous January, David and Annie had welcomed their first son into the family, Ward Lester. Ward was only 7 months old at the time of the draft lottery.  I can only imagine the anxiety David and Annie experienced when they heard about the draft. He reported that day and filled out his draft registration card. Here is the card:

While in good health and otherwise eligible, David was not selected. Thankfully, he was allowed to remain home to care and provide for his growing family. They experienced war on the home front. One inventory of typical wartime activities experienced by many Utahns included planting "victory gardens," preserving food, volunteering for work in the beet fields and on Utah's fruit farms, purchasing Liberty Bonds, giving "Four Minute" patriotic speeches, collecting money for the Red Cross, using meat and sugar substitutes, observing meatless days, knitting socks, afghans, and shoulder wraps, weaving rugs for soldiers' hospitals, making posters, prohibiting the teaching of the German language in some schools, and cultivating patriotism at every opportunity.

During these same trying years (1917-1920), an influenza pandemic swept the nation killing an estimated 600,000 Americans. In 1920, the deadly virus claimed the lives of 5-year-old Annie Ruth and 2-year-old Ward Lester. Neta recalled: "When the little kids died, I [was] 7. I can remember when they carried those little things out, and how everyone was so sick.... Mother, seems like that all she did was cry.... She couldn’t get over those kids dying... They’d done something out there on that porch and she wouldn’t ever let us paint over it because she says that was the last finger prints... she’d ever see."

Annie, already prone to anxiety and depression, would never fully recover from this terrible blow. She died in the Utah State Hospital in Provo on 27 October 1932. But that is a subject for another day.

Group Photo at Place de la Concorde in Paris

Once the Timberwolves reached Cologne, their advance halted for a few weeks. At the time, Cologne was Germany's third largest city. It stood on the west bank of the Rhine River, the last natural barrier between the Allies and what they anticipated would be a dagger to the heart of Germany: an attack on the industrial Ruhr region. Lee's battalion captured the small town of Efferen on the approaches to Cologne early in February 1945, then moved into a residential area in the southern part of Cologne on 8 February. While most of the division underwent a rigorous training routine and practiced river crossings in nearby lakes, Grandpa Lee took a trip to Paris. His account of this time reads:

"At this time there became available a number of 3-day passes to Paris. It seemed an opportunity worth accepting and so together with some 50 or so others it was back away from the front to France. It was cold and gray the whole time we were in Paris but it was also interesting to see the many sights—the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Louvre etc. We had a group photo taken at the Place de la Concorde near the Arc de Triumph at the head of the Champs de Elysees."

Here is the photo (courtesy of Marilyn Hansen). Grandpa is the 7th from the right on the front row:

Here is a photo my kids and I took recently at the same fountain. Not much has changed since 1945:

Lee continued: "While 'enjoying' the sights of Paris we received word that a bridge across the Rhine had been captured intact. All passes were cancelled and it was back to Cologne on the first train." This of course was the bridge at Remagen. Upon his return, he joined his battalion in an assembly area near Bad Honnef (a few miles north of Remagen) and on Feb. 23 they crossed the Rhine on pontoon bridges. They were riding the trucks and tanks of the 3rd Armored Division. A fellow member of the 414th described the crossing: "The pontoon bridge over the Rhine was a carnival ride. The pontoon you were on was down in the water, the one in front of you was about 3 or 4 feet above you, and the one behind popped up as soon as you drove off of it."

Battle for Raguhn

The battle of Raguhn was where Lee earned his Silver Star. It is one of the few experiences of which he gives a detailed account. In addition to his account, we have his citation, and a retelling of the battle from the perspective of another Timberwolf, William Bracey, who also participated in the battle. I've done my best to reconstruct the events using these and a few other sources.

