Free Republic

President Biden claimed in a long-winded anecdote on Monday that his great-grandfather was rumored to have been part of a group of coal miners that would kill anti-Catholic mine foremen and lay the dead bodies “on the doorstep” of their families’ homes. Vice President Kamala Harris nodded along as the 81-year-old president spun the strange yarn during his remarks to union workers in Pittsburgh, Pa., joking that he was “disappointed” to learn that his great-grandfather Edward Francis Blewitt was not a member of the “Molly Maguires.” “I remember when my great-grandfather was only the second Catholic elected statewide in the...

I had a wonderful time visiting with Sherman at the barbershop yesterday. He’s quite the comedian. His stories can be so outlandish that I sometimes wonder if they’re true, though I don’t suppose it matters. The subject of his most recent yarn was his carefree nephew Charles. He described him as reckless – but the kind of reckless that you can’t help but love. Charles had decided to try his luck as a bootlegger, but he got off to a rough start for lack of regular customers. The lad’s brew was good enough, Sherman assured us, but he had to...

My Great Grandfather made a series of recordings during his lifetime. This transcript is of one of the “mini sermons” he recorded to send to my Grandfather and his fellow soldiers during WWII. None of them last very long, usually less than 5 minutes, but he made a ton of them. Here’s one from July 1943. I received a letter from Marion last Friday and it seems that many of you are thinking about what’s to come. What’ll be your business when you get back home? What will you do? I can’t answer that question. I can only give you...