THE SPRING FAMILY PAGE

At the top of the page are the seven immediate descendants of Arthur and Margaret Spring, whose biographies are included on this page, are pictured above from left to right: Francese, Meg(Margaret (in lap) Justin, Judy, Arthur( deceased), Jimmy (seated), Michael (seated). Circa 1955

BEFORE YOU GET STARTED, YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE ON THE SPRING FAMILY. WE'RE UNDER IRISH SPRINGS.

And before you get too wrapped up in these fancy stepping Star Wars Gestapo guys, I'd like to remind  those  of you who  think they're not going to get yanked off the stage any time soon that  the indifferent gods could yank you just like that. Just they took Elvis one night when he was whistling on the crapper. 

So it might be wise to get to know a bit about the elaborate  zoo you came from, the history of which is contained in this blog, so at least you'll have a  story other than your own to tell on the other side,  whether it be to Dios or El Diablo.

Love

Uncle Justin

Some new stuff as of Jan 2016:

Here is a picture of the kids of Laura and Anastasia Drohan who are our relatives in Panama.

The little boy and 2 brunettes are Anastasia's children and the 2 blonde older kids are Laura's






Some new stuff as of February 2015

New pictures of my son JD 
and his all-knowing dog,
Franklin

Some new stuff as of November 2014

Here is Melina Typaldos, Nancy's daughter, who is a jewelry designer, speaking at a conference. Some time after I recieved this photo, Melina suddenly died of a heart attack in 2015. 

These are some momentos of Jimmy and Barb's family visit in 2014 to see our relatives in Ireland.

Drohan coat of arms

Spring coat of arms

Here is Jimmy's description of the families:

Here are ... pics of the Spring home which was built in 1800..it originally was just three rooms ...two bedrooms and a living/cooking room with a large fireplace for cooking and had a thatched roof and all the kids plus parents lived there and was stone outside...only one part of the old structure is still  there and the rest has been renovated by Michael Spring OBrien and he lives there now with his wife....


interesting fact about the Springs and Drohans....all the Spring children (our grandfather Michael was one) but one left Ireland and all of the Drohan children stayed in Ireland but our grandfather Patrick...which is why we have so many Drohan relatives still in Ireland....Patrick who hosted us had 13 in his family but 4 have passed...Kathleen Spring O'Brien who hosted us has 6 other brothers and sisters...

The Drohan reunion...lunch at Geri's farm/estate in Currick on Suir...the first is the lunch, with Oona Drohan, Jenn, Kim, Michael Drohan, Michele, Patrick Drohan, Geri Drohan and me;  the second is Geri and her husband Peter, the third is Jim Drohan, the oldest Drohan and one of the Farrell women (mother was a Drohan) and Mike's son at a relative's pub in Currick on Suir, (Michael is in the blue shirt), the fourth is me and Alice Drohan, a sweet lady quick to tears, the fifth is Suzanne and Auden in the house in Lismore...Barbara will post all her pics on facebook..

Some pics...the first is the Springs...Marie, Kathleen and at the end Maire Chau one of Kathleen's daughters....the second is at Ella's house (Patrick's friend) for dinner...Michael Drohan is next to Kim and Patrick is behind Michele and Ella is next to Michele...

love,

Jim

Here are some movies of the families

Here are some pics of Margaret's trip to Japan for Monterrey Aquarium in sept 2014 

Here is a slide show of margaret on the aquarium research vessel in 2014. Margaret is on the left, Art on the right

Here´s a new 2014 

Paul Spring video

A Note from Justin.

I have been concerned from time to time about the small, almost negligible response from my brothers and sisters as well as their children and my own children for entries to  this Family Page, which I started some years ago.

It seems I didn't know that FACEBOOK had become the new place to rub noses, especially those of friends you've  never met. However, I am not one to endlessly bitch and do nothing, so I long ago I decided to join  forces with this questionable trendiness by supplying links to all the FACEBOOK pages of family members.

Yet  it now seems that my concerns were somewhat premature, as I've just received submissions from some of the younger Springs as well as  from some older family members, distant and somewhat peculiar cousins of mine who discovered the Spring Family Page through Google.

I have put Paul Spring's here at the beginning them here, and the other submissions from distant relatives at the end of the Spring Family Page, in the hope of encouraging an even larger and continuing response.

PAUL SPRING

PAUL IS ONE OF MY BROTHER ART'S MANY CHILDREN. 

HE IS ALSO A GIFTED COMPOSER/SINGER TRYING TO MAKE  HIS WAY THROUGH THE DISMAL SWAMP OF THE  MUSIC BUSINESS. 

HE IS THE REAL THING, AND DESERVES YOUR SUPPORT. ORDER A FEW CDs FOR STARTERS.

 Click here to go to his web page,

http://www.paulspringmusic.com

 You can see and hear his music and concerts, both solo and with his band. Also buy a CD online.

Here is what the critics say about Paul.  

"This isn’t a mediocre collection of slapped together ditties that someone dreams is actually an album. This is a series of compositions covering a broad range of styles and emotions that hang together like a Mozart concerto." - John Ziegler (Duluth News Tribune)


"Paul Spring is a heartfelt and soulful songwriter whose voice is unpretentious and sincere. His debut album is one of my favorite records of the year." - Jason Orris (The Terrarium)

 

Check out Paul Spring...with winning energetic melodies similar to Pete Yorn–plus seriously powerful guitar leads to top it off. Play “Jackson Pollock” and you’ll already feel a summer road trip coming on. -Verily

 

"Chill tunes, passionate lyrics and a sweet sound make Spring a must-see:" - Peninsula Pulse

 


“A personal favorite, local Springsteen-goes-indie folk-rocker Paul Spring somewhere between Van Morrison, George Harrison and Cake from Paul Spring and his band” - Freeish

 

The music is excellent all around! It has top notch production quality…There are sweet guitar solos, beautiful ballads, spine-tingling coming of age songs, poetic references (Wallace Stevens!), and groovy drum and bass beats. Paul Spring has sprung.
-A Draught of Vintage

 

end paul spring

end new submissions

Justin Spring's YOUTUBE Videos on his brothers and sisters and their offspring and relatives can be seen by clicking here.

 
My Video Dreamstories about family births , deaths, and marriages can be seen by clicking here:
  

I have also reorganized the family Youtube videos into playlists. 

Here is the link to the overall playlist
 






A poem for Father Joe

You Have To Change Your Eyes.For Father Joe Drohan, d. April 22, 2005

Sometimes in my dreams, Joe,
we are standing at the gates of Heaven.
Your mother and your brothers and sisters

are all standing on the other side, waiting

for you, like actors in a play. There is

a man standing next to your mother

who looks exactly like you,

but dimmer.

Your eyes shine

whenever you look at him. I can feel you

starting to pass over. You tell me

when you do, the one who looks like you

will become brighter, and then the two of you

will become one person, forever, again.
You say to me: "I know you think
I'm imagining all this,

but I'm not imagining anything.
All of this is real. Love makes it real.
Love makes everything real, Justin.
Everything. Even this.
You have to change your eyes."

 

THE LATEST STUFF
ON THE FAMILY



HERE'S A DIARY AND PHOTOS FROM UNCLE JIMMY AND AUNT BARBARA'S 
TRIP TO BANKOK  IN 2012 TO SEE DAUGHTER MICHELLE 

Bangkok Trip

Thursday   2/2/12

We arrived in Bangkok at midnight after a 29 hour plane ride. Michele met us at the airport and we took a taxi back to her apartment in the Ari section of Bangkok. Her apartment is in an upscale Thai neighborhood…mostly Thai live there….beautiful apartment…gated, marble floors and steps, antiques in lobby…she is on the 4^th floor…large spacious apartment 3 bedrooms and 3 baths, kitchen, large living/dining room and 4 balconies….beautiful….We had a beer on her living room balcony and then hit the hay.

Friday 2/3/12

We got up at 10 AM and hung around the apartment.  Michele was at work so we took a walk on Soi 5 down to a little plaza with a Starbucks and other cafes. We went to a local café, Dessert Café and had coffee and then walked around the area for a few hours which included many open markets on little side streets. One of the unique things about Bangkok is their sidewalks. On the secondary streets, they are very narrow, have  low overhanging tree branches and are made up of uneven blocks…one must always be careful not to trip, bang into a branch or, since traffic goes the opposite way in Thailand, very carefully look behind you if you have to step off to let someone going the other way pass.  On the major streets and avenues, the sidewalks are still made up of uneven blocks but are much wider…but that width is quickly eliminated by never ending food and merchandise carts that open early in the morning and stay open to late in the evening…food is such a big thing in Bangkok……one cannot walk anywhere without being enveloped in the aroma of cooking..rice, fish, eels, pork, veggies…thousands of little entrepreneurs…captivating…such hard working people…so on the major streets with less than half left for walking, the walker must still be watchful for other walkers, motor scooters going either way or occasionally a car …there is no such thing as a leisurely day dreaming walk in Bangkok….on the side alleys where you find the teeming outdoor markets, Michele says late at night (1 AM), they are teeming with rats……Bangkok’s street sweepers…and they all work together and live together and it works in a peaceful manner…..amazing and in a way charming.

Michele got home around 5 PM and we went for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, Tum Road. Michele ordered for us and we had a great dinner (6 courses) and local beers and a great waitress named Poi who treated us like royalty. Just Thai go here, so thank God Michele spoke Thai.

After dinner we went to the NaNa district of Bangkok. A hopping place filled with massage parlors, bars, sex clubs, etc.  Michele took us to Soi 4 and Annie’s bar where we played pool and drank beer and to Soi 11 and had a beer at the Van bar (a Volkswagen Van) and then went to Soi Cowboy in Asok and the famous sex clubs.  We walked up and down the street and the energy was palpable…so was the sadness or blank stare of many of  the young women standing outside the clubs…we did not go in but did not have to go in to the clubs to get a sense of the street.  A great evening…..so much life, excitement, diverse crowds….so much to take in. Traffic is unreal…..scooters drive on the sidewalk…traffic is so thick and constant, they have walkways up and over the main streets or you’d never get across. Scooter’s, cabs and tuk tuk’s everywhere. But no one honks and all seem patient. Got home around midnight and had a beer on the balcony and then hit the beds.

Saturday, 2/4/12

Got up around 9 AM, had breakfast, got coffee and Michele’s favorite coffee stand and then took the metro to the Stadium area of Bangkok. Got off and had a one hour foot massage for $10 and then took a river taxi up the river which was very crowded and very busy and very choppy waters. Hopped off the river taxi and took a one hour private river canal tour of the back canals of Bangkok. Bangkok at one time was like Venice…all canals and no roads….it is only 1 foot above sea level. But the British filled in many of the canals and made streets.   The  tour was amazing…down narrow canals, through locks, passing crowded shacks and mansions, kids swimming in the canals, crocodiles swimming in the canals, some temples. Got a feel for old Bangkok. Boat was amazing, long and narrow with upturned bow and aft, no life jackets and seemed a little unstable but such is Bangkok. Then we landed back at the dock, had lunch at a small cafe on the pier and then headed for the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. Have to be careful…imposters in Tourist police uniforms try to get you to buy things or go on trips because the temples are closed…..not true.  Michele knows of these things and she just ignored them and off we went to the closed temple which was in fact open. The Temple was beyond words or western experiences.  Forty temples and shrines make up the complex…stunning jewels, gold life sized Buddha’s, artwork. Besides the huge reclining Buddha, we saw over 800 life size gold Buddha’s…the number and magnitude takes your breath away. Then about 5 PM we headed over to the Deck Restaurant and at on the 3^rd floor deck to have beers and watch the sunset over the river and watched Wat Arun light up by the river…magnificent and magical. Then we took a taxi home to Ari and went to Tum Road restaurant for another great meal ordered by Michele and served by Poi. A phenomenal six course meal for us 3 that fills you up (plus 2 beers each) comes to $31. Then we headed back to Michele’s apartment and sat on her balcony and drank and talked for 2 hours before going to bed.

Sunday 2/5/12

Got up at 8 AM, had breakfast and coffee and around 11 AM we headed out to the huge outdoor market at Mo Chit in Bangkok. The train was packed…always is but there is no odor despite the heat…Michele say the Thai complain about how we smell. Thai are small and big, seem a blend…woman are beautiful….many old western men come here to get a young wife…see many of those couples throughout Bangkok….never seen such short skirts and such high heels…..not sure how they don’t fall…..When we got to Mo Chit, there were thousands of people and hundreds upon hundreds of stands from food, to clothing, to Buddha’s, to furniture, jewelry…you name it and it is there and bargain is the name of the game. We stayed for several hours and then headed back to Ari and stopped at a Thai cafe for ice cream and coffee before getting to Michele’s apartment.  We went out for a foot massage near Michele’s apt at 5 PM and then we came back and Michele went running down at the stadium.  On her way home, she stopped at a stand and bought rice and pork and some meat on skewers and we sat on the balcony and ate and drank Singh and Chang beers late into the night and enjoyed a wonderful conversation. Then we packed out bags and went to bed to rise early at 5 AM the next day for our plane to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Monday 2/6/12

Arrived by Thai airlines in Phnom Penh at 9 AM. We took a taxi to Circa 51 hotel which is on 51^st and 222. The cab driver had lost both his parents and his 2 brothers and one sister in the Killing Fields…he was the only survivor. Pol Pot killed 3 million of the 8 million Cambodians. Phnom Penh is enthralling…one million people, few tall buildings very spread out. Only 5 or 6 traffic lights in the entire city and no stop or yield signs…most traffic is motor scooter…carrying from one to 5 people (mom, dad, 3  kids)…one could either describe it as utter chaos or a symphony as you watch people drive cars, trucks, scooters, bikes, walk, enter, merge, cross, turn, stop, some going the wrong way, some drive on the sidewalk…I prefer a symphony….somehow it works…no one honks their horn…no one gets angry…Cambodia is 95% Buddhist….Circa  51 is wonderful….small, quaint…pool, dog, turtles,…..we have a second floor suite with our own balcony….breakfast comes with the room…staff treats you like family…takes care of you…

Took a tuk tuk to Wat Phnom which is a shrine built to Buddha by a woman in 1500 and is where Phnom Penh began….then we went to a Cambodian restaurant near the Royal Palace and had a great meal and Angkor beer and then our tuk tuk driver took us to the Royal’s Palace and Silver Pagoda…unreal…..so much beauty and history…Michele had to buy a tee shirt to go in since she had bare shoulders…the King still lives in the complex…then the tuk tuk driver took us back to Circa 51 and we rested…went out again at 4:30 and our tuk tuk driver took us to the FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) overlooking the river…drank $1 Angkor pints at the open air  bar on the 2^nd floor as we overlooked the teeming streets, sidewalks and fairly calm and unbusy river…..was carried back 40 years sitting there…could imagine the Vietnam War going on as newspaper reporters met there to trade and write stories…was magical…sat and drank for 2 hours and Michele took us to the Latin Quarter Restaurant for dinner…a great meal of tapas…took a tuk tuk home and in bed by 10 PM

Tuesday  2/7/12

Up at 7 AM, had a wonderful breakfast by the pool and then our new tuk tuk driver who primarily works for hotel guests, Tony, took us to the Killing Fields and then to S 21…Tony was great and made us feel very safe on crowded and dirty streets teeming with traffic and people… the ride to the Killing Fields was long and through the poorest streets of Phnom Penh…so raw, so chaotic, so alive , so tactile…so beautiful in its own way….overwhelms the senses….Tony  became part of our family  and we  were sad to leave him…

One cannot describe the Killing Fields…you have to experience it and the audio tour....it overwhelms you with sadness and shame for the US was instrumental in allowing Pol Pot to come to power and we supported him long after he was ousted by North Vietnam three years after he came to power and after he had killed 3 million Cambodians….we took only 2 pictures of the entire tour of the Killing Fields..the sadness and cruelty in the air prevented you from taking the camera out…did not seem right… The Khmer Rouge did not want to waste bullets so they killed people by beating them to death, cutting the throats or torturing them to death…so barbaric it is hard to believe but it is true…teeth and bones still come up from the mass graves and we saw some….Pol Pot drove everyone out of the cities…Phnom Penh became a ghost town…he killed all but 50 doctors in all of Cambodia  plus most teachers….he killed entire families or someone because he wore glasses…two of his sayings:  “better to kill an innocent person than to allow a guilty person to live” and “to kill a plant, you must also kill the roots(children)”

Then we went to S 21 which is an old high school right downtown Phnom Penh…this was the center for torture….only 7 people survived S 21…horrible things happened here….so cruel…often people were tortured here for weeks and then sent to the Killing Fields….the day left us emotionally spent…..

Tony took us back to Circa 51 and then took us to Saffron, a Pakistani restaurant owned by Circa 51, and we had a quiet lunch…walked back to Circa 51, rested and then Tony took us to FCC for happy hour…love that place!!!...then Michele took us by foot to Friends , a restaurant run by former street kids and we had a wonderful dinner, drinks and desert… then took a tuk tuk back to Circa 51 and to bed.

