Settling in America, I was told by my Grandmother Esther Mahoney, that the family prospered selling groceries and sundries in Wilkes Barre. She said Mahoney and Co. competed with the "Company Stores" run by the mining companies. She would sing a song from childhood about people selling their souls to the company store. Apparently the miners would get credit for their purchases which was repaid to the Mining Co. every payday, leaving many continually indebted. She would tell me stories, painting a picture of life in Wikles Barres straight from MGM and films like "Meet Me in St. Louis". I would listen to her tell the same stories over and over again when visiting her on weekends with Dad. The Mahoney's and the Lueder's took firm swift hold of their new American identity, divorcing themselves fully from any connections to the old world. I have no understanding of how that took place. I often wondered why we weren't Catholic. Grandmother never talked about it. All she said was that we were O'Mahoney's before coming to America from Cork. It appears that the family joined the First Baptist Church and remained Protestant till my conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 2007.
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