Raguhn sits astride the Mulde River, which splits in two channels at Raguhn, creating a substantial island in the center of the town. The portion of the town to the west of the river channels had been taken the previous day by a coordinated air-armor-infantry attack in which another company of 2nd Battalion 414th Regiment had participated. F Company "entered the city late in the afternoon and found a small tank repair crew with two partially disabled tanks already there." The Battalion CO, Maj. John Melhop ordered F Company to remain in Raguhn the evening of the 16th while some of the other units continued their mopping up of the area.

According to fellow platoon member Tom Lacek, the strength of F Company was about thirty men, down from a full complement of 180. Lee’s platoon had fared better than some—there were still about nine platoon members—but they were feeling decimated. At the time, 2nd Battalion was still attached to the 3rd Armored Division, and had been riding tanks from town to town in coordinated combat. They found a house near the railroad tracks, that run north-south parallel to the river on the western of side Raguhn and settled in for what they hoped would be a peaceful night.

They were in for a rude awakening. They were notified by the Battalion that intelligence indicated a German counterattack in the making. Raguhn and nearby towns Thurland (six miles to the west) and Siebenhausen, (about five miles south) were the focus of the counterattack late that night. The 2nd Battalion CP in Thurland was completely overrun, and the troops quartered in Raguhn were almost completely surrounded.

William Bracey of H Company (the only other company in town) was among the first who was aware that the attack had reached them. He heard shouting in German outside his door at No. 4 Markesche Strasse, on the western outskirts of town at about 3:00 the morning of the 17th. He reported that about “about 50 German infantrymen came by the doorway, in single file, close enough that I could have reached out and touched them.” He and his comrades were not detected because they had parked their Jeeps and half-track on the north and south sides of No. 4 behind high fences.

The map below shows the location of No. 4 in Raguhn, just east of the railway. Further to the east, you'll see the several branches of the Mulde:

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Word of the counterattack quickly reached the F Company men. As Lee put it: “Much to our chagrin we awakened in the morning to find ourselves, one infantry platoon plus the tank mechanics, surrounded by the enemy—cut off from our support.”

Lee’s “platoon leader at the time was unable to function due to battle fatigue.” As Assistant Platoon leader, Tech Sgt. McBride assumed command of the platoon. “We made [the Platoon leader] comfortable in a basement and went out to see what needed doing.” As a later citation recorded: “[Lee] voluntarily left his covered position and assumed command of a platoon which was attempting to dislodge the enemy from his newly won positions. After a fierce fight, during which he constantly exposed himself to withering enemy fire, Sergeant McBride’s men were surrounded by the superior enemy force.” Lee put it more modestly: “It was routine work clearing the enemy from all of the buildings in town with the exception of a large factory.”

It is apparent that this house-to-house fighting, though routine, was no walk in the park. Tom Lacek recalled that they were “up all night,” repelling the German counterattack. Bracey observing the action from the windows of his house added, “Our F Company riflemen soon engaged the Germans, forcing them into a factory, and house across the street from the factory.”

The factory was “a brick building of one story located at the extreme edge of town adjacent to open fields. The enemy command post was located in this building and the German troops were ‘dug in’ in the fields surrounding the town.” It was apparently very close to the house on Markesche Strasse.

Since an infantry attack on the factory would have a been a dangerous and costly endeavor, the F Company doughs decided to “bring one of the tanks down to the building as a persuasive force.” The tanks were several blocks from the factory, just east of the railroad tracks. McBride contacted the tank mechanics, who “were very reluctant to get involved but finally agreed to bring the better of the two tanks along and see if it could be of help.” He then “courageously ran a gauntlet of enemy fire to lead [the] tank forward.” According to his account, the then “positioned the tank close to a window of the building and placed the muzzle of the cannon directly facing the window. Fortunately there was nothing wrong with that part of the tank and we sent a round into the building. The shrapnel ricocheting about the inside of that building must have been somewhat disconcerting to the German officers inside. Another invitation to surrender was tendered. This time they offered to leave the town and take all their people from the fields about the town with them.”