What a 2 days…beyond imagination…you feel like you are eating the marrow of life…no holds barred….the rhythm of life is everywhere as people struggle to live on $66 a month but know they are alive….so happy we got to see Phnom Penh now before it changes and you can see change on the horizon…

Wednesday  2/8/12

Up, had a great breakfast by the pool, said goodbye to Tony our tuk tuk driver  and left at 8am on a van for the bus station…felt sad to leave our Circa 51 family….it was a 6 hour bus trip to Siam Reap……countryside was very poor…mostly large one room shacks on stilts..few windows, no electricity or plumbing…..small rice paddies in front yards…Brahma cattle and Water Buffalo around the yards and by and in the road…school kids, all ages, riding their bikes on the 2 lane highway  to and from school ……a lot of litter around the small towns…maybe from the recent floods…stopped at a large town for lunch and a break and then on to Siam Reap…arrived and took a tuk tuk to our hotel…the Angkor Village on Wat Bo Road…unreal….luxury everywhere…felt like millionaires……rooms surrounded a huge lotus pond….pool…internet…..large, luxurious rooms…..large dining room for breakfast….chocolates on your pillows at night…Barbara was in heaven….went downtown on tuk tuk after we settled in and went to Pub Street  and sat at a local bar outside…had 50 cents Angkor pints and then had dinner in the same place…our waiter was about 18 and was very nice…taught us Cambodian…took care of us for 2 hours….tipping is not a practice in Cambodia or Thailand…part of the bill…gave our waiter $5 and you would have thought it was $500….great evening…left this bar and went to Molly Malone’s and had 3 more…great conversation…so wonderful…took a tuk tuk home and the driver got lost…..Michele managed to get us home…whew….off tomorrow at 6 AM for Angkor Wat…

Thursday 2/9/12

Up at 5:30 AM, had breakfast by the lotus pond, then met our tuk tuk driver, Sophat, and at 6:30 AM headed for Angkor Wat…..was a 30 minute ride to the gates.. bought our all day tickets for $20 each and then walked into the temple ruins…massive, ornate, unreal, mystical…wall carvings are beyond imaginations…scope and size of temple is overwhelming….was originally an Hindu temple, then became Hindu and Buddhist…steps to the temple’s towers are very narrow, very, very steep….people crawled up them…do not know how they did it and not fall backwards…even the new wood ones we climbed, less steep and wider steps, were very scary…spent over 2 hours in Angkor Wat and as we left and walked along the road to meet up with Sophat, we encountered monkeys all along the dirt road…found Sophat waiting for us and then off to the Bayon, then to Ta Prohm, then to the Terrace of the Elephants  and finally to Phnom Bekheng…

Bayon has 4 towers and 216 giant carved faces of Avabkitesharva…it was built in 1200…very narrow halls…had to stoop to walk through them…very intricate….

Ta Prohm  is a massive ruins entangled in the jungles…trees are ancient and huge….roots look like granite…hard to believe they are wood….massive trees growing on top of temple walls as roots reach down the walls to the ground….like an Indiana Jones fantasy..was where Lara Croft (Angelie Jolie) movie was filmed…the road to Ta Prohm is tree lined and peaceful….

Phnom Bekheng is on top of a mountain and was built in 900’s…15 -20 minute walk up the mountain to get to it..can take an elephant if you want…can see the entire valley from the top…Angkor Wat rises in the horizon….

Sophat took us to a nice restaurant near Angkor Wat and had a nice lunch and then back to the hotel around 3 PM…swam, showered, Sophat took us to a foot massage place, then dropped us off at the market and Pub Street…had drinks at the Red Piano…sat in an open bar on the second floor overlooking the teeming streets…was back in the 1940’w..surreal….Mom and Michele had the Angelie Jolie special named after her since she spent a lot of time here…then went for the famous Cambodian BBQ at a small Cambodian restaurant down a back alley…..you cook your own meat…had pork, crocodile, squid, beef and chicken, soup and veggies….your personal hibachi is right in front of you…Sakeo, our diminutive waitress helped us a lot....so nice, so shy …then we went to Molly Malone’s for nightcaps and then a tuk tuk  back to the hotel by 10 PM.

Friday 2/10/12

Slept in til 8 AM and then had a great breakfast by the lotus pond…a leisurely morning…Michele and Barbara went with Sophat…Michele for a foot massage and Barbara to a museum…then they came back to get me and Sophat took us to the market for some shopping….had lunch at the Red Piano and then back to the hotel to drop stuff off and then Sophat took Barbara and I to Wat Bo, one of the oldest active temples  in Siam Reap…a monk let us in and we donated and prayed and then Sophat took us to Wat Dam Nak, the former Royal Palace…now an institute for Khmer Studies and also a temple….stunning place…students all over the place….inspiring…then Sophat took us back to the hotel and Barbara and Michele went for a bike ride around Siam Reap…they came back and then after cleaning up, Sophat took us downtown to Pub Street and we said goodbye to him for the day…Barbara and Michele had a Fish Massage where they put their feet in a large fish tank and the fish eat away their dead skin….one tank had small fish and one tank had large fish..a lot of laughs and two other Western couples joined them…laughed a lot…Michele tried both tanks…..then we went to the Red Piano second floor and had drinks…like this place as much as FCC in Phnom Penh..always takes me back 60 years to another time..watched a magician perform on the street…..then went to the Khmer Traditional Restaurant in a back alley for a great meal…then we walked to Temples to watch Apsara dancing…traditional Cambodian Folk dancing…costumes were beautiful, as were the men and women, and Barbara was right up by the stage taking pictures and enjoying every minute of it…magical..stayed for 4 performances….then we took a tuk tuk home, I went to bed and Michele and Barbara had a nightcap at the bar….

Saturday  2/11/12

Up at 6:30 AM, a relaxing breakfast by the lotus pond, and then Sophat took us to the airport..said goodbye and hopefully Michele will see him again on her trips to Siam Reap for work…arrived in Bangkok around 11 AM and took a cab to Michele’s place…loved listening to Michele talk to the cab driver in Thai…she is very good…I had a somewhat upset stomach, so I stayed home and Michele and Barbara went for a foot massage and then to the gym…then we went to our favorite local restaurant, Tum Road and were waited on by Poi…what a nice person…another exquisite meal ordered by Michele…then home to watch a soccer match between Liverpool vs Manchester United and then to bed….

Sunday 2/12/12

Arose around 8 AM, had breakfast and coffee , did internet and Michele gave us some medicine for our diarrhea…sat around and then Barbara and I headed to Mo Chit and the market around 10:30 AM…took the train there while Michele went for a foot massage….spent two hours at the market…huge, very hot, teeming with people, food smells, goods of all and any kind….love it for it is Bangkok in a small place…diverse, active, teeming, friendly…left the market, took the train back to Ari, had coffee and pastry at a Starbucks and then walked home… Michele was relaxing by the pool and will rest until we leave at 4 PM for her soccer game….

We left at 4 PM for the soccer complex…took the train and then a cab to a large roofed soccer complex…near where the bombs went off the next day….5 fields each about ½ the size of a regular field…..about 25 guys and Michele showed up and Michele  played 3 full games nonstop over the 2 hour period…despite being the only woman invited to play in this league, Michele was clearly one of the ten best players on the 3 fields…..she had a lot of respect from a lot of the players and they gave her no quarter….Alex, an outstanding  23 year old Russian player told us what a good soccer player Michele was…it was great to get to see Michele play again…she sees the game so well and is so fast….after the 2 hours, everyone was spent and exhausted and we took a cab home, stopped at Tum Road restaurant and got take out and went home, ate and had some beers…we tried to Skype Suzanne, Kim, Jenn and Auden but the internet was balky and had to give up after about 15 minutes of start and stop….sat and talked for a while on the balcony and then hit the hay around 10 PM….

Monday 2/13/12

Michele went to work early and we got up around 8 AM, had breakfast and relaxed…then about 10:30 we went to the supermarket and then over to where Michele worked (AFRIMS). She showed us around AFRIMS and then we went to lunch at her favorite place..a Thai stand where a woman makes phenomenal soup…a hearty meal I itself…Michele went back to work and we headed out by train and foot to the Snake Farm….was hard to find but we persevered…..spent two hours there..was amazing and very informative….it is part of a hospital and where they get a lot of the venom for treating snake bites.

We headed home and Michele got home around 4:30 PM…We left for happy hour on top of Centara Restaurant which is on the 56th floor overlooking Bangkok…you sit on large chairs by the railing in the open air as the sun sets and the lights come on all over Bangkok..beautiful…after happy hour we went to Cabbages and Condoms for dinner…great place to eat near Na Na down a side alley…the tables are outdoors in a fenced yard amid lush vegetation…all the lamps shades and decorations are made out of condoms..the restaurant has been a major force in spreading birth control throughout Bangkok…..has immensely helped AIDS and the birth rate….then we walked to Annie’s on Soi 4 for a beer…pool tables were all taken so we headed home after our beer and hit the beds.

Tuesday 2/14/12

Our last day in Thailand…did our packing, washed, had breakfast, did internet….then we went to the supermarket….Michele came home from work early  and at 3 PM all three of us went for a foot/body massage…went home and relaxed and then went to Tum Road and Poi for our last meal…another superb meal thanks to Michele ordering…went home sat on the balcony and had a few beers and hit the beds around 8 PM…we got up at 2 AM, went by cab with Michele to the airport, checked in, said our good byes to Michele and left with a thousand warm memories and a  trip of a lifetime…wish we had stayed a month!!!!

END OF 2012 TRIP TO  BANKOK.








KELBY'S 2012 BASEBALL SEASON
HIGH SCHOOL AND AMERICAN LEGION

THIS IS A YOUTUBE PLAYER CONTAINING 14 VIDEOS OF KELBY PITCHING DURING THE 2012 SEASON

Click here
for the latest

mind-blowing video
on 2010 Kelby Spring
pitching and hitting.







THE LATEST ARRIVAL: MICHAEL AND CHRISTINE'S
COLLIN AKA ELVIS DEC 2010






JD ( Justin Doyle) SPRING IS NOMINATED FOR NATIONAL BOOK AWARD DEC. 2010
For those who haven't heard about JD's latest book, Secret Historian, and the rave reviews and honors it has received
click here.


The latest Genetic news June 8, 2010
Mike and I have succeeded in tracking our DNA back to the first mother EVE in Africa, 40,000 years ago.

Mike's genes were used to track Dad and mine to track Mom's.

We have the complete tracking back to western Africa but have included only the last 2 tracks for each.

My most interesting observation is that we are somehow related to the 30,000 year old French cave painters on Dad's side and that Mom's side seems to be found in the Basques. A nice mix.

My second observation is that we did a hell of a lot of walking back and forth, which explains the Drohan brothers' penchant for unending walks in Elm Park.

The details are at the end of this blog.

THE LATEST NEWS JUNE 1, 2010

AUNT JUDITH DROHAN OF PANAMA DIES ON MAY 25 , 2010 AFTER A LONG AND FRUITFUL LIFE. SHE WAS MARRIED TO TOM DROHAN, WHO WAS ONE OF MY MOTHER'S FAVORITE BROTHERS.

HERE IS A LINK TO VIDEOS OF THE FUNERAL, WITH EULOGIES BY ANASTASIA AND LAURA DROHAN, THE DAUGHTERS OF MY COUSIN TOMMY, THE SON OF JUDITH.HERE IS A LINK TO SOME GREAT PICTURES OF JONO AND PAT SPRING'S GRADUATION PARTY MAY 30, 2010 IN PITTSBURGH. THEY WERE TAKEN BY LARISA, MY SISTER FRAN'S ELDEST DAUGHTER. JUST CLICK ON "VIEW ALBUM" WHEN YOU GET TO THE PAGE.

 HERE IS ANOTHER LINK TO SOME MORE WACKY PICTURES OF JONO AND PAT SPRING'S GRADUATION PARTY IN PITTSBURGH. THEY WERE TAKEN BY LARISA, MY SISTER FRAN'S ELDEST DAUGHTER. JUST CLICK ON "VIEW ALBUM" WHEN YOU GET TO THE PAGE.

SOME 20 YEAR OLD PIX OF RICK ON THE BEACH;, ME,  MARGIE AND ART IN PANAMA; KELBY AS A WEE ONE



FOR A NEW PHOTO ALBUM FROM MARGARET AND MARK IN FRANCE WHERE THEY LOOK TERRIFIC
CLICK HERE



A MUST-SEE VIDEO

OF THE FABULOUS
ANASTASIA DROHAN IN 1990.
 



THE LATEST HOT STUFF ON THE SPRING'S:
JUST ARRIVED!!

November 2009
I've just added some old home videos of my kids and my life at various stages
in the Justin Spring Section at end of this blog.



 
September, 2009
I've just added some videos of Art Spring jr. teaching the Illiad.
They're wonderful and show Artie at his best.
See them at
 http://www.youtube.com/user/soulspeakfamily 



JUNE 15, 2009
NANCY DROHAN REPORTS
FROM PANAMA THAT
RYAN AND NICOLE'S
NEW BABY GIRL "CRISTINA ISABEL"
CAN BE SEEN
BY CLICKING HERE.





KELBY PITCHES FEB 2009




PHOTO SECTION

Here are some late pictures of Artie and family just before his death.



THESE ARE SOME OF ROSAMOND SPRING'S CERAMIC FIGURES, WHICH SHE MODELS IN CLAY AND THEN FIRED IN A KILN. 

BELOW ARE PHOTOS OF AUDIE, JENN AND SUZANNE'S BABY AS OF JANUARY 2009.

 
THE EYES OF THE WINDOWS OF THE SOUL. NEED I SAY MORE?

Click on the link below to see pictures of Arthur Jr's son Francis and his wife and 3 daughters playing at the beach while visiting Margaret and Mark circa 2008.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bunterspring/SpringsMontereyVisitJune2008?authkey=l4lAZYZ77Q8

Here are some photos of my son Art's son Kelby when he visited Mark and Margaret in August 2008.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bunterspring/KelbyVisitsCAAug2008?authkey=RAxYzhQwbOk

Picture of Kelby Spring's 2008 Winning Baseball Team, Kelby is next to coach, standing top row one from right. The team is rated in the top ten in the entire U.S. in their age group. 

Kelby is a hot lefty pitcher who was coached by his dad and uncle Jim Spring, who was a very hot-shot winning lefty college pitcher in his own day, who says Kelby is doing things with his curve ball that absolutely amazes him.

We're hoping Kelby doesn't forget to send us free tickets when he gets to the big leagues.

 
END PHOTO SECTION

FACEBOOK, MYSPACE LINK SECTION

This section contains links to pages maintained by various family members.

MEMBERS OF MIKE SPRING AND FAMILY
this is mike spring's facebook link 
this is jono spring's facebook link

MEMBERS OF JUSTIN MICHAEL SPRING AND FAMILY
this is justin doyle spring's facebook link 


this is justin michael spring's bio link 

this is margaret spring's facebook link
 



MEMBERS OF ARTHUR SPRING JR AND FAMILY

 this is paul spring's facebook link 

this is rose spring's facebook link 

this is arthur spring's facebook link

 

this is joe spring's facebook link

this is frank spring's facebook link

 This is tom spring's facebook link

 

this is joan spring's facebook link
 

this is margret spring's facebook link
 

this is julie spring's facebook link

 

MEMBERS OF FRANCESE JOHNSON SPRING AND FAMILY
  

 this is karen colabro's facebook link 

this is larisa johnson blake's facebook link

MEMBERS OF JUDITH JOHANSON SPRING AND FAMILY
none



MEMBERS OF MARGARET CHOW SPRING AND FAMILY
 
this is justin chow's facebook link

 this is cristine chow carter's facebook page


MEMBERS OF JAMES SPRING AND FAMILY

this is kimberly spring's facebook link

this is suzanne spring's facebook page





END OF FACEBOOK, MYSPACE LINK SECTION

FAMILY VIDEO SECTION

This section is for special videos made by family members that are not included on YOUTUBE Spring Family page

END FAMILY VIDEO SECTION








Family Poetry Section

This section was created for the inclusion of poems written by / for family members.

Here are some recent written poems belonging to collection I've just published called Poems for Family and Friends.

One of the poems is for my vivacious Panamanian niece, Anastasia Typaldos, on her wedding day; and one is for my Uncle, Father Joe Drohan, the youngest and last to die of my mother's brothers and sisters, and a man who never failed to have something kind and funny to say to his apostate nephew.

I also enclose a poem I wrote many years ago, that explains why I am who I am, but I doubt it will satisify those interested in a more logical answer. It's called Snow Angels.

 
Snow Angels
 
I was six. No, five, I was five: my first snow.
I remember the angel suddenly coming together
and then bleeding out beneath me
like I was turning myself inside out,
and then I remember awakening
to a white field, because the angels
were always a surprise to me,
the way they kept falling in such
peculiar positions, like someone
screaming, or dying.
Like the wings.
Friends would take me aside,
tell me the wings were a bit too much:
Like a Babylonian lion's, really.
Those wings, they'd say.
They were right of course,
but what could I say to them except
I couldn't help it, that my arms
always moved up and down like that
whenever I fell out of heaven.
Sometimes I felt like telling them
maybe it would help
if they thought of the angels
as small relief-maps of my soul,
sudden, uncontrolled curdlings
that occurred whenever I stopped,
opened myself to the sun, or the moon.
And then there were times
I didn't know what to say, except
maybe they should think of the angels
as detailed descriptions of another life.
A life I was living but knew nothing about. 


