One Green Leaf

About the Book

During the 19th century, thousands of poor Irish who immigrated to the United States had one overriding goal in mind: freedom! This is the story of two of those Hibernians and their families. Unknown to each other, they were John Cain and Patrick Butler. At 24, John Cain left his home in County Offaly, Ireland, and risking the perils of a terrifying voyage, came to America in 1844, just one year before the infamous potato famine in the land of his birth. Nearly penniless in the early years, he worked from dawn to dusk as a laborer before getting the opportunity to do what he loved and felt he did best: farming. At first, he rented some land to farm in central Illinois, but in time, with encouragement from local bank officials, he purchased a small amount of land for himself, to which he steadily added acreage as soon as his savings would warrant it. Though his life was built on sacrifice, no small amount of his success was attributable to Bridget, the daughter of his dear friends, Denis and Winnifred Hanrahan. She became his wife and the mother of their 10 children. If one could say that John worked hard - - and indeed he did - - then Bridget worked harder. The first one up, before dawn, she rarely rested for a moment throughout the day, and was the last to bed at night. A model of frugality, she saw to it that the family clothing was worn, patch upon patch, until it was almost threadbare, and the supper menu was mush and milk, night after night, year after year. The dominant characteristics of the 10 Cain children were as varied as the colors in a kaleidoscope: Mary, serenely mature; Margaret, beautiful; James, intellectual; John, quick-tempered and fast-acting; Rose, witty; Winnie, mournful but virtuous; Austin, steadfast; Elizabeth, sunny and long-suffering; Tom, fun-loving; and Harriet, artistic and urbane. All had their own agenda and each had a story to tell. To their biological brood of 10, the Cains added five more when they became foster parents to five orphans. All 15 children were treated equitably. When they achieved, they were praised; when they transgressed, they were punished. Every one of them, Bridget would say, was a gift from God. Through droughts, blizzards, summer hail storms and chinch bugs, John held on, staying “in the black” and eventually acquiring 500 acres of land and 90 head of purebred Aberdeen Angus cattle, along with some Poland China hogs, a flock of sheep, and of course, a stable of draft horses as well as two saddle mares. Further, he built a beautiful country home, stocked a 10-acre orchard and lived up to his reputation as a preeminent farmer in the central part of the State. In 1870, at the age of 20, Patrick Butler left his home in Ballymacarberry, County Waterford, Ireland, and after suffering the tortures of traveling steerage, arrived in the New World on a vessel that docked in Canada. From there, he made his way to the home of the family of his good friend, Bernie Lonergan, who had made the voyage to America a couple of years earlier. The town was Jacksonville, Illinois, where Patrick would settle, only five miles away from the farm of John Cain. Even poorer than Cain in the beginning, Patrick struggled to find work and then to subsist on a meager wage. But patience and prayer paid off. With a tip from Bernie, he got a job firing the furnace at the Gas House for a salary of $1.10 a day. Conscientious, diligent and dedicated, he worked his way up through the years to the status of supervisor. His marriage to Eliza Daley produced a baby daughter, Kathryn, but ended in tragedy. His second marriage to Elizabeth White was a thriving union, blessed by the birth of seven children – three boys and four girls – who in chronological order were named Mary, Patrick, Thomas, Elizabeth, John, Marguerite and Helen. Like the Cain children, each was a book waiting to be written. With a schedule that was much like that of Bridget Cain, Elizabeth was up before dawn each day to mother her

About the Author

Margaret Cain Duffner, a Midwestern American of Irish heritage, holds a B.A. degree from MacMurray College and an M.A. degree from Northwestern University where she also studied for a doctorate. Married for over 60 years to John Duffner, an attorney (ret.), she is the mother of six children. Her early teaching career in Illinois was resumed later in the East when she became a speech teacher at university of Virginia and George Mason University. As the first speech professor at George Mason University, she pioneered that curriculum, and founded GMU Intercollegiate Forensics; she was named Teacher of the year in 1974. Her writings have appeared in popular periodicals and professional journals.