The Kellys An IrishAmerican Story Author:Katie Kelly We are the Kellys. We are Irish. Catholic. American. And that's about all there is to us. We're just an ordinary family with absolutely nothing special about us at all. Like more than a million other Irish people, the Kellys came to America in the 1800s escaping everything from poverty to persecution. And for over 100 years we have stood aroun... more »d in the middle of our American history as it swirled about us, hurried past us. Periodically we would jump in?or be hauled in?to participate until after awhile all that history we were caught up in began to mount up as the years and then the decades and finally an entire century gathered speed and rushed by, grabbing us and pulling us along with it. Without trying?and perhaps without knowing?we became part of this new history in this new country of ours. A history littered with covered wagons, Indians, abandoned children, world wars, more poverty, more predjudice, great sadness and hearty good times. Life and death. As I began to sort through the pieces of my family's life, I realized with amazement: we were the Forrest Gump of families. Every time something earth-shaking or significant or momentous happened, the Kellys were there. We were not a crucial part of that history. Things would have gone on with us or without us. We didn't change a thing in the course of America's history or destiny. We weren't even an important part of it. We were just?there. In the middle of it all. It was an astonishing realization.« less