Anastasia's Getting Married 
For Anastasia and Raul
 
Sometimes in my dreams, Anastasia
we are lost in a forest of light: two small shadows,
slipping along the floor of heaven,
trying to find our way home.
I whisper to you:
"Our bodies are like empty rooms."
You laugh: "Listen to me Tio,
that is because
we have nowhere to go.
Imagine we're not lost.
Imagine we're in a garden where no one gets lost
except God: nobody Tio, not even you.
Now, imagine the shrubs are trimmed
like little geese and little fishes
and that the garden is in Gamboa
and it's Saturday, January the Eighth
in the year of Our Lord Twenty-Two Hundred and Five
and I'm standing at the altar
of La Iglesia Nuestro Senora del Buen Consejo
marrying the dashingly handsome Raul Cochez Maduro
against the desperate wishes
of His Majesty the King of Spain
and the Seven Sorrowful Sisters of Doom,
who are on every street corner,
watching me like flies.
Imagine that if you will".
So I did. I imagined it.
Then I had somewhere to go, Anastasia.
And so did you.


You Have To Change Your Eyes. 
For Father Joe Drohan, d. April 22, 2005

Sometimes in my dreams, Joe,
we are standing at the gates of Heaven.
Your mother and your brothers and sisters

are all standing on the other side, waiting

for you, like actors in a play. There is

a man standing next to your mother

who looks exactly like you,

but dimmer.

Your eyes shine

whenever you look at him.

I can feel you beginning to pass over.

You tell me when you do, the one

who looks like you will become brighter,

and then the two of you will become

one person, forever, again.
You say to me: "I know you think
I'm imagining all this,

but I'm not imagining anything.
All of this is real. Love makes it real.
Love makes everything real, Justin.
Everything. Even this.
You have to change your eyes."

End Family Poetry Section



END HOT STUFF SECTION

The OFFICIAL SEVEN CHILDREN BIOGRAPHY Section

The seven sons and daughters
of
Arthur and Margaret

Arthur John Jr. was born in Worcester in 1938 and lived in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia until the end of World War II when the family moved to Florida. One of his earliest recollections there is of what he recalls as a shack by a swamp in which the family lived until their home was completed in a pasture some miles distant. Justin remembers that house as well. There were mocassins in the swamp and Art remembers preventing Francese from picking one of them up. There lived in the vicinity of the swamp a young boy who had no normal use of his legs, and never stood up. He moved about by using his arms for leverage on the ground. Few other memories remain except walking with Justin in the pasture outside their new home and being amazed by the cow potties in the pasture. 

The family moved from Florida to New York City in an old Packard car which had been bought from a Dr Christie who then came to live across the street from us on Quentin St in the Maritime Base at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Arthur, together with Justin, Fran, Jimmy and perhaps Mike and Judy, but I lose sense of chronology here, attended St Edmund’s School on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, some distance from the Base, attainable only by trolley and bus (or a very long walk) if you missed the school bus. It cost 3 cents to take the trolley with a special student pass. After St Edmund’s, Art went on to St Augustine’s Diocesan High School in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. The school now is a special school for students with autism.

From there he went to Holy Cross in Worcester for a year, and then transferred to Columbia where he majored in English/History. He received a Regents Teaching Fellowship for graduate school after he had accepted a job at the Hackley School, so did both his graduate work and his first year of teaching simultaneously. He taught in the mornings and afternoons and schooled in the late afternoons and Saturday morning. He returned to school for dormitory duties in the evenings. He then worked as Executive Secretary of the Columbia Alumni Association for a year and Blair Academy for three years. This position was relayed to him by two friends who sponsored him—Stan Goldsmith, now a remarkable MD in NYC, and Ira Silverman, a much honored journalist. 


At Blair, Art taught and was moderator for dramatics and public speaking. He took a master’s after graduation and finished it on the day before he left for Peace Corps, thanks to Francese’s patience and willingness to work to all hours of the night. Joe recently recovered the essay from the bowels of Low Library on the Columbia campus and Mary has used it in her teaching.

His Peace Corps assignment was Tunisia in North Africa. One of his most exciting moments there came when the local bank told him that $200 had been forwarded to him there by Justin. He taught for one year at a lycee for young women and one year at a technical school for poor young men. There he met astounding students and faculty. Among them were a student nearly blind who was brilliant and meticulous in all his studies and who sat near the blackboard and squinted his way to success and a Frenchwoman of great compassion who brought hot chocolate to peasant parents taking their children to school for the first time. 

One of his Arabic colleagues-- who was a courageous man-- challenged a corrupt administrator and brought reform to the school. Francese came to visit him in Tunisia and was graciously received there. Art met and subsequently lived beside three remarkable priests, one a former British army chaplain, Laurence Smith, the other, one of the most renowned scholars on Arabic culture, Andre Demeersman, and the third, a librarian and auto didact who devised a way to order the Arabic language, Henri Pelloquin. 

Art then taught at the American Cooperative School of Tunis. He taught 4^th grade there and became the school’s social studies teacher for grades 4 through 8. He lived through one of the Arab Israeli conflicts and watched the torching of sections of Tunis, Tunisia. He was brought into the center of the city by Maltese friends who hid him under a blanket while mobs pounded on the hood of the car: “hamsa fitayeen tiyaara”. It was not the smartest move of his life! He returned home several times to participate in Peace Corps Training Projects at Brown University, Bisbee Arizona, and Ste Anne de la Pocatiere, Canada. 

There he met his future wife, Rosamond Kilmer. Meanwhile, while not working for Peace Corps, he worked for almost three years with the Benedictine Sisters in Atchison Kansas as a researcher for S. Mary Theresa Brentano who taught him more about teaching and researching than he thought it possible to know. She was also a very holy woman who gave her parents’ wedding rings to Art and Rosamond when they were married. On one of his trips to ‘La Poc’, he stayed with Judy and watched her amazing skills in working with autistic children who were also deaf. He has also marveled at Meg’s determined and creative teaching and Jimmy’s and Mike’s as well. He also remembers Justin as a brilliant student and teacher—all of which, and more which there is not time to say here, speak something wondrous about the family. Justin has talked even more wondrously about the family in a remarkable series of videos he has created.

Subsequent to his work in Kansas, Art stayed with Fran and Ron and Justin and Pauline in New York City doing part time work at various businesses as a substitute typist. These included Squibb and Company and the Teamsters ( in a highly fortified location in a non-descript building on the west side of NYC), as well as an advertising agency which was very excited about a spot on the Johnny Carson show with Johnny actually holding up the can of Laddie Boy for the camera!

Art had met his wife Rosamond in Peace Corps and now that they both were back in the states, they married. Art stayed with the Kilmer family in Virginia and went to France with them to be married in the church in which Rosamond’s parents had been married. Art had tutored a French ‘worker priest’ while in Tunisia and it turned out that he had been a ring bearer at Rosamond’s parents’ wedding. The organist at the wedding was the priest’s sister for whom Art had found shelter one rainy winter day while she was seeking out her brother. 

Art and Rosamond stayed and taught at the Kilmer school in Vienna, Virginia for one year and then, thanks to the intercession of one of Rosamond’s brothers, Art landed a teaching position in an Art College, the Swain School of Design. The couple’s first child, Francis, born in Virginia (and we still have the embroidery piece Judy created for that birth). Joe was born in New Bedford where Rosamond sat on the floor of the hospital and refused to move since the hospital did not allow fathers in the delivery room.(Hospital administrators relented!) Margaret was born in North Dakota where the family had taken up residence at Jamestown College in Jamestown North Dakota. Mary was born in Grand Forks where Art got his PhD and Rosamond her MA. Matt, Arthur James, Rosamond Cristl, Joan, and Thomas were all born in Winona Minnesota. Paul was born while we were on sabbatical in Maine. Thomas was born in a matter of minutes while Art was in church praying for a speedy delivery after some lengthy labors for the earlier children. A nurse told him he was irresponsible but a doctor asked for a copy of the prayer. Art and Rosamond both taught at St Mary’s College there and began a program for bright students which also emphasized service to others. They were there for 20 odd years. 

Then Art took a job at The College of Saint Benedict/ St John’s University in Collegeville Minnesota in the education department. Rosamond did some teaching, but spent a long time recovering from a back injury, and eventually took up pottery—at which she excels. Rosamond’s paternal grandfather, mother and father were poets; her maternal grandfather, brother and sister, painters. Both gifts enter her pottery.

Francis Laurence was a gifted runner in high school and soon showed himself an even more gifted teacher. He took his undergraduate degree at the University of North Dakota and his Master’s at St Mary’s in Winona. He and Jen married in Havre Montana in the presence of his parents, his brothers and sisters, and Fran and Ron. He taught at Rochester Lourdes High School in Rochester Minnesota and is currently teaching English at Deer Lodge, Montana. He and his wife Jen, who is a CPA, have three young girls—each more beautiful than the next. Nora Margaret, Natalie Jo and Sara Francese.

 Joseph Joachim-Benedict worked for a while with Verizon after completing his degree at Quincy College. He subsequently threw that aside and returned to school, studying at DePaul University and then Columbia School of Journalism. He is currently working at Outside Magazine in New Mexico and sometimes writes elegant free lance articles for the New York Times. He also spent some time researching and cataloguing Sea Turtles on an island 500 miles northwest of Hawaii. 

Margaret attended Atchison Benedictine College in Atchison Kansas and subsequently enrolled in occupational therapy at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She is currently employed working as a therapist, a superb therapist, with young Hispanic children in California. She has also volunteered her skills in Guatemala. 

Mary and Matthew attended St John Fisher College in Rochester New York after taking several classes with their mom and dad at St Mary’s in Winona. 

Mary took her Master’s at Seton Hall in a program aimed at promoting inner city education. She stayed joyously with Fran and Ron as often as she could while participating in that program. She now teaches English at Rochester Lourdes High School in Rochester, Minnesota. 


Matt took his Master’s at St Cloud State University and taught at St John’s Preparatory School side by side with his mother. He subsequently joined Peace Corps and is currently completing his third year in China. He is also fluent in Spanish and spent time in Central America with the St John’s University Program there. All children also went to Ireland at some point during their parents’ semester long stay there. This stay was completed after ‘curious’ rides through New York City engineered by Mary, Fran and Ron at something only slightly less than the speed of sound. 

Rosamond Cristl graduated from the College of Saint Benedict and is currently working with Hispanic children at a school sponsored by Amate House in Chicago. Rose is also Spanish speaking and has worked in both Guatemala and Peru. 

Arthur James lives at home with his parents, is extremely solicitous about their health and safety, tirelessly works on the internet, and is a valued and trusted employee at the St Cloud Holiday Inn. He recently took a solo train ride to visit Mary in Rochester Minnesota to see a basketball game played by his alma mater, Cotter High School. 

Joan is currently finishing studies in theology and English at the College of Saint Benedict, has traveled to Peru, and a World Youth Congress in Germany. She has studied Spanish, German, Hebrew and Greek during her undergraduate years. 

Paul is currently at the University of Dallas and has achieved some success in the music world. His work is currently available on U Tube including a video using his music designed by his uncle Justin. 

Thomas is at St John’s Preparatory School, plays basketball there, and studies Classical Greek at the University with Joan.

One of the best parts of raising a family has been introducing them to their uncles and aunts and the spectacular hospitality of Justin and family, Jimmy and Barbara and family, Mike and family, Fran and Ron and family, Meg and Bill and family has been perhaps the enduring memory of the family. The presence of these families, not only on trips east, but also in a whirlwind visit to Argyle, Minnesota, by a large contingent of the family has marked the family’s life forever. The children take great delight in their gifted and hospitable cousins—a remarkable fact of Spring family life.

Judy’s and Donnie’s wedding on Governor’s Island was a spectacular event which included a missed plane for some nuns who had journeyed to celebrate with Judy and Donnie, as have been the other weddings and celebrations that allowed for a trip east and which the family has been able to make. Beautiful letters and gifts from brothers and sisters have made the Minnesota exile bearable. Mike and Judy wrote stunning letters/videos for a teaching award Art received in Minnesota and Judy’s letter was read aloud, and the audience there was more impressed by the letter than Art’s teaching accomplishments. That was a great testimony to family. 

The living in the mid-west is the least expected feature of both Art’s and Rosamond’s life together—each being a dyed-in the wool Eastern cosmopolitan, but it has proven a wonderful place to raise their children and watch them migrate elsewhere. The efforts of brothers and sisters to tie them into the fabric of their lives, and their generous and joyous acceptance of their children has been a remarkable antidote for mid-western distances.

Art died of cardiac arrest surrounded by his children, his wife, his brothers and sisters, and many of his nieces and nephews. It was a fine and full life, beginning and ending in the fullness of love. Rest in Peace. February 29, 2008.

Justin Spring was born in Providence RI on January 27. 1939.He was admitted to Columbia on a science scholarship in 1956, the Sputnik era. In his sophomore year, he took a course on 17th century poetry and decided he was much closer to Marvell and Donne than Newton and Liebnitz. However, because no one was offering tuition money for poets, only mathematicians (a prejudice that still continues) he remained a math major but by graduation day little sneaky Justin had acquired twice as many points in English Literature as he had in mathematics. Justin was also a swimmer on the varsity team and in his sophomore year won the distinguished A. O. Eimer award (bronze) as the team’s third best all round swimmer. Justin specialized in the 440.

.

In the mid 70's, he formed his own computer software company, Oxford Software, with a talented but overly greedy partner. The business proved so successful that after a few years he was able to sell out his interest to his greedy partner, and was able to retire at the age of 39. He moved from New York City to Sarasota Florida.

In Sarasota, in 1992, he founded a non-profit, SOULSPEAK/SOULMOVES, to promote the use of poetry in all its forms and to also supply Justin with some much needed cash from time to time. From 1992 to 2008, he did pioneering work in the area of spontaneous oral composition (resulting in 7 CDs) and equally pioneering work in the composition of over 100 video poems (Dreamstories).

As of 2008, he had also published 7 collections of written poetry, for which he received many prizes and honors.

Like many other wide-ranging artists who refuse to be told what is art and what isn't, Justin created two public web stations: RADIO SOULSPEAK for the broadcast of his oral poetry and the poetry of similar artists, and VIDEO SOULSPEAK for the display of his video poems and those of similar artists.

While at Columbia, he married Sharon Doyle of Minneapolis Minnesota who was attending Barnard College and later became a lawyer. While together, they had 3 children: Margaret, Justin and Arthur. They were divorced after 12 years of marriage.

After moving to Sarasota he married Pauline Krajewski, a nurse mid-wife whom he credits with helping him change his life, which was no easy task according to Justin. They were also divorced after 12 years of marriage..

Margaret Faith Spring was named after my mother Margaret. She was born on Nov 18, 1960 in Manhattan. Margaret attended Dartmouth studying archaeology and oceanology After that, she attended Duke Law where she caught the eye of Senator Fritz Hollings of S.C. who brought her into the U.S. Senate where she eventually became Head Counsel to the Democratic Committee on Oceans and Fisheries. In 2007, she married winemaker Mark Bunting and moved to Monterey California as director of the west coast office of the ecological non-profit The Nature Conservancy.

Justin Doyle Spring, known as JD by all members of the family, was born 1962, One year later, Arthur John Spring III was born. (My father was AJ Spring; my older brother AJ Spring jr.) JD attended Amherst College and Arthur attended Penn State University. They then proceeded to make names for themselves in the Big City: JD in the art field as a writer and critic and Art as an entrepreneur in the financial/computer field. They have both enjoyed great success. Today, JD lives in New York City and shares a traveling/artistic life with his companion Tony Korner. 

 Art married Rosalind Pierce, also a Penn State graduate. Rosalind works as an engineer and she and Art live in Potomac, Maryland. They have produced a golden child, the one and only Kelby Spring, who at the time of this writing is twelve years old.

I currently live (off and on) with is the strikingly beautiful and graceful Joan Adley, a very talented poet and psychic who has been my companion for many years now. In the winter, I leave for Merida , Mexico and live in CASA DE LAS LUNAS. I also have a home (CASA DE LUZ) in Alamos Mexico which I share with Joan.

.

Francese Wharton Spring was born 1941 in Richmond, Virginia. She graduated from Mount Aloysius College in Pennsylvania and after graduation began working in the executive offices of American Airlines. There she met Ron Johnson of Oklahoma and they married. Ronald Ayres Johnson was born 1932 in Oklahoma. Francese later worked in the administration at Campbell Soups Corporation and Ron was an executive in charge of compensation at a large insurance company in Philadelphia. They have two daughters, Larisa and Karen. They are now retired and live in New Jersey and were blessed with two children: Larisa Ellen and Karen Jeanne.

Larisa Ellen Johnson was born on 1968 in New Jersey and married Robert Anthony Blake who was born in Phoenix, Arizona on 1960. Larisa and Bob were blessed with two children: Kalyn Francese and Ryan Ayres. Kalyn Francese was born in New Jersey 2002 and Ryan Ayres was born in New Jersey 2004. 

Karen Jeanne Johnson was born on 1970 in New Jersey and married Santo Joseph Calabro who was born in Pennsylvania 1970. Karen and Sandy were blessed with two children: Cameron Walter and Clare Margaret. Cameron Walter was born 2002 in New Jersey and Clare Margaret was born 2006 in New Jersey.

James, who was born 1943, was born in the same city, Richmond, Virginia and hospital, Retreat for the Sick, as was his sister, Francese. He does not remember much of his childhood prior to moving to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, NY. The only two events he remembers of his life prior to Sheepshead Bay are ones his mother told him later in life. The first was that when they left Florida to move back to the northeast, he stood behind his father’s seat in the sedan and never sat down for the entire trip. The second story was that on VJ day, they were out celebrating in Worcester, Massachusetts and he wandered into the road and the family dog, a great dane named Tiger Lady, pushed him out of the way of an oncoming car. If this story is true, it explains the lifelong love of dogs that he had and still has. 

