IRELAND | Vacations – Rosturk, Mulranny, Mayo

Rosturk Castle, Mulranny, Mayo, August 1987.
 Spike is dozing in the back. His granddaughter
Margie Marlin (about to be married in 2017) is
standing. Her older sister Laura has the red pail.

VACATIONS – While the Marlins were growing up, we used to spend the summers in a rented cottage–Ste Adèle, Quebec, then Val Morin.

The years 1951-55 were special, because we lived in Europe (Dublin and Paris), spending our vacations in 1954-55 traveling on a "pilgrimage" around Europe.

Every year after that Spike and Hilda vS Marlin would find a place to rent in the Laurentian Mountains and then in Europe. They would invite over their children and grandchildren.

Examples:

• Val Morin, Quebec, Canada (1956-62)
• Robin Hood, Maine (1971)
• La Ferté St Cyr, France (1972)
• Florence, Italy (1976)
• Skibbereen, Cork, Ireland (1983)
• Rosturk Castle, Mulranny, Mayo, Ireland (1987-88)

Spike died in Berkhamsted, Herts. in 1994. HvS died in the same place in 2006.

KIN | Charles Boissevain, Aviva and Her Famly

Three generations of Boissevains. To the left of Charles
 is his daughter Aviva. To his right is granddaughter
Florence.

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, September - I am staying at the Rho Hotel, on Nes off the Dam at the center of old Amsterdam.

The hotel used to be a theater–Nes was once a row of theaters.

Yesterday morning I met in the lobby of the hotel for the first time with two second cousins twice removed–Héloïse and Florence.

Florence is at the head of the table in the photo at left. Across the table from me is Charles Boissevain, my second cousin. Our grandparents include two siblings, i.e., Charles's grandfather Charles E. H.  Boissevain and my grandmother Olga Boissevain van Stockum.

Both my sister and Héloïse are named after the same person – Emily Heéloïse MacDonnell, who married my great-grandfather Charles Boissevain.

Charles was born in 1934 and therefore turned 80 last year - the same age as my sister Olga Emily Marlin, whom I plan to see this weekend in Pamplona.