Bracey, after attempting unsuccessfully to help clear the Germans from the house across from the factory, returned to No. 4 and watched the situation unfold: “Our tank moved into position to fire on the factory and house. At this point, a white flag appeared, and through an interpreter, the Germans asked for safe passage through our line to their positions on the island and east bank of the Mulde River.” According to Bracey's account, Lee, who was directing the fire of the tanks, replied: “What the hell do they think we are playing—checkers? Tell them to surrender or we’ll blow up the factory and them with it!”

Lee’s continues humorously: “We refused their generous offer and presented them with another round or two of fire from the big gun on the tank. After the reverberations died down we again invited them and all their men from the surrounding fields to join us with hands behind their heads. This time they agreed that might be a good idea after all and proceeded to line up the entire unit in the courtyard” across the street from the factory to the north.

They “sent to the basement room where we had left our platoon leader and had him come to accept the surrender of over a hundred German troops.” Lee noted: “You see, I was leading the platoon [but] as a non-commissioned officer was not worthy to accept the surrender of the German officers and their men.” Lee was awarded a Silver Star for this action, which he insisted, “should have gone to the platoon, not the Platoon Sergeant.” Here is the citation in full:

After the counterattack was squelched Major Melhop returned in a jeep to Raguhn where he found things under control thanks to the quick thinking and dash of those few remaining F Company members. Melhop took pictures of the large number of German bodies that had been placed in open graves victims of the house-to-house fight. The following is one of those pictures:

Sons of the Servants of St. Bridget

The McBride's were an early Scottish clan. Many of these clans looked to a patron saint as a source of unity. Our clan adopted St. Bridget as their patron. Who was St. Bridget? Bridget was a famous Abbess of Kildare, Ireland. She died in 525 A.D. This is the entry on St. Bridget in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

St. Bridget arrived in Ireland a few years after St. Patrick. Her father was an Irish lord named Duptace. As Bridget grew up, she became holier and more pious each day. She loved the poor and would often bring food and clothing to them. One day she gave away a whole pail of milk, and then began to worry about what her mother would say. She prayed to the Lord to make up for what she had given away. When she got home, her pail was full! Bridget was a very pretty young girl, and her father thought that it was time for her to marry. She, however, had given herself entirely to God when she was very small, and she would not think of marrying anyone. When she learned that her beauty was the reason for the attentions of so many young men, she prayed fervently to God to take it from her. She wanted to belong to Him alone. God granted her prayer. Seeing that his daughter was no longer pretty, her father gladly agreed when Bridget asked to become a Nun. She became the first Religious in Ireland and founded a convent so that other young girls might become Nuns. When she consecrated herself to God, a miracle happened. She became very beautiful again! Bridget made people think of the Blessed Mother because she was so pure and sweet, so lovely and gentle. They called her the "Mary of the Irish."

 A story, I'm sure, that loses nothing in the telling. The clan was so zealous in their devotion to St. Bridget that it came to define them. They were known as the Gillebride, in other words "Servants of Bridget" or "Followers of Saint Bridget," "gille" being a Gaelic word for "servant," and "bride" a contracted form of "Bridget." Clan surnames like this (with the word "servant" or "devotee" followed by the name of a saint) were fairly common. Their descendants were often known as Macgillbride (or the Irish equivalent "Mac Giolla Bhride"), or "Sons of the Followers of Bridget," and eventually McBride. I imagine the the celibate Bridget might have rankled at the idea of this group calling themselves "Sons of Bridget." Libelous!

Dictionaries of patronymic names suggest that the following additional names are all variations on this theme: Mac Bride, St. Bridget, McBrides, Mac Brides, Mc Bryde, Bride, Brides, Bridget, Bridgets, Bryget, Bryde and Brydes, Mac Kilbride, Killbride, Bridie, Brydie, Bridey, and McBryd. The McBride name in its current formulation (if not exact spelling--"McBryd") originated in 1329 in Scotland.