Like his brothers and sisters, he attended the Dominican run St. Edmund’s grammar school and then in the sixth grade, he moved and attended the Franciscan run Immaculate Conception Grammar school in Tuckahoe, NY. After eighth grade, the family moved again to the Bronx and he attended the Jesuit run Fordham Prep. He was destined, like his father and brothers Art and Mike, to attend Holy Cross but at the last moment chose a co-ed public college, Harpur College, today known as Binghamton University. He was the first graduate of Fordham Prep to attend a public university and the principal tried to stop his acceptance by withholding his recommendation. But his father, a Dean at the Maritime College, intervened and the principal backed down. 

In 1965, he graduated from Binghamton University where he also was a starting pitcher for the varsity baseball team for four years and was co-captain in his senior year. He had tryouts with the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers but a major league baseball career was not meant to be. He taught high school English and history for two years and then received an offer to work in undergraduate admissions at Binghamton University (an offer that was probably connected to the fact that his father was Dean of Admissions at SUNY Maritime). 

During his admissions career, he received the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the State University of New York College Admissions Professionals. In 1997, at the request of the campus president, he created and was the first Director of the Center for Quality at Binghamton University and during his last years, he also simultaneously served as Dean of Enrollment Management. After he retired from Binghamton University, he created his own consulting company in Continuous Improvement and Team Building and continues to consult on a part time basis. 

In 1965, he married Barbara Jean Mitchell, who was born 1945 in Endicott, New York and who received her bachelors and masters at Binghamton University and in fact was only one of 3 students to graduate from Binghamton in 2 ½ years. She was a full-time mother until all the girls were in school and then went to work. She was the supervisor of out-patient lab services, client services and the inpatient lab services at United Health Services Hospital in Johnson City. Barbara grew up on a remote, idyllic 60 acre mini farm and the family grew all their own food and fruit and hunted for their meat. The estate was originally owned by a poet, Chip Devine. Barbara’s love of trees and water was developed during her childhood growing up on this beautiful mountain top. Barbara and Jim also studied karate for over 20 years and attained their fourth and fifth degree black belts respectively. Barbara was ranked in the top 10 nationally in women fighters and was the first woman permitted to fight in a men’s competition. For over 20 years, Jim served as President of the Board of Directors for Hidy Ochiai’s Karate Schools. They both retired in 2002 and have lived in the same house in Vestal, NY for over 35 years. They have 3 daughters, Michele, Suzanne and Kimberly. They had a fourth daughter for one year when Aunt Meg came to live with them and spend her last year of college at Binghamton University.  

Michele Donna Spring was born in Johnson City, New York 1966. Michele was an outstanding soccer player in high school and was recruited by a number of colleges. She chose to attend undergraduate school at the University of Notre Dame where she also played soccer during her last two years. She has master’s degrees from both Binghamton University and Tulane University and her MD and Infectious Disease Specialty from Vanderbilt University. She taught for two years after Binghamton University and later, in the Peace Corps, went to Africa for three years. She is currently working at Walter Reed Hospital Research Center as part of a team developing a malaria vaccine and is also on the faculty at Vanderbilt Medical School. 

Suzanne Barbara was born on 1969 in Johnson City, New York. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and Religion from Hope College. An outstanding field hockey player, she played varsity field hockey at Hope College for three years, received all conference honors and captained the team in her junior and senior years. She has two master’s degrees from SUNY Albany and taught ESL at the University of Tallinn in Estonia and at SUNY Albany. She received her PhD at the University of Michigan and is currently an Assistant Professor at Colgate University teaching writing. Her partner, Jennifer Ann Lutman, born on in Kingsville, Texas, is the Director of the Writing Center at Colgate.


 Kimberly Ann, born in Johnson City on September 2, 1970, received her bachelor’s degree in history from Binghamton University. She originally attended Wells College on an academic scholarship but transferred after her freshmen year to Binghamton University to study Chinese history which was not offered at Wells. After graduation, she traveled for several years before attending Ohio State to get a master’s in Comparative Cultural Studies and a master’s in International Development Studies at George Washington University in DC. In 2003, she began working as a researcher on volunteering and civic engagement at the United States Government’s Corporation for National Service (CNS) and while still working for CNS is also pursuing her PhD from the New School for Social Research in New York City. Kimberly has also studied Chinese in Beijing, China and Gaelic in Galway, Ireland. She was the award winning tour guide for Jim and Aunt Meg during their ten day trip to Ireland and the family homesteads in Castlemaine and Kilmacthomas.

Judith graduated from Fredonia College and received her masters at St. Mary's College. Her focus has been deaf children since college and she has been a teacher of deaf children for over 35 years in the New York City area. She married Donald Johanson who also graduated from Fredonia College and is currently an executive in the banking industry. They live in Syosset, New York and have two children, Lora and David. Dave graduated from Cabrini College in Pennsylvania, where he also played varsity lacrosse. Currently living in Syosset, New York, Dave is completing a doctorate in Physical Therapy, working, playing lacrosse and also pursuing the hobby of rock climbing.

Michael Blaise was the sixth child of Margaret Helen (Drohan) Spring and Arthur John Spring, born 1951 at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York. Around 1955, the family moved from Sheepshead Bay to Tuckahoe, New York where we lived on Gifford Street, # 55. During that year he attended kindergarten at Immaculate Conception. In 1956 the family moved to Fort Schuyler, Quarters # 6. Michael attended St. Francis de Chantal elementary school from 1956-1964. From 1964-1969 he attended Cardinal Spellman High School in the north Bronx. In 1969, he matriculated to the College of the Holy Cross from which he graduated three years later, in 1972. He did his graduate study and received his PhD from the school of Education at University of Pittsburgh in 1979.

He established his home in Pittsburgh PA. He lived in apartments across the city while he was a graduate student. His first apartment was at 210 Biddle Avenue in the west end of the city. About 1978, he moved to 3605 Beechwood Blvd in the Squirrel Hill district of Pittsburgh. His first job in Pittsburgh, while pursuing his degree, was as a middle school teacher and clinical supervisor for teachers in a non graded middle school in Houston PA. In 1973, he became a curriculum developer for the University External Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1974 he became Associate Director. In 1980 he became Acting Director and then Director from 1981 to 1986. In 1987 he moved to the Interdisciplinary Department of Information Science, now the School of Information Sciences where he taught and conducted research until his retirement. He has had appointments at other universities in Norway and Thailand. His research work involved distributed collaboration systems. He married Melinda Coops of Sharon Pennsylvania in 1981. They divorced in 2001. 

They had two sons, Jonathan Michael and Patrick Arthur who were both born at Magee’s Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh while the family was at their home at 210 Biddle Avenue in Wilkinsburg PA. 

Jonathan was born 1986. He was baptized at St James Church in Wilkinsburg by Fr. Warren Metzler. His godparents were Douglas and Donna Hess, long time friends of his fathers who are now deceased. He is named for his mother’s great grandfather (Jonathan Coops) who, according to family lore, was the first white child born in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after the beginning of the California gold rush. He is also named for his paternal great grandfather (Michael Spring). He attended school in the Fox Chapel School District where he graduated with honor in 2004. In High School, he played varsity basketball and volleyball. He attended the University of Pittsburgh Honors College where he majored in Philosophy with minors in Chemistry and Computer Science. In 2006 he studied in a program called Semester at Sea where he visited ten countries while circumnavigating the globe. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008

Patrick Arthur was born 1988. He was baptized at St. James Church in Wilkinsburg by Fr Warren Metzler. His godparents were Sam and Diane Deep, long time friends of his father who live and around Pittsburgh while the boys were growing up. He is named for his great grandfather (his father’s mother’s father, Patrick Drohan) and his two grandfathers (Irving Arthur Coops and Arthur John Spring). He attended school in the Fox Chapel School District where he graduated with honor in 2006. In high school he played varsity soccer. He attended the University of Pittsburgh where he majored in Business. At the time of this writing he was scheduled to graduate in 2010.

Margaret graduated from Hartwick College and received her masters at (George Mason?) University. She has been an elementary school teacher in the Virginia area for over thirty years. While living in California, she met William Chow and they married. Bill is an executive in the telecommunications industry and consults worldwide. They currently live in Great Falls, Virginia and have three children, Christine, Brittany and Justin.

END
OFFICIAL SEVEN CHILDREN BIOGRAPHY Section

SPECIAL BIOGRAPHY Section
(FOR ANY FAMILY MEMBER WHO WISHES TO ENTER ONE)

Biography of Margaret Faith Spring

Margaret Spring in favorite convertible just prior to marriage to Mark Bunter (Washington DC circa 2006)

BANDIT

Bandit
Margaret's faithful companion
d. july4, 2008

BUNTER SPRING WINERY

Margaret's husband Mark Bunter, besides being a great guy, an artist and lover of poetry, is a fabulous wine maker. Here are the labels from the first bottling (October 2008) done by the BUNTER SPRING WINERY.

Margaret's Adventures

Margaret moved in 2008 to Monterrey California with husband Mark. Click on the link below to see pictures of Arthur Jr's son Francis and his wife and 3 daughters playing at the beach while visiting Margaret and Mark circa 2008.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bunterspring/SpringsMontereyVisitJune2008?authkey=l4lAZYZ77Q8

Here are some photos of my grandson Kelby when he visited Mark and Margaret in August 2008.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bunterspring/KelbyVisitsCAAug2008?authkey=RAxYzhQwbOk

End of Margaret Faith Spring Biography

Biography
Justin Spring and Family
 

Justin Spring Circa 2006

Justin Spring was born in Providence RI on January 27. 1939.He was admitted to Columbia on a science scholarship in 1956, the Sputnik era. In his sophomore year, he took a course on 17th century poetry and decided he was much closer to Marvell and Donne than Newton and Liebnitz. However, because no one was offering tuition money for poets, only mathematicians (a prejudice that still continues) he remained a math major but by graduation day little sneaky Justin had acquired twice as many points in English Literature as he had in mathematics. Justin was also a swimmer on the varsity team and in his sophomore year won the distinguished A. O. Eimer award (bronze) as the team’s third best all round swimmer. Justin specialized in the 440.

In the mid 70's, he formed his own computer software company, Oxford Software, with a talented but overly greedy and obnoxious partner. The business proved so successful that after a few years he was able to sell out his interest to his greedy partner, and was able to retire at the age of 39. He moved from New York City to Sarasota Florida.

An Example of Justin Spring's Visual Art, " Suddenly, Again, I Am William Holden"

In 1992 , he formed a non-profit, SOULSPEAK, to promote the use of poetry in all its forms and to also supply Justin with some much needed cash from time to time. From 1992 to 2008, he did pioneering work in the area of spontaneous oral composition (resulting in 7 CDs) and equally pioneering work in the composition of over 100 video poems (Dreamstories).

As of 2008, he had also published 7 collections of written poetry, for which he received many prizes and honors.

Like many other wide-ranging artists who refuse to be told what is art and what isn't, Justin created two public web stations: RADIO SOULSPEAK for the broadcast of his oral poetry and the poetry of similar artists, and VIDEO SOULSPEAK for the display of his video poems and those of similar artists.

While at Columbia, he married Sharon Doyle of Minneapolis Minnesota who was attending Barnard College and later became a lawyer. While together, they had 3 children: Margaret, Justin and Arthur. They were divorced after 12 years of marriage.

Justin Spring in Alamos Mexico circa 2007

After moving to Sarasota he married Pauline Krajewski, a nurse mid-wife whom he credits with helping him change his life, which was no easy task according to Justin. They were also divorced after 12 years of marriage..

Margaret Faith Spring was named after my mother Margaret. She was born on Nov 18, 1960 in Manhattan. Margaret attended Dartmouth studying archaeology and oceanology After that, she attended Duke Law where she caught the eye of Senator Fritz Hollings of S.C. who brought her into the U.S. Senate where she eventually became Head Counsel to the Democratic Committee on Oceans and Fisheries. On May 12 2007, she married winemaker Mark Bunting and moved to Monterey California as director of the west coast office of the ecological non-profit The Nature Conservancy.

Justin Doyle Spring, known as JD by all members of the family, was born on October 12, 1962, One year later, on October 11, Arthur John Spring III was born. (My father was AJ Spring; my older brother AJ Spring jr.) JD attended Amherst College and Arthur attended Penn State University. They then proceeded to make names for themselves in the Big City: JD in the art field as a writer and critic and Art as an entrepreneur in the financial/computer field. They have both enjoyed great success. Today, JD lives in New York City and shares a traveling/artistic life with his companion Tony Korner. Art married Rosalind Pierce, also a Penn State graduate. Rosalind works as an engineer and she and Art live in Potomac, Maryland. They have produced a golden child, the one and only Kelby Spring, who at the time of this writing is twelve years old.

Joan Adley in Alamos Mexico circa 2007

I currently live (off and on) with is the strikingly beautiful and graceful Joan Adley, a very talented poet and psychic who has been my companion for many years now. In the winter, I leave for Alamos, Mexico where I eat tacos and share a home, Casa de Luz, with Joan.

justin spring Dec 17, 2007

The following link will direct you to a video autobiography of Justin Spring, his parents, siblings and children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj67kzQ9j2U

The following link will direct you to a complete artistic biography of the work of Justin Spring:

http://justin-soulspeak.blogspot.com/

END: SEVEN CHILDREN BIOGRAPHY Section

( The sons and daughters of Arthur and Margaret
and their children's children)

SPRING FAMILY HISTORY
of ARTHUR JOHN SPRING
and
MARGARET DROHAN SPRING
STARTS HERE:

Art and Margaret on Their Wedding Day

Biography
Arthur John Spring

and

Margaret Helen Drohan Spring

Arthur John Spring and Margaret Helen Drohan were both born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Margaret was born on June 27, 1909 and Arthur on July 2, 1909. Arthur went to college at the College of the Holy Cross and graduated in 1932. He later received his masters at Boston College and went on subsequently for another masters at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. He had thought on going on for the doctorate, but that degree would have required residency, so he settled for the Masters. Arthur rose to the rank of full colonel in the US Army and served in World War II. After WW II, he was an administrator at the Merchant Marine Base in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York. After that he became the Dean of Students/Admissions at the New York State Maritime College at Fort Schuyler. While there, he was also in charge of the Army Reserve Unit at Mitchell Field on Long Island, New York. Margaret Drohan Spring completed high school in just three years and then went to school for Library Science in Worcester and later studied Library Science at Columbia University. Arthur and Margaret were married in Worcester and over the years lived in Worcester, Providence, Rhode Island, Petersburg, Virginia, St. Petersburg, Florida, Brooklyn, New York, Tuckahoe, New York, Bronx, New York, Oneonta, New York, Woodstock, New York and finally in Toms River, New Jersey. Several years after Arthur died suddenly in Toms River on November 21, 1981, Margaret moved from Toms River to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to live with Michael and Melinda Spring and lived there until she died of pancreatic cancer on September 27, 1987. Together, Arthur and Margaret had 10 children, seven of whom lived: Arthur John Jr., Justin, Francese, James, Judith, Michael and Margaret.

Margaret Drohan Spring circa 1976

A recording by Arthur Spring Sr. recounting his early childhood and how the Spring family came over to America can be heard by clicking on this audio link:
http://www.box.net/shared/izbkwgx6o0

The recording which was made a few years before his death by my brother Michael. What follows is a long family history going back to the 1500's on the Spring family with a little info about the Drohan family as well. it was written by father. My brother Jimmy supplied me with a Word version of it, which was extremely fortunate because the typed copy I had was badly faded and incapable of being scanned.

The Family Names And Their Backgrounds

By Arthur J Spring (written in the 1970's)

In writing about the Drohan and Spring families, I am assuming that some one of our children or their children may be interested in their ancestors and who they were and the background they had. Since it is said that either biologically or genetically that we inherit some of the genes of our ancestors, it may be well to know the facts and sometimes fiction that went into the end result of those people that bore the names we now carry.

Personally, I begin with the premise that a name like the character of the individual is what the individual makes of it. The name itself is of little value, if the individual does not have the mental or moral background to give the name its true value. An example of this is that my father for the few years I knew him as a child always told me to be honest and tell the truth at all times even if it hurt. I am not going to say that I never told a lie, but if I did I was the first to admit it. As a result, I have a tendency to be frank even if it hurts others’ feelings.

The family names I am going to write about are the Drohan’s and the Spring’s on the paternal side of your parents and the Wharton’s and the O’Brien’s, who were on the maternal side of your parents.

Taking the O'Brien’s first. I know little about my mother who gave me life since she died when I was only a month old. To the best of my knowledge and from what my sister, Mildred, has told me (Mildred being four when our mother died) she was a tall woman much like Francese but she was blond with piecing brown greenish eyes. She was taller than my father. During the time she was carrying me, my father took a job in the foundry in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, and the only place he could find a tenement was in Uxbridge, Mass, near Whitinsville. My mother was just out of the hospital a month when they moved from Worcester to Uxbridge. On the way to Uxbridge where the furniture was being moved, she stopped with Mildred and myself to make change in the trolley car that ran to Uxbridge. She caught a chill and was taken in the home of a man who worked in the foundry with my father. She lived three days and died in that house. That house today is where Aunt Mildred works for the senior citizens of Whitinsville. Needless to say, we never moved to Uxbridge but my father found a small apartment on East Street. The house that Mother O’Brien died in is on the left hand side of Prospect Street in Whitinsville.

To the best of my knowledge Mother O’Brien Spring had three sisters and one brother. She came from the same town that my father came from in Ireland and according to Mildred knew my father in Ireland. The two sisters I knew were Nellie and Jo-Hannah. The latter was a tall, blond or titian haired woman like my mother and lived in Brocton, Mass. As a motherless child I spent some time with her and her first husband, but after my father died we never visited her because she had married a second time and we lost track of her. The other sister, Aunt Nellie, was a short medium height person, who lived with us from time to time even after my father died. She had a sharp tongue and as a result had a hard time keeping a job. She was a very pretty woman with sharp brown eyes and thin lips. One thing about her was that she was a terrific story teller, especially ghost stories. The brother I did not know, but the other sister I visited when Mother and I were in Ireland. She was an old woman about eighty five or ninety years of age and very feeble. Even though my cousin told her who I was, she did not recognize or comprehend what she was told. She took to Mother and told her about the abuse that a nephew was giving her. So evidently there are some relatives of Mother O’Brien still in Ireland.

It is evident from the name O’Brien that the family’s background was Irish. Although the blond hair of my mother and the red-titian hair of JoHannah may give indications of other nationalities in that family background. Mother O’Brien’s father, I was told, was a civil servant in the county of Kerry with some sort of legal background. Someone once told me that he was known as Lazy Jack O’Brien, but that could have been idle gossip. Which there was a lot of in any gathering of our relatives at card games. Some day I expect to visit Ireland again and find out more about the O’Brien family.

Mother Drohan whose maiden name was Frances Z. Wharton, but what the Z stood for Mother does not know. Aunt Dora, Mother Drohan’s sister, said her mother never gave any of the children middle names, so it could be that Nana Drohan just added the letter “Z” to her name. In giving Francese her name, Mother just added an “e” to the name Frances and thus she is named after Nana - Francese Wharton Spring.

Nana Drohan – Frances Wharton – was one of fourteen children born to her mother Ellen White and Thomas Wharton. Her sisters were Bridget, Molly, Nell, Kit, and Dora. Her brothers were Thomas, Walter, Patrick, James, Richard and the other three boys names are not known. The family home was in the county of Waterford, near the Comeragh Mountains between Portlaw and Rath-Gormack. When Mother and I visited Ireland, we met Molly and Kit. Molly was about ninety years of age at that time and one of the most beautiful old women that I ever met. The Irish poets speak of the old woman of Ireland and Molly reminded me of their picture of this woman. Molly was tall, straight as an arrow with a beautiful face. Her hair was bountiful and snow white. Nana Drohan also had beautiful skin and it was one of the things that impressed me when I was courting Mother. She attributed this to the fact that each morning of her life she drank the juice of half a lemon in hot water before eating breakfast. In addition she never washed her face with anything else but yellow soap. The lemon juice was also taken to prevent arthritis and I have tried it and it helps.

Nana Drohan’s father, Thomas Wharton, was an Englishman by birth and of the Protestant religion. He came to Ireland some time between 1840-50 as part of a constabulary force to control the rebellions in Ireland caused by the potato famine. He was a captain in the constabulary forces at that time. He remained in Ireland and married Ellen White who came from County Cork. Ellen White, Nana Drohan’s mother, had been born, raised and educated in Cork, Ireland and came to Rath Gormack to teach. Thomas Wharton, after being relieved from police duty and married to Ellen White, bought and operated a pub in Kilmacthomas. After raising her family, Ellen White Wharton went back to teaching and taught in a one room school house near Carrick-on Sur near the farm owned by the Drohan family. One interesting facet is that Mother, when she went to Ireland with her mother, Nana Drohan, Dave and Jim, attended the same school house and was taught by her grandmother, Ellen White Wharton. This came about when Nana Drohan went to Ireland on a vacation and took Mother, David and Jim with her. She was pregnant at the time. Dave had an accident preventing Nana Drohan from returning home for six months; thus Mother’s brother, Tom, was born in Ireland and carried the nickname “Harp” as a young man. (I was told as a child the accident Dave had happened when boiling water from a large outdoor kettle spilled on him, burning his chest badly and they had to stay in Ireland until he healed.)

The Drohan’s were farmers and had a large farm near Carrick-on Sur. Patrick Drohan, Mother’s father, was one of twelve children. The names of the other children were Thomas, James, David, Mike, Bridget and Walter. The names of the other children are not known at this time. Patrick Drohan was the son of David Drohan and a Couming woman and came form Ireland to Worcester, Massachusetts. He worked at Crompton and Knowles Loom Works, the same place that Dad’s father worked. He went to school nights and thru his studies became a Master Mechanic. It is not known whether Mike Spring and Patrick Drohan knew each other but it is possible that they did. Patrick Drohan played the accordion, an instrument that was part of every Irish dance, and Mike Spring had an exceptional singing voice. It could be that they met at various dances that young Irish immigrants attended in the city of Worcester, and Nana Drohan knew of my father and his fine voice.

The Drohan farm in Ireland survived four generations of Drohans, and was sold a short time before 1972 when Mom and Dad visited Ireland. Frances Z. Wharton and Patrick had nine children, Mother, David, Jim, Tom, Joe, Dick and Helen, plus two children who died at birth. During World War II, four boys, Dave, Tom, Joe and Dick served in the army. Nana Drohan in spite of being a widow at the time was the only widow woman in Worcester that had a service flag with four stars on it. In addition Father Jim gave his time as a chaplain in the Army Hospital in Framingham, Mass.

Michael Spring, Dad’s father, was one of nine children born to William Spring and Mary Sullivan in Castlemaine, in County Kerry, Ireland. His grandfather was a William Spring and his grandmother was a Sullivan. The eight other children in my father’s family were William, Arthur, John, Jerry, Frank, Nora, Fanny and Elizabeth. With the exception of William, all the children came to the United States. He remained in Ireland at the Spring farm and married a Mary Sullivan. The home my father was born in was also the birthplace of his father and grandfather, and possibly a generation before that. The farm that the Springs had in Castlemaine was not like the Drohan farm. Instead they raised horses and came from a family of people that raised horses in Ireland. Some of the Springs, a family that lived around Cork and Dublin, raised race horses, but my father’s family and those before him raised what was known as a pack horse and sold them to the English for service with the English Army. Members of the Spring family migrated to New Zealand from Ireland and were great horse breeders. One of these horses was Pharlap, considered one of the greatest race horses in racing history. When this horse died, he was stuffed and placed in the Museum in Melbourne. An interesting story worth repeating here is that when Mother and I went to Florida when I was recruiting for Hartwick College, I looked in the Fort Lauderdale telephone directory and found the name Arthur Spring. I called him and told him who I was and asked about his family. We had lunch with him and his wife, and he turned out to be one of the family of Springs that came for around Dublin, Ireland. He had come to Florida from Chicago. His father had been raised in the New York area and moved to Chicago. One of the strange facts of this meeting was that this Arthur Spring looked just like our James Hilary. He told us that he knew very little about his family background, but did know that they were from Dublin area and were horse breeders. This man had been with Newsweek magazine and served all over Europe for this magazine. Some day I hope some one will go to New Zealand and Australia and look up the Spring family there. How did they get there? Either by being forced there by the English, during their persecution of the Irish or they migrated as colonists when Australia was a young nation (1830-60).

Back to Michael Spring, Uncle Arthur, his brother and the man I was named after came to the United States, shortly after 1900 as part of the Kerry Gaelic Football Team and that year they were champions of Ireland. They were either touring this country or playing in New York for the Gaelic Football Championship. When the team left Boston to return to Ireland, Uncle Arthur stayed in this country and went to work in a lumber yard in and around Framingham, Mass. He was a real ambitious person and became a lumber surveyor and then went to work for the then Laconia Car and Foundry Co., an outfit that made most of the Pullman cars of that time. He became Superintendent of the Laconia Car and Foundry. and also served a term in the New Hampshire state legislature. He was also Chief of the Laconia Fire Dept., which he helped organize as a young volunteer. He held the position of chief for over thirty years. Uncle Arthur was a big man, about six foot three with a terrific sense of humor (a trait of all Spring men). His popularity as a story teller brought him the title of National President of the Fire Chiefs Assn. and Exalted Ruler of the Elks of New Hampshire.

When Uncle Arthur became a supervisor at the Laconia Car and Foundry, he needed men he could trust in order to hold his job and at the same time he saw a chance to bring his brothers and sisters from Ireland to this country. So one by one he brought Mike, Dad’s father, and put him in the foundry to learn a trade, Jerry, he put in the cabinet making section, John, he put in the power division and Frank he put in the main yard where the stock was kept. He brought his three sisters over and found them jobs as domestics in some of the wealthy families associated with the Laconia Car and Foundry. Of the Spring men, Arthur, William, and Frank were big men, over six three or four in height. The others, Mike, Jerry and John were medium size around five eight. While William remained in Ireland to take over the farm, he married a Sullivan and had four boys and one daughter. The boys were William, who lives in the old homestead, Michael and Arthur Christopher, both of whom work for the County Road Dept. Mary, the daughter, married an O’Brien and had at the time Mom and I visited Ireland five of the reddest headed children you would want to see.

The four Spring boys that Arthur brought to Laconia also roomed and boarded with Uncle Arthur and his wife, Anne Finn. The latter according to Aunt Lizzie was a bossy individual and soon irritation caused the boys to leave Laconia one by one. Jerry came to Manchester, NH and became a fireman and eventually a Fire Captain. In addition he was a fine builder of homes. Jerry and his wife, Margaret Shea or Shay, (still alive) finally settled on Candia Road in Manchester, where he built his own home and homes for his daughter, Mary, and sons, Jerry and Arthur. His other son, William, is at home with his mother on Candia Road, a confirmed bachelor and vegetarian. You’ll never miss finding the Spring family if you go far enough up Candia Road in Manchester.

When Frank Spring left Laconia, he went to Lowell, Mass. And eventually he settled in Cambridge, Mass. He was or ended up as a security guard for Lever Brothers. Frank was not lazy, but at the same time he did not have the same drive the other Spring boys had. He’d rather spend his time going to musical shows to learn the songs and music of the show. He had a wife that was bed-ridden for years and two sons and a daughter. One of his boys, Billie, was in trouble as a youth with the police and I think this was what broke Frank and his wife’s heart. The other son, Timothy, works someplace in and around Boston. The daughter’s name was Noreen and she was a secretary.

John, after he left Laconia, went to Manchester and worked for years in the New Hampshire Power system as an operating engineer. He had two sons and daughter. One of the sons worked for GE in Cincinnati, Ohio. The daughters married and are living in and around new Hampshire. John Spring had a fine singing voice and after his retirement he sang on the radio in Manchester. He sang Irish ballads.


Uncle Arthur who married Annie Finn had two sons and two daughters. The boys were Clement and Arthur Finn Spring. The daughters were Teresa and Helena.

Clem Spring was what you would call in the 1920’s a tramp athlete. He never graduated form high school but played varsity football for several colleges including Providence College, St. John’s, and West Virginia. He was a happy go lucky person, much like Uncle Frank. He could fall asleep standing up. Toward the end of his life, he was a prominent figure in lacrosse in and around Baltimore. He married a widow who lived in Towson, Maryland and passed away without leaving any family. His brother Arthur was in some ways just the opposite. He as an all around athlete in high school in Laconia. Graduated from high school too young to enter Annapolis and was the youngest in his class entering Annapolis in 1926. At the academy he was an outstanding football player being named to the All American football team and was All East for two years. He was an outstanding lacrosse player and basketball player. He served in the Navy for thirty years and reached the rank of Rear Admiral in charge of Subic Bay in the Philippines. He had a tragic death in that both he and his wife were killed in a plane accident in the Philippines. She was Claire Murphy, the daughter of the Fire Chief of San Francisco in the 1930’s. They had one son, Arthur T. Spring who graduated form the Naval Academy in 1957, and served in nuclear submarines. He left the service after his father’s death and lives on the West Coast around San Francisco. To the best of my knowledge he has something to do with the airport management. He is married to an Endress girl, whose father was a classmate of mine and whose mother went to school in Worcester with Mother.

Teresa, the oldest daughter, married a man by the name of Pond, but I do not know where she is now. His other daughter, Helena, married and lived in Laconia. Her husband died in 1970, but to the best of my knowledge she is still living in Laconia.

When Mike Spring left New Hampshire and Laconia in particular, he eventually came to Worcester, Mass. As I previously mentioned, he had a fine Irish tenor voice and was much in demand at weddings of young Irish couples and dances held by the greenhorns or comeovers as the young Irish immigrants were known. It was in Worcester that he married Catherine O’Brien and they had two children, Mildred and Dad. When Catherine O’Brien died shortly after my birth, he waited four years to marry again. He married a Bridget Harding, a woman who never could have children and of whom I shall later write. I was ten years going on eleven when Mike Spring died of cancer of the liver, evidently from the hard hat work as moulder in the foundries. He was not a drinking man, as a matter of fact none of the Spring men were drinkers although they would enjoy taking a drink at gatherings.

Just so you will know some of the characteristics of your grandfather Spring and for no other reason, let me say first that he was a great lover of dogs and horses. My mother Harding use to say that he loved dogs more than he loved his children, wife and home, but this was said in jest because he loved Mildred and myself very much, and his wife and home also. He loved to hunt and fish and run his hound dogs. When hunting season was not in effect he would take his dogs and walk miles with them in the woods. He disliked playing cards and did not gamble. I only saw him use alcohol excessively twice in the seven years that I knew him and this was something particularly when the men that he worked with were all heavy drinkers. He was a very kind man but a strict parent. He only spanked me twice in seven years and both times I deserved the spankings. Once I made fun of his parents’ picture that hung in our living room and the second time he came upon Red Eccles, my playmate, and I trying to light some wet cigarettes that we found and I told my father that I was not smoking when he asked me if I were. As I said previously he could not tolerate lying. He valued telling the truth so much that at times his frankness would hurt people and almost be insulting. One time I remember when the card playing gang was at our house a man whom my father knew because he came from his area in Ireland was a guest of my mother’s brother, Pat. He was a little tipsy from drinking and got into a discussion with my father. The man asked my father, Mike, I don’t think you like me. Do You? My father’s answer was a firm No Tim. I don’t and as far as I’m concerned I don’t care to have you in my home. My mother was furious and when they went to bed I could hear her scolding him, but all that he would say is Look Bridget, he asked me. I had to tell him the truth.

Another time when he took me hunting we came to the end of the line where the trolley car stopped in North Grafton. We had been walking all day and normally with the dog he would walk home except he knew I was tired (I was about eight at the time). The motorman, whose name was Moriarty, knew my father, but when we tried to get on the trolley with the dog, the motorman said Mike, You’ll have to put a muzzle on that dog if you want to let him ride with you. My father turned to him and said, I’d rather put a muzzle on you, Moriarty, and turning to me said Come on son, I know you’re tired but we’ll walk home. I think he carried me piggy back for two or three miles that day.

The Springs have always been dog lovers. There is a novel written by MacKinley Cantor titled ‘The Story of Bugle Ann’ that is based in the case of one Frank Spring, (around 1890) who was given a dog by an English army officer who was being sent to South Africa in the Boer War. The story goes that the officer told this Frank Spring not to let anything happen to the dog. Whether with or without Frank Spring the dog used to poach or hunt on the grounds of an Englishman living in the area. The Englishman warned Frank Spring that if he saw the dog poaching he would shoot him, and Frank Spring said that if he did he’d find himself with a load of buckshot in him. The Englishman shot the dog when he saw him in his property and this Frank Spring waited one day when the Englishman was rowing a boat to the shoreline from his property and he shot the Englishman. Frank Spring was arrested and brought to trial in Dublin and would have been convicted if the English officer who had returned from the war had not testified for this Frank Spring saying that he had told Spring to guard this prize hunting dog with his life. The record of Spring’s confinement in the tower of Dublin and the trial would have to be researched to prove the story to be true. I wrote to MacKinley Cantor and asked him the source of his plot, but he said the information had been given him by some friend and he knew nothing of the case of Frank Spring.

Back to Mike Spring. He had an exceptional singing voice and as I said previously, he was in great demand at weddings and parties because of his voice. Whenever I would go to one of these parties with him, he would often sing with me on his lap. His favorite songs were ‘The Rose of Tralee’, ‘Too a looral Looral’, an Irish lullaby, and ‘Macushla’.
I was at a wedding in New York in 1940 and was introduced to a man from Pittsfield, Mass. who knew my father. He asked me if I would sing for the people and when I told him that I could not carry a note he was flabbergasted. He told me and my mother that my father had been given the name of the Kerry Thrush, because of the exceptional voice that he had. The strange thing about this is that, outside of Mildred, none of her children nor our family inherited Mike Spring’s voice. As a young girl Mildred had a splendid voice and had Mike Spring lived she might have gone to voice school instead of work. Much to my father’s dismay, since she took voice lessons in classical music, the first time he heard her sing in public was at a minstrel show, which he had taken little interest in. She sang as an end man the song, ‘Seven or Eleven’. Even though she got a standing ovation, Mike Spring was furious, but never scolded her. He idolized Mildred.

Mildred married a Raymond Roche, this family lived right across the street in Whitinsville from the apartment my father took after my mother died. They had six children, Raymond, who died at the age of ten; Arthur Spring Roche, a fine athlete, who teaches school in Windsor, Conn.; Mary, a graduate of The Lady of Elms, who works for the government in Italy; Herman, who is a chemical engineer for Amoco in Chicago; Michael, who was an honor student in college, but left after two years to go to work for Worcester Ball Valve. Today he is their International Supervisor of Production; and John who works for the Social Services in Providence, Rhode Island.

It is not possible to end Mike Spring’s life without mentioning the second woman that he married, Bridget Harding. Although she has not any blood connection with the Spring family I owe to her and your own mother all the success I have had in my lifetime. Bridget Harding is a story all by itself, which I hope can be written some day. She was the one reason for getting what I did out of life until I met your mother. Bridget Harding spent her whole life molding me and helping me because without her I could have ended up in reform school or as a factory worker. Someday, if we ever have a writer in the family I hope he or she will combine the life of your mother, her mother and Bridget Harding into one character and use this person as the center of a story of the good life.

Before getting into the background of the Spring family let me say that we, that is your mother and I, have tried to find out as much about the ancestors of the Drohans and the Whartons as we possibly could. We plan to continue this search by talking to Dave and Joe, who must have some information about their family.

As to the Wharton family, it can be said that they were of English origin and that Thomas Wharton, your mother’s grandfather was of the English Protestant religion when he cane over as part of the British Constabulary forces to Ireland, where he stayed, was converted by Ellen White and gave the maternal side of the Drohan family. The Wharton family name comes from a great family in England and the many lines of that family played a great part of English history and literature. As to Ellen White, of whom we spoke earlier as a teacher, she was no doubt of the Irish family of that name. The fact that she was educated as a teacher at a time in Irish history when education was frowned on by the English, she must have come from a family that had some educational background.

The name Drohan is derived from either the Scotch or the Welsh, and it is my opinion that it is more Welsh than Scotch. My reason for this is that the Drohans were well entrenched in Ireland as farmers long before the English brought the Scotch into Ireland. In addition to this the Drohan name which is found in this country are all Irish descent if their bear the name legitimately. The name Drohan appears in New York and Boston amongst the Irish immigrants that came to this country. The fact that the Drohan farm, that we refer to as being visited by your mother, was in the hands of four generations of Drohans, as far as we know now, is evidence that the family must have been in Ireland for a long time prior to the beginning of the farm.

As to the Spring name, there is no need to write about it because there is plenty of information on it in the material that has been collected by Father Bill Spring, who is writing the history of the Spring family. Anyone who has the Spring name that can be traced back to the year 1800 can be said to come from the original Spring family. The reason I make this statement is that many people whose ancestors come from countries other than Ireland and England and have taken this name (Spring) in place of their family name. This has been done by people of Hebrew, Slavic, and Negro backgrounds. There is one possible exception to this and that is the fact that there is a German family prominent in the making of copperware that has the name Spring. The fact that members of the Irish Spring family went to Germany to teach Gaelic and also the fact that the Spring family married into the Blennerhassett family, (The Blennerhassett family, one of the top family of royalty, far above anything held by the Spring family, were of Germanic origin and came to England and Ireland. They are a strong Catholic family and remained so even after the changes instituted by the Church of England). It is from the relationship of the Spring family to the Blennerhassett family that the name of Arthur came into the Spring family. Up until this time, the name Arthur was not used by the Spring family.

The Spring family name can be traced back to 1350 and before that the family may have come from either Belgium or Normandy as part of the conquest of England or were brought there as tradesmen by the Normans.

In and around the year 1350 the name of Spring first appeared in the town of Lavenham in Suffolk county, then known as East Anglia. The Spring family of Lavenham were Catholics as is shown by the fact that they were in great part responsible for the building of the cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, which still stands in Lavenham. Caught up in the religious and political turmoil in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and with a sense of loyalty to Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spring family divided over religion, some remaining Catholic (the Springs in Ireland); some following the Church of England remained in the Church of England, and yet many more not wanting to accept either side turned to the religion of the Puritans and the Quakers, and they too also fled from persecution but most of these came to America. For example, in 1635 (Greer J.L. Early Virginia Immigrants) a Robert Spring and a Joseph Spring landed in the Norfolk, Virginia area and at that time they were practicing the Quaker religion. The Lower Norfolk Court records show that in 1661, that Isbell Spring, the wife of Robert Spring received 20 lashes and a fine of court charges for calling Thomas Browne, (an official of the county), a traitor and other threatening speeches in his suppressing of the Quakers. This is strange in that the Irish side of the Spring family comes from a Robert Spring, the son of the Third Thomas Spring, the rich clothier of Lavenham. He was married to an Anne Eden.

How did the Springs get to Ireland? The Fifteenth Earl of Oxford, who was John Devere, had two sons one of whom was Aubrey Devere, who married Margaret Spring, daughter of William Spring, but the niece of Thomas Spring, the “Rich Clothier”. From this marriage was to come Aubrey Devere the great poet, and friend of Cardinal Newman and Manning.

In 1578, Edward Devere, then the seventeenth Earl of Oxford invited Queen Elizabeth to visit Lavenham. In attendance at the ceremony and taking part in it was William Spring who was the High Sheriff of Lavenham. In 1588, at the time of the invasion of the Spanish Armada the same Edward Devere fitted out and captained a ship against the Spanish. William Spring, the High Sheriff was appointed by Elizabeth the High Sheriff of Castlemaine in Ireland and in command of ten thousand officers and soldiers he took over the area of Castlemaine, Ireland. (The Irish at this time were in sympathy with the Spanish and in order to prevent the Spanish from landing in the area of Castlemaine, William Spring was to prevent such a landing). With him as officers in the army he commanded were his sons, William Spring and Robert Spring and perhaps other members of the Spring family. This Robert Spring began the Spring family in Ireland. He had retired in 1549 from the clothmaking business and had settled in Pakenham, England. One of his daughters, Alyce, married into the Blennerhassett family, and as I previously mentioned it was from this relationship with the Blennerhassetts that the name Arthur came into the Spring family. The Blennerhassett family is a story in itself (read the life of Aaron Burr for more on the Blennerhassetts). Actually, there is no Blennerhassett blood in the Spring family, but the relationship of the two families has a lot to do with the raising and training of horses in Ireland.

In the Bicentennial history of Northboro, Mass., where Aunt Mildred lives there is reference to a Spring (first name not remembered, it was either William or Thomas). He was one of the founders of the town of Northboro, which includes Whitinsville, Mass. He is mentioned in the history of the town around 1770 as a craftsman. He did not have any land of his own, but married into a family and part of the dowry of the bride was about two hundred acres of land, part of which is used today by the town of Northboro as a pollution plant. I am assuming that he was a Quaker because they were prominent in that area. There is an old Quaker cemetery in the town and his grave might be found there. He and his family were active and took part in the American Revolution. I assume that he was part of the Spring family that came to Massachusetts after the landing of the Mayflower and could be part of the Protestant side of the family. However, it must be remembered that all these Springs were originally part of the Catholic Spring family of Lavenham.

The Robert Spring that I previously mentioned as arriving in Virginia in 1635 along with Joseph Spring could very well be related to the Robert Spring that started the Spring family in Castlemaine. The reason for this is that after the defeat of the Spanish Armada the loyalty of Robert Spring and others in the family who went to Ireland with the army of William Spring were by religion more apt to be loyal to Mary, Queen of Scots and because of their loyalty they were no longer welcome or allowed in England. In Ireland today there are several Spring families living between Kerry and Dublin. Fr. Bill’s family is one of these and the family of the Spring man I mentioned in Florida is another that settled around Dublin. Because of the persecution of the Irish by Queen Elizabeth and later Cromwell, any of these Springs could have migrated to America. In my research on the family I find many soldiers of the American Revolution bearing the name Spring. One peculiar item is that this Joseph Spring that showed up in Norfolk at the same time as Robert Spring is the first one I find by the name of Joseph in the family research. This could be as a result of the marriage of one of the English Springs after the Spanish Armada to an Irish woman. The history of Ireland will show that this a common practice by soldiers who were sent to Ireland by the English. As a matter of fact mother’s grandfather Thomas Wharton did this very thing after he had been sent around 1850 to quell the Irish disturbances caused by the potato famine.

Uncle Arthur from Laconia, who I mentioned was a great story teller told me many stories about the Springs in the United States in the early days of this country, but whether they were true or not is hard to tell. One story that he told me was that there was a William Spring of Castlemaine, who had a deep hatred of the English. He came to the colonies sometime in the 1770’s and trained a cavalry unit in Virginia that fought on Washington’s side in the battle of Virginia. He claimed that proof of this was on records but that these records had been destroyed by the British setting fire to the courthouse in Virginia where the records had been kept. Strange as this may seem and I thought it a tall story when he told it to me, I did find in the records of the Virginia Militia men by the name of Spring who fought in the Army in Virginia. If anyone is interested the following books may give more information on this fact and about the Springs who were in the colonies in the early days.

Crozier, W., Early Virginia Marriages and Virginia Colony Militia in the years
1651-1776

Greer, J., Early Virginia Immigrants 1633-1666

In the following volumes of the Journals of American-Irish Historical Society Vols. 2-4-
24-25-26 one will find references to the Spring name and the people who bore it.

In the material that I have gathered on the Spring family anyone interested will find background in the pamphlet, “The Church of St. Peter and Paul of Lavenham” and in the copy of the “The Springs of Lavenham” by Barbara Mc Clenaghan of Girton College Cambridge and printed by W.E.Harrison, The Ancient House, Ipswich, England.

In Ireland today besides the Springs living in Castlemaine, there is a relative of ours, a William Spring, who is a distinguished senator in the Parliament of Ireland. He lives in and around Dublin.

Biography of Drohan Family

The Drohan family with father Patrick long since gone.Circa 1927 look at mom the flapper from (L>R Dick, Joe, Jim, Dave, Frances. Margaret, Helen?, Tom.

(This version was written by Jimmy Spring and some of my brothers and sisters)

The Drohan family (Patrick and Frances Wharton Drohan) lived and raised their family on Kingsbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts and later moved to Pelham Street in 1940. Patrick Drohan, a master mechanic, was asked to leave the family some time after Joe was born and he was never part of our family. We were told he was dead but later found out that he lived in New York City and had died at the age of 90 or 92. Nana Drohan, called Franny by her sons, was born in Ireland in 1880, died in 1968 at the age of 88 from complications from diabetes.

Patrick Drohan was born on a farm outside of Kilmacthomas, Ireland and Frances Wharton Drohan's was born in Kilmacthomas, Ireland and both immigrated to the United States. We found a plaque with Patrick Drohan's name on it on Ellis Island, New York City and the best we can figure is that is was donated by one of Fr. Joe's parishioners in Georgia.

Margaret Helen Drohan - born in 1909 in Worcester. She was the oldest. She graduated high school in 3 years and then attended library school in Worcester and later studied at Columbia University. She married Arthur Spring and they had seven children. She died of pancreatic cancer in Pittsburgh in1987.

David Drohan -born in Worcester in 1910. He never went to college and instead worked to support the family. He was a PFC in WW II and worked for the US Postal Service. He died in 2000 in Worcester at the age of 89. He was famous for his “fraps” and prune juice to keep one “regular”.

James Drohan - born in Worcester in 1912. He became a Jesuit and was ordained in 1943 and taught philosophy, theology and metaphysics for many years at the College of the Holy Cross. He later taught at Anna Maria College and also counseled priests who were having problems. He was teaching at Holy Cross when both Arthur and Michael were there. He was an exceptional golfer and as a Jesuit even played in a few professional tournaments under an assumed named. He died in 2001 at the Jesuit Home in Weston, Massachusetts at the age of 88.

Thomas Drohan - born in Ireland in 1913 or 1914. He went to Business School in Worcester and was a correction officer in Worcester prior to WW II. Went to OCS school and became a Captain in the Army Air Force in Panama during WW II. He married Judith Ruiz of Panama and they had two children, Thomas and Nancy. He worked in management at the Panama Canal and died of a brain tumor in 1974.

Richard Drohan - Born in Worcester in1915. After graduating from Holy Cross College, he joined the US Army, Company D, 33rd Infantry. He served as a scout in the Pacific region in Hollandia, New Guinea and Biak Island in the Good Enough Islands from 1941 - 1944. He was a Pfc and one of only two scouts in his company to come back alive from the war. He had post traumatic stress syndrome and was nursed back to health by Nana Drohan and another woman. Nana Drohan refused to put him in a Veteran's Hospital for fear he would die there. He had additional bouts of PTSS later in his life and had to take low stress jobs. Thus, despite having a college degree, he dug graves for a living. Fr. Joe said Dick was the best athlete he ever saw and was strong as an ox. He was always very quiet but, as some on the family noted, was famous for his wink and smile when Uncle Dave would go on for too long. He died in Worcester in 1998 at the age of 83.

Helen Drohan - born in Worcester in 1917. The story is that she had a nervous breakdown when she was a teenager and was placed in a state home for the mentally ill. I never saw her until she was in her 70's but the picture Dave has of her shows her to have been a strikingly beautiful young woman. Our father taught her in school and told Judy that she was very bright prior to he breakdown., She was in a home all of her life and her last years were spent in the same nursing home as Dick. She died in 1999 at the age of 82.

Joseph Drohan - born in Worcester in 1919. He was a First Lieutenant in the US Army in WW II and was part of the D day invasion at Omaha Beach. He landed on the second day and was part of the army that retook Belgium and Germany. After the war he was a shoe salesman for Brown Shoes. He later became a diocesan priest in 1956 and had a parish near Atlanta, Georgia and later was the Chaplain at the Perpetual Help Home in Atlanta for people who were dying. He was an icon in our family for he always brought a huge stash of candy for us every time he visited and would keep us spellbound with his riddles. He died in Worcester in 2005 at the age of 85.

(This my father's version of the Drohans taken from his family history above)

The Drohan’s were farmers and had a large farm near Carrick-on Sur. Patrick Drohan, Mother’s father, was one of twelve children. The names of the other children were Thomas, James, David, Mike, Bridget and Walter. The names of the other children are not known at this time. Patrick Drohan was the son of David Drohan and a Couming woman and came form Ireland to Worcester, Massachusetts. He worked at Crompton and Knowles Loom Works, the same place that Dad’s father worked. He went to school nights and thru his studies became a Master Mechanic. It is not known whether Mike Spring and Patrick Drohan knew each other but it is possible that they did. Patrick Drohan played the accordion, an instrument that was part of every Irish dance, and Mike Spring had an exceptional singing voice. It could be that they met at various dances that young Irish immigrants attended in the city of Worcester, and Nana Drohan knew of my father and his fine voice.

The Drohan farm in Ireland survived four generations of Drohans, and was sold a short time before 1972 when Mom and Dad visited Ireland. Frances Z. Wharton and Patrick had nine children, Mother, David, Jim, Tom, Joe, Dick and Helen, plus two children who died at birth. During World War II, four boys, Dave, Tom, Joe and Dick served in the army. Nana Drohan in spite of being a widow at the time was the only widow woman in Worcester that had a service flag with four stars on it. In addition Father Jim gave his time as a chaplain in the Army Hospital in Framingham, Mass.

A note by Justin Spring on the Drohans.
 

Tommy Drohan of Panama, who was the chief enginneer on the Panama Canal and the son of Tom Drohan of Worcester, told me that in his travels he had met a Drohan in San Francisco who was related through a part of the family that had settled on the west coast of California, specifically in San Francisco. This was verified for me in the strangest way by Lynda Barondes, who is the owner of the Maria Felix hotel in Alamos Mexico and who turned out to be relative via the San Francsico Drohans. There is a remarkable family resemblance.

Also, and i don't know who told me this, (perhaps by Tommy Drohan of Panama) that the Drohans initially came from France, and were the decendants of Cardinal D'Rohan, who fled France in the 16th or 17nth century in order to save his skin. It seems he was playing with the Ladies among other things, a habit he obviously continued upon reaching Ireland.

The fact of the matter is that we know little about the Drohans, including our own mysterious maternal grandfather, except for an equally mysterious reappearance of one of his great nephews (Patrick Drohan's) at the Panamanian door step of Judith Ruiz Drohan in the 1990s.

He had somehow contacted her thanks to the Irish phone company where he was a lineman. In his own research, or perhaps by talking to or hearing some family history via my brother and daughter, he had somehow found out about Tom going to Panama in WWll as a soldier and marrying Judith Ruiz. it seems he then proceeded to spend a great deal of time talking to her free of charge by tapping into the wires until he worked his way into an invitation at the palatial Drohan home in Pamana. I believe his name was also Patrick. 

When he left Panama, he stayed with me for a bit. He and his wife and sons were quite affable. He told me that the Drohans had lost the farm, which was a large horse farm, because the 2 remaining brothers (who had never married and who were the brothers of Patrick Drohan of Worcester) literally let the farmhouse fall down upon their heads over a period of years out of melancholy and drunkenness. It seems that as the house collapsed, they kept moving back into more secure rooms until they finally wound up in the last room, the kitchen, where the last brother was found dead, his head lying in his vomit on the kitchen table .

My brothers and sisters are always a bit leery of these stories of mine about the Drohans because they hold Nana Drohan in such high esteem, but they always seem to forget it was her husband who was a Drohan. From the little we know of him, he did something bad enough to get kicked out of the house after 15 or so years , this at a time when just about any behavior was tolerated in the immigrant Irish community, including the heavy drinking which was the supposed cause of his expulsion.

At any rate, the dark side some of us carry in our veins was surely inherited from Patrick if his brothers are any indication of that. 

My daughter Margaret and my brother Jimmy both met the Drohan family relatives on trips to Ireland. When Jimmy asked directions of a stranger as to where they lived, he got this response: Oh you mean THOSE Drohans.

By their reports, those Drohans were an artistic lot and owned an off-beat pub. Patrick the lineman fit right in.

Father Jim Drohan, Margaret (Drohan) Spring, Joe Drohan, Arthur John Spring Sr. Circa 1942 in Worcester.


Here is Mom's DNA Trace

Here are the last 2 steps in Mom's path

Haplogroup pre-HV: In the Near East 

Descending from haplogroup R were a group of individuals who formed a western Eurasian lineage. The descendants of pre-HV live in high frequencies in the Anatolian/Caucasus region and Iran. While members of this group can also be found in the Indus Valley near the Pakistan-India border, their presence is considered the result of a subsequent migration eastward of individuals out of the Near East.

Individuals in haplogroup pre-HV can be found all around the Red Sea and widely throughout the Near East. While this genetic lineage is common in Ethiopia and Somalia, individuals from this group are found at highest frequency in Arabia. Because of their close genetic and geographic proximity to other western Eurasian clusters, members of this group living in eastern Africa are the likely result of more recent migrations back into the continent.


As we have seen from haplogroups Nand R, descendants from these western Eurasian lineages used the Near East as a home base of sorts, radiating from that region to populate much of the rest of the world. Their descendants comprise all of the western Eurasian genetic lineages, and about half of the eastern Eurasian mtDNA gene pool. Some individuals moved across the Middle East into Central Asia and the Hindus Valley near western India. Some moved south, heading back into the African homeland from where their ancestors had recently departed.


Haplogroup pre-HV is of particular importance because over the course of several thousand years, its descendants split off and formed their own group, called HV. This groupD thanks in large part to a brutal cold spell that was about to set in gave rise to the two most prevalent female lineages found in Western Europe.




Haplogroup HV:The Near East and Beyond


Ancestral line: "Eve" > L 1/LO > L2 > L3 > N> R > pre-HV > HV


While some descendants of these ancestral lineages moved out across Central Asia, the Indus Valley, and even back into Africa, your ancestors remained in the Near East. Descending from haplogroup pre-HV, they formed a new group, characterized by a unique set of mutations, called haplogroup HV.


Haplogroup HV is a west Eurasian haplogroup found throughout the Near East, including Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia and the republic of Georgia. It is also found in parts of East Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, where its presence there indicates recent Near Eastern gene flow, likely the result of the Arab slave trade over the last two millennia.


Much earlier, around 30,000 years ago, some members of HV moved north across the Caucasus Mountains and west across Anatolia, their lineages being carried into Europe for the first time by the Cro-Magnon. Their arrival in Europe heralded the end of the era of the Neandertals, a hominid species that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago. Better communication skills, weapons, and resourcefulness probably enabled them to outcompete Neandertals for scarce resources.


Haplogroup V: Your Branch on the Tree


Ancestral line:

This wave of migration into western Europe marked the appearance and spread of what archaeologists call the Aurignacian culture. The culture is distinguished by significant innovations in methods of manufacturing tools, standardization of tools, and use of a broader set of tool types, such as end-scrapers for preparing animal skins and tools for woodworking.


Around 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, colder temperatures and a drier global climate locked much of the world's fresh water at the polar ice caps, making living conditions near impossible for much of the northern hemisphere. Early Europeans retreated to the warmer climates of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and the Balkans, where they waited out the cold spell. Their population sizes were drastically reduced, and much of the genetic diversity that had previously existed in Europe was lost.


Beginning about 15,000 years ago, the ice sheets had begun their retreat and humans moved north again and recolonized western Europe. Among these settlers was a new genetic lineage being introduced to the mitochondrial landscape, haplogroup V.


Today, haplogroup V tends to be restricted to western, central, and northern Europe. Its age is estimated at around 15,000 years old, indicating that it likely arose during the 5,000 years or so that humans were confined to the European refuge. It is found in around 12 percent of Basques, an isolated population in northern Spain, and around five percent in many other Western European populations. It is also found in Algeria and Morocco, indicating that these humans migrating out of the Iberian Peninsula also headed south across the Straight of Gibraltar and into North Africa. Its genetic diversity, and thus age, reduces gradually moving west to east, indicating the migratory direction these groups followed during the recolonization.


Interestingly, haplogroup V attains its highest frequency in the Skolt Saami of northern Scandinavia, a group of hunter-gatherers who follow the reindeer herds seasonally from Siberia to Scandinavia and back. While V makes up about half the mitochondrial lineages in the Saami, its genetic diversity is considerably reduced compared to that observed in Western Europe, andwas likely introduced into the Saami within the past several thousand years.


Haplogroup V is a good example of the effect that population dynamics such as bottleneck events, founder effect, genetic drift, and rapid population growth, have on the genetic diversity of resulting populations.

Here is Dad's DNA

These are the last two steps in genome tracing of dad

M173: Colonizing Europe—The First Modern Europeans

Fast Facts

Time of Emergence: Around 30,000 years ago

Place: Central Asia

Climate: Ice Age

Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Approximately 100,000

Tools and Skills: Upper Paleolithic

As your ancestors continued to move west, a man born around 30,000 years ago in Central Asia gave rise to a lineage defined by the genetic marker M173. His descendants were part of the first large wave of humans to reach Europe.

During this period, the Eurasian steppe lands extended from present-day Germany, and possibly France, to Korea and China. The climate fostered a land rich in resources and opened a window into Europe.

Your ancestors' arrival in Europe heralded the end of the era of the Neandertals, a hominid species that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 29,000 to 230,000 years ago. Better communication skills, weapons,and resourcefulness probably enabled your ancestors to outcompete Neandertals for scarce resources.

This wave of migration into Western Europe marked the appearance and spread of what archaeologists call the Aurignacian culture. The culture is distinguished by significant innovations in methods of manufacturing tools, more standardization of tools, and a broader set of tool types, such as end-scrapers for preparing animal skins and tools for woodworking.

In addition to stone, the first modern humans to reach Europe used bone, ivory, antler, and shells as part of their tool kit. Bracelets and pendants made of shells, teeth, ivory, and carved bone appear at many sites. Jewelry, often an indication of status, suggests a more complex social organization was beginning to develop. The large number of archaeological sites found in Europe from around 30,000 years ago indicates that there was an increase in population size.

Around 20,000 years ago, the climate window shut again, and expanding ice sheets forced your ancestors to move south to Spain, Italy, and the Balkans. As the ice retreated and temperatures became warmer, beginning about 12,000 years ago, many descendants of M173 moved north again to repopulate places that had become inhospitable during the Ice Age.

Not surprisingly, today the number of descendants of the man who gave rise to marker M173 remains very high in Western Europe. It is particularly concentrated in northern France and the British Isles where it was carried by ancestors who had weathered the Ice Age in Spain.

M343: Direct Descendants of Cro-Magnon

Fast Facts

Time of Emergence: Around 30,000 years ago

Place of Origin: Western Europe

Climate: Ice sheets continuing to creep down Northern Europe

Estimated Number of Homo sapiens:

Tools and Skills: Upper Paleolithic

Around 30,000 years ago, a descendant of the clan making its way into Europe gave rise to marker M343, the defining marker of your haplogroup. You are a direct descendent of the people who dominated the human expansion into Europe, the Cro-Magnon.

The Cro-Magnon are responsible for the famous cave paintings found in southern France. These spectacular paintings provide archaeological evidence that there was a sudden blossoming of artistic skills as your ancestors moved into Europe. Prior to this, artistic endeavors were mostly comprised of jewelry made of shell, bone, and ivory; primitive musical instruments; and stone carvings.

The cave paintings of the Cro-Magnon depict animals like bison, deer, rhinoceroses, and horses, and natural events important to Paleolithic life such as spring molting, hunting, and pregnancy. The paintings are far more intricate, detailed, and colorful than anything seen prior to this period.

Your ancestors knew how to make woven clothing using the natural fibers of plants, and had relatively advanced tools of stone, bone, and ivory. Their jewelry, carvings, and intricate, colorful cave paintings bear witness to the Cro-Magnons' advanced culture during the last glacial age.

This is where your genetic trail, as we know it today, ends. However, be sure to revisit these pages. As additional data are collected and analyzed, more will be learned about your place in the history of the men and women who first populated the Earth. We will be updating these stories throughout the life of the project.

End of Drohan Family Biography Section

Additional Bios of Distant Spring Relatives

EDWINA "POOCHES" SPRING

Edwina "Pooches" Spring of Kerry  is a close Irish   relative. 

She  is the youngest daughter of Dick Spring  of Kerry (b.1950), former Foreign Minister of Ireland. 

Edwina is   23 years of age and a Graduate of Oxford where she took studies in Ancient Eastern History.

She  approached me several months ago after discovering our Spring Family Page on the web, saying she had read my father's history of the Springs  in America, England, Ireland and Kerry and believed that her branch of the family is indeed directly related to us as our own father thought. 

She therefore felt that what she knows of the personal history of her own branch of the Spring family might be of immense interest to us given our  family's  athletic and artistic achievements, contributions to public service,  as well as my own involvement in psychic phenomena, a field in which she has a particular interest both academically and personally.

For those of you whom aren't conversant with what's happening in modern Ireland, Edwina's father Dick Spring is a major player.

If you want the details, there is a great deal of information on Dick Spring  in Wikipedia, but here are the basic facts:

Richard "Dick" Spring (b. 29 August 1950) is an Irish businessman and former politician. He was first elected as a Labour Party (Teachta Dála (aka Member of Parliament) in 1981 and retained his seat until 2002. He became leader of the Labour Party in 1982, and held this position until 1997.    

He served as Minister for the Environment (1982–1983), Minister for Energy (1983–1987) and Minister for Foreign Affairs (1993–November 1994, December 1994–1997). He also served as Tánaiste (aka Deputy Prime Minister) during those three governments.

A brief glance at Dick Spring's career  would convince anyone that he was (and still) is  a very accomplished man. In the photo (R.) Dick is on Margaret Thatcher's left shoulder.   

 It was through my continued correspondence with Edwina, however,  that I began to see she was a rare find.  She proved to be funny, knowledgeable, and absolutely fearless in opening the family kimono. 

Here is the story of her family in her own words. I'll let it speak for itself:

Dear Justin:  

The historical period when  our two families would probably have been closest was in the 1880s. The catalyst, believe it or not, would have been Gaelic football.  

There is a history of star Gaelic footballers in our family. My father, Dick Spring, and his father Dan 
(2nd row, L.),   are the  most recent in our direct family line.    



In the 1880s, Gaelic football was in full bloom in Ireland, and Kerry was no exception to that. Your father's story indicates this was also the time  when your great uncle Arthur Spring was a  boy growing up in Kerry, so his  growing up and being a star Kerry footballer on a  champion Gaelic football team fits right in, as does  his subsequent trip  with that same team to tour America around 1900. 

  

Your father does an excellent job of describing  what then took place, as Ireland was definitely a place from which to emigrate, so his story of your  Uncle Arthur jumping ship (illegally it seems) and  establishing a foothold from which he could eventually bring  his many brothers  over  to America was probably a scenario that was repeated over and over.

It seems evident to me  that the athletic ability of the later American Springs in your  family (Kelby Spring, James Hillary Spring, your cousin Arthur Roche, and 1926 Naval Academy All-American, Arthur Spring, to mention just a few) stems from your great uncle Arthur and his brothers, as do the high positions they reached  in public service: your father Army Colonel and Maritime Captain Arthur Spring, (photo R.) and  Rear Admiral Pacific Fleet Subic Bay Arthur Spring).

This kind of achievement is mirrored in my own father, Dick Spring, who was a star footballer and  Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland.

I have no doubts, both from physical resemblance and level of achievement that our families  reached, that they may have been directly (and not just anciently) related. This is something your father suggests at the end of his  own history, although he somehow got my father’s first name wrong, thinking it was William.

I think , however, that the really interesting connection is not so much with my direct family line, which is  somewhat boring, but a branch of it begun by my great aunt Edwina (L.), who was the daughter of  the my  great, great aunt Frannie  who was born Frances O'Brien in 1825.

She subsequently married  my distant cousin Arthur Richard Spring in 1861. See photo (R.). In 1865, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter, who was none other than the fabulous Edwina Spring, my great aunt and namesake.

Edwina Spring was an unusual woman. Not only was she a devoted follower of Madame Blavatsky (L.) the brilliant and influential Russian psychic and spiritualist, but she also began a psychic movement of her own called Gaelach Intinn (Gaelic Mind)

Edwina left few personal written documents, preferring to pass on her teachings by speaking them, but luckily for us, records had to be kept of the business of Gaelach Intinn, and it is from these that I have been able to fill in many of the blanks.

From the few personal written documents Edwina did leave, it is clear that when she married, she arranged to keep the last name Spring and not adopt the name of her husband, thus insuring that her children would also be Springs.

This kind of cross-dressing was unheard of in 19^th century Ireland, but she somehow managed to accomplish it. I presume she finessed the legal part of it  through the connivance of her wealthy, influential husband, Robert Richard Sullivan (L),  but as to how she convinced him  to do this is anybody’s guess, as  the last thing any Irishman would ever willingly give up is his family name.

At 35, by all accounts,  Edwina  was in her prime, which is also about the time (1900) your great uncle Arthur Spring was a star footballer in Kerry. It is hard for me to believe that they didn’t know of each other, both being celebrated Kerry citizens, and there is no doubt in my mind that they probably chatted each other up after the Gaelic football matches that were the social occasion in Kerry at the time.

It is even more likely because Edwina was a very good athlete herself (tennis and badminton, see photo (L.), Edwina is 4^th from the right) and had many athletic friends, both male and female. At times, I even like to think she may have had an affair with your great uncle Arthur, who by your own account, was not only a man's man, but something of a lady's man as well. 

I say this because Edwina was no shrinking violet herself when it came to approaching men—and, by all accounts, she especially didn’t like taking No for an answer. 

Her favorite photo was of herself at 35 (L.) shows her posed in an elaborate (if somewhat overdone Belle Epoc costume). This photograph, if anything, confirms my own sense of her as a lithe, very attractive woman  who was obviously not afraid of flaunting convention. 

At the same time, the records show that she was more than just another  artsy type. By 1900, her spiritual movement (Gaelach Intinn) was rapidly gaining followers. According to the records, there were around 175 members in  Kerry alone.

Even more impressive is the fact that in 1897  at age 32 she not only made a spectacular catch by marrying Robert Richard Sullivan, a wealthy, very good looking Irishman (L.) but also somehow managed to avoid taking his name so she could keep the Spring family name.

This wasn’t done by hyphenation, as in, Edwina Sullivan-Spring, or Spring-Sullivan, but by somehow having Sullivan agree that both she and any children of their union  were to be known solely by the family name of Spring.

As you may well know, Ireland at that time, and in particular Kerry, was not progressive by any stretch of the imagination, so how she managed to do this legally (and also get her name-proud husband to acquiesce to it) is anybody’s guess.

I can only suggest that part of the reason may be that the aristocracy (of which Sullivan was a distant member) were given a great deal of leeway by the public and treated somewhat like today's movie stars. In other words, anything goes for those blokes, including crazy name changes.

Out of that marriage, came a very precocious son. Arthur Richard Spring, born 1899. The photo (L.) shows Arthur at age 17 on a bicycle outing. He is on the extreme right with left hand on hip, a characteristic pose of his.

This use of the first name Arthur,was unknown in my branch of the family, and is one reason why I speculate that Arthur Richard Spring was not the son of Robert Richard Sullivan but none other than your great uncle Arthur.

Arthur Richard Spring  married  the formidable Siobhan Guinness in 1919. (L.) They  had one child, a daughter, Winona Arthur Spring, in 1921, who was to eventually become then last leader of Gaelach Intinn.




Upon Edwina's death in 1940 at age 75, her son Arthur Richard Spring took up her position as head of Gaelach Intinn . He  continued in that capacity until his death in 1953 at age 88. 

The Gaelach Intinn leadership position was then taken over by his daughter Winona Arthur,  who was 32 at the time. She is seen at age 60 in the winsome photograph to the right. She is still the leader of Gaelach Intinn as of 2013

There is a 1914 posed nude photograph of the young teenage Arthur Richard Spring that I came across in  the files of Gaelach Intinn. The written description indicated that it was Edwina’s favorite and most probably photographed by her as well. Who the other, younger semi-nude boy was is  unknown.

Gaelach Intinn is not as active now as it was in Edwina’s time, having only about 35 members most of them quite elderly, as can be seen in this 2008 annual meeting photo (R.) Winona is in the center, seated in black.

The Gaelach Intinn organization is still  headed by Winona, who can be seen in the photo (L.) at age 16  dancing nude in a Summer Equinox circle. She is the tall  blonde girl with the dark patch of pubic hair

Winona Arthur is now 93, in good health, but is the last of the Edwina Spring line because of the fact that she never married. 

One of her strongest traits is her wry sense of humor which is evident in her witty comment about Arnold Schwarzenegger (R.) in a 1980 Dublin newspaper article. It seems an overworked reporter   was assigned to cover both her visit to Dublin and a publicity tour of Schwarzenegger, who was in Dublin  at the time publicizing Pumping Iron.

The reporter somehow managed to combine the two of them into a single article by getting Arnold to visit Winona in a Dublin park where she was chatting with an old girl friend.   

The  photo accompanying the article shows her admiring Arnold's muscles The headline read "Kerry Psychic Reads Arnold’s Bumps." When asked what she thought of Schwarzenegger, she quipped, "It doesn't take much to get the lad undressed, does it?" A comment which seems all the more prophetic today in light of Arnold's notorious recent affair with his Mexican house maid. 

That same sense of humor can be seen in a 1986 picture of her posed with a group of "witches" dressed in comic black costumes. She was 77 at the time. I found the photo in the Gaelach Intinn archives. Winona is the second from the left.

Despite her single status, there are persistent rumors of her having several love children dotting the Kerry countryside, all with the name Spring. In addition, there is a long standing rumor that one of them will emerge to run Gaelach Intinn upon her death. Winona has refused to comment on these supposed love children, but from time to time they do make the news.

 One of her purported love children is Winston Arthur Spring, a young man with hypertrichosis, a condition  that causes dense hair to grow all over his face and body. He  held a news conference in 1983  claiming he was a love child born in 1951. He was 32 at the time this picture was taken, but he has since disappeared from public sight (or shaved.). 

The next year, in January 2009, another young man by the strange name of Gnirps Ruhtra Notsniw  also claimed to be a love child. The public became aware of him as the result of a picture of him being posted on Facebook.

Although it has since been taken off, the photograph showed him bound to a wall with duct tape. He claimed the photograph was taken in 1978, when he was 27. He further went on to claim that the duct tape wrapped itself around him as the  result of a psychic experiment he conducted to become one with Christ and that Winona was aware of the experiment and encouraged it. 

When a local cryptographer  pointed out that Gnirps Ruhtra Notsniw  was a palindrome of  Winston Arthur Spring, there was a great deal of  speculation that the duct taped  body was none other than the hairy body of Winston Arthur Spring completely shaved for the occasion.  

Winston Arthur Spring, the  young man with hypertrichosis,  refused to comment on these speculations, and no one has ever come up with reasonable scenario as to why he would ever do something like this, including myself. 

Then there is the case of young man named Omega Winston Spring (below, L.) who seemed to continue the "hairy" disclosure of Winston Arthur Spring by recently posting on Facebook that a Batman stigmata was psychically carved into his chest hair in 2005 while he was sleeping in front of the television. He supplied the photo below (L.) as proof. 

He also claimed that  Winona was responsible and that she was obsessed with very hairy men. He stated in the Facebook entry that he was a love child of Winona's, but the fact that he was born in 1985, when Winona was 64, makes his claim so ludicrous that one wonders why he ever made it in the first place.

 Finally, there was the case of Alpha Arthur Spring, who appeared at Kerry Mercy Hospital in 2004 claiming he was  Winona Arthur Spring pregnant with another love child. 

As Winona was 73 at the time and well known in Kerry, the constabulary was called in and  he was arrested on the charge of impersonating a public figure. 

By all reports, he seemed not at all phased by the charge, as can be seen by the photo of him (above, R.)  posing in the "preggers" costume he used to impersonate Winona. 

These last two cases seem to be simply cases of  wannabes riding on the coattails of the 1983 disclosure  of  Winston Arthur Spring, which may have some merit as the dates make sense, and even more so when a close examination of the various dates of  the duct taped  body reveal they indeed could be one and the same person.

However, in the last two cases (Alpha Arthur Spring and Omega Winston Spring) I think what were seeing here is  the kind of detrius any spiritual/psychic movement leaves behind as it winds down and withers away. I am afraid that is what is happening  to Gaelach Intinn.

But let me get back to my great aunt Edwina in the early days of Gaelach Intinn, because there is a very interesting story about the way she conducted public appearances.

As you might imagine, Edwina's psychic work in Gaelach Intinn brought the Kerry Catholic clergy down on her hot and heavy and there were also any number of  thick-headed Irishmen who resented her free-wheeling ways.

Her husband’s wealth and position obviously helped protect her, but when she was speaking in public she took extra precautions. She prefigured Hollywood's use of body guards  by hiring  two enormous twin brothers in 1905 who were absolutely devoted to her.

Their names were Francis and Thomas Wharton, the slow-thinking twin sons of a local farmer. As soon as she hired them, she renamed them Alpha and Omega, and they became celebrities of a sort themselves because of their presence at all gatherings of Gaelach Intinn.

Alpha and Omega  were especially feared by the many Irishmen who hated Edwina. It seems that one such hater  hurled a cabbage at Edwina while she was speaking, whereupon the brothers grabbed him, split the cabbage in half and rammed both halves up his anus.  Alpha reportedly said of  this, "We didn't want to hurt him by using a full head." That was the end of anyone ever again throwing anything at Winona.

Alpha and Omega survived the death of Edwina and continued as the body guards of Arthur Richard Spring, who took up Edwina’s position  as head of Gaelach Intinn upon her death in 1940. 

Alpha and Omega died on the same day, Jan 27, 1943. They were both 78 years of age and their funeral was attended by hundreds of admirers, many of whom went on to name their children after the twins.

I hope this helps you round out the very good family portrait drawn by your father. Do ring me up if you ever find yourself in Kerry.

Sincerely

Edwina "Pooches Spring

  

 FRANK ALOYSIUS SPRING

My cousin Frank Aloysius Spring, who is 72, was born in 1941. He sent me this picture recently  of his father Samuel S. S. ( Stephen  Sylvester) Spring (L.) in Portland Maine in 1919. Because of the many "S's" in his name, he was often called "Shhss" by his close friends. 

Frank informs me that this unusual nickname was often the cause of  some  confusion, especially when his father was preparing for a night of love making, because Frank would hear him  begin by floridly telling his wife Portia how much he loved her, etc., etc.,  to which Portia, overcome with ardor, always exclaimed,"Oh, Shhss!" which never failed to shut Samuel up like a clam and cause the whole erotic enterprise to wind down like a spent clock. 

Frank says that Samuel and Portia initially had only  two children, both girls, whom they  named  (see photo above, L to R) as Samalla (b.1917) and Portolla  (b.1914). 

Frank said he was not yet born at the time the above family photo was taken.

Frank  also reports that  their mother would sometimes shorten and combine the girls names when calling them in from play by shouting out "Porto-sam, it's time to sit down and eat!" 

Both girls grew up to be skilled badminton champions in a time when it was an exclusive man's sport played indoors at private clubs and baths.

 


The house to the right,  according to Frank, was the one his family lived in and where he was born in 1941 and lived  until recently when it was turned into an historical landmark and now houses the Portland 12-point program.

I don't know whether Uncle Frank was kidding or not, but he sent me the picture on the right which he says is of him at 65 with his then girl friend, Marcela. I have no idea what they were actually doing in this picture and Frank's only comment was that they were "having fun." 

Frank said that Marcela was extremely enterprising, being a druggist, undertaker and beautician. Unfortunately, Frank reports that  a few weeks before he contacted me, they were engaged their weekly game of  strip  poker and tragedy struck  as she was  taking off her bra after losing a close hand. 

It seems   she had  just topped  off a handful of  Ambien and Xanax  with a very large Lord Calvert boilermaker  when she suddenly keeled over  and was, in Frank's own words, "Deader than a doornail in 30 seconds".

According to Frank, Marcela was one hell of a gal who never did anything halfway, including her massive mixing of pills and booze, and  that  her dramatic, half-naked death was covered by the local TV station, WPORT. 

As a part of their coverage, WPORT re-ran a program they had broadcast earlier in the year about how Marcela had run the new Korean pedicure  shop (PEDIKOR) out of town by threatening to "chloroform the  chink bitches in their sleep and  embalm them like Mao Tse-tung."

Frank explained that Mao Tse-tung was reportedly injected with so much  formaldehyde by his anxious embalmers that his stiff corpse would occasionally squirt a  stream of yellow formaldehyde  onto the inside of his glass viewing casket, causing great alarm among his successors.  
  

According to Frank, this story is well known by all Asians, who have an instinctive fear their leaders will come back from the dead and fuck them over just for the hell of it.


The photo to the left is one Frank sent showing his sisters, Samalla  and Portolla, in their early 40s.  By this time, he said, they had become very large, scary women who would challenge the local metal workers to arm wrestle in  bars for beers. 

He added that what appears to be a young girl squeezed between their massive bodies is actually Frank himself at age 11, whom they dressed up as a small girl (with a small padded bra) for this picture and  never let him forget it.

Frank added that they are in their 90s now and  confined to electric wheel chairs because of their weight, but when they cruise the sidewalks to hit the local bars for beers, grown men will  cross to the other side of the street to avoid them.

 The photo to the left was one Frank also sent of his only child, his son, "Frankie", who it seems has had some difficulty in determining if he is male or female.


In his letter, Frank wrote that "Frankie" seems to have solved the problem 
(at least temporarily) by wearing only black lingerie and never shaving.  

Hooray "Frankie".

Orville Wright "Lefty" Spring 

The photos and information in this section were were sent in by my cousin Orville Wright Spring, whom I met only once when I was around 11. He was called Orville then, but he now says he is always called by his nickname, "Lefty" by everyone, including his wife and children. 

I had heard rumors that Orville had gone on to become a highly decorated Green Beret in the Vietnam War, but it was only after he discovered the Spring Family Page on the web and wrote me that I got the incredible details. 

For reasons unknown, the  email he sent  me was written in Vietnamese,  which I then translated using Google, so I may have botched some details, but I believe the story is essentially correct. It is indeed a very strange story but probably no different than that of many Nam vets who refused to come home after the war. 

He still lives in Vietnam (Saigon) and has been married to a lovely local girl, Wan Mac Phon, for almost 40 years. The photo (L) was taken after  they first met in 1973 when Wan Mac Phon  was a 20 year old stripper in a local bar frequented by GIs. "Lefty" said it was his favorite photograph and far preferred it to the more demure one he  eventually sent home to his parents (R), which shows a more demure Wan Mac Phon, which was "totally bullshit" according to "Lefty" because he says "He never would  have married her if she wasn't the wild crazy bitch (dogbakfok in Vietnamese) that she truly was.

It is characteristic of "Lefty" to have sent me war pictures in which he is either turned away from the camera (L.), or almost out of camera range as in the photo (below R.) where he is in the background standing  on the roof of what he describes as a kind of "hooch" the Berets used when deep in "Charlie" territory, which was too often, according to  "Lefty", who was wounded twice..  

He says he  acquired the nickname "Lefty"  because both wounds were to his right arm  forcing him to do everything with his left hand for over two years, including "wiping my ass,  try it sometime."

Once the war was over, "Lefty", by his own account, gained a great deal of weight (see photo of him below L.) from smoking Thai sticks and eating huge amounts of  Twinkies,  two habits he still maintains assiduously.

Twinkies, according to "Lefty", are still readily available in Saigon,  which he says again illustrates the distinctive entrepreneurial knack of the Vietnamese in finding  "niche businesses". 

"Lefty," who was totally disillusioned by the war, briefly returned to the states in 1976 to get  discharged and see his parents.  

Accompanying him (above) were his wife, Wan Mac Phon,  and their year old son, Orville Wright "Lefty Junior" Wan.

Once he got discharged in San Diego California, he rented a Cadillac El Dorado (just like the one Elvis drove according to "Lefty") and drove  it and his his young family to Stoneville, Vermont to visit his parents, who were still living  in  the home "Lefty's" grandfather Leonardo Spring built in 1890.  (See photo below L.)

"Lefty's" father, Wilbur Wright  Spring was born in 1917. Wilbur  is the small child on the lap of his father, Leonardo da Vinci  Spring in the photo (L.) 

Leonardo built the house whose front porch they are sitting on in 1890. After his wife Lucretia (the woman in grey in the photo above L.) died of accidental poisoning in 1919, Leonardo never remarried, preferring to remain a widower. 

He  became  an eccentric inventor who accidentally invented a portable ice-making machine in 1926 which he then patented and used to start an ice  making business in Key West in 1928 , an enterprise which became extremely profitable by 1929. (see photo below L.)

When Leonardo left for Key West he deeded the house to the 12 year old Wilbur  and never returned or wrote other than to send the ice truck photo (L.) and a short note saying he had hit it big and don't bother to come down.

"Lefty" went on to say that when he visited in 1976, the house looked pretty much the same today  as it did in the 1917 picture (above) because his father Wilbur was usually too drunk to repair or paint anything.

"Lefty" told me that in 1934 his father,  at the age of 26,   married  Marabella Lupe, a local beauty and hairdresser (above L.) who  was 10 years his senior and who gave birth to "Lefty"  three years later in the back of her beauty shop in 1937 in the middle of a smelly pile of discarded  TONI Home Permanent boxes.

  "Lefty" also said that he had one sister, Frannie, (L.) who was  a year younger and that they were both raised in the same 1890 house that his father inherited and that his father still living in it with Marabella when he and Wan Mac Phon  and their year old son, Orville Wright "Lefty Junior" Wan  visited them  in 1976.

According to "Lefty", his father, a WWII vet, (L.) refused to speak to his "Jap" wife (as he called Wan Mac Phon) and that their visit pretty much went down the toilet after that.  

Frank's mother,  Marabella, (R) now a platinum blonde,  tried to bring the family together as best she could, but eventually fell asleep blitzed on Rob Roys   on the family porch-swing along with his  father  who, according to "Lefty", was already  eight sheets to the wind when they arrived.

  

"Lefty's" sister, Frannie, who always sat between her mother and father (L) on the porch swing to keep them from hitting each other when they were drinking, had the unfortunate  habit of  getting drunk and falling asleep between them, which she also did on Frank's visit.

"Lefty" said he took the photo of the three of them (above, L.) from his father's upstairs bedroom after engaging in every deviant sexual act on his father's bed that he and Wan Mac Phon knew, which was 123 by "Lefty's" count.

He then  left without changing the sheets and without saying goodbye ( "Why bother ? The three of them were  completely blitzed.")

"Lefty" further informed me that the Vietnamese have a word for not changing the sheets after sex which is "Wanfokshets", which roughly translated means "squeezing the prune."

He quickly returned to Saigon as a civilian and began to raise a family, which today consists of his son "Lefty Wan Jr." and his daughter Wan Mac Phon  Tu and his wife Wan Mac Phon  (who, according to "Lefty", toned down her act for this vacation picture taken in Utah on their way back to Vietnam.)

To raise his family, "Lefty" bought an large 3 bedroom apartment on the second floor (white-framed doors) of a commercial building in the downtown "doper" district  of  Saigon where he still lives today.  "Lefty" tells me that he acquired the cash to buy the house from selling  Thai sticks to American tourists, a lucrative practice he continues to this day.

"Lefty's" Daughter: Wan Mac Phon Tu

 Wan Mac Phon Tu was born in 1978, two years after "Lefty's" son, "Lefty Junior" Wan. She has since become a sought after model in both the Cheescake and high fashion world of Saigon.   

According to "Lefty", she was a shy little girl until  around 14, "when her mother's genes kicked in and she suddenly blossomed  into a very attractive teenager with an outgoing personality and drive to match. 

Her always attentive mother recognized her potential and immediately started to make the rounds with her to the leading Saigon model agencies. The fact that the attractive teenager was the daughter of an upcoming party leader didn't hurt,  according to "Lefty". 

Wan Mac Phon Tu has since become a model spokesperson for a local car dealer (L. below); a bikini company (Wan Mac Phon Tu is the leftmost girl center, below); and a centerfold favorite (below,R) in numerous Saigon skin mags.

"Lefty" included this picture of himself and his daughter taken in 2000, when she was 22 and he was 63 (below, Center).  He says it's his favorite and shows what years of easy living and good dope have done to preserve his youthful appearance.

"Lefty's" Son:  "Lefty Junior" Wan

"Lefty Junior" Wan has become a well known lead singer  in an popular, alternative Saigon band, "FOKIT".

 In the  photo (L.) he is the camera-shy leftmost child, but in the photo (R.) taken at age 11, he is beginning to  look like he hassomething up his sleeve but he's not quite sure what.

By age 13, as  seen in the beach photo (L.) with his gorgeous sister, "Lefty Junior" Wan is  definitely on his way to becoming a young rocker.  

"Lefty", who is a "Deadhead"and Stones fan doesn't think much of "Lefty Junior" Wan's music, but also says,  "he's making some damn good bucks and has lots of babes so who knows? Besides with all the action he's getting, I don't think he gives a good shit."

"Lefty Junior" Wan , who was 25 years old in this 2000 group photo of FOKIT (above, C) is known in the band as "Wano", and is the handsome young man, forefront, third from L.

"Lefty's"  Wife: Wan Mac Phon

"Lefty's" attractive wife eventually became a Communist Party official in Saigon as well as a strong proponent of Botox, as  is evident in this recent 2010 photo of her, at age 57. 

"Lefty" says Wan Mac Phon saw Cher on TV five years ago and immediately set about Botoxing every part of her body, which has resulted, according to "Lefty", in her normal, lithe appearance  being replaced with  the now famous "CHER Bloat."

Although you might think her stripper background would be a political impediment, she is famous among  voters for her stripper past, something that sets her apart from her colorless comrades in the party.

In the photograph (above L.) which was taken in 1973 at the strip club where she danced, Wan Mac Phon is the stripper in the middle. She uses the photo on her business cards  and never fails to remind male voters that is she is the only party official who really understand their needs. "Lefty" says he absolutely loves that line.

soulspeakspring@gmail.com ss1