The other day I asked my dad if he knew how his parents met.  As a matter of fact, he did, and I’m glad I asked him before it got too late.
Dad told me that he mostly heard the story from his dad… Grandpa (aka Cassius Patrick Dempsey) had gone to one of the local public dance halls, I guess for the Irish neighborhood, and my grandmother was sitting against the wall with some of her friends.

Grandpa noticed her immediately, and there were plenty of men who approached her to dance; she turned down every last one of them.  She laughed and talked with,  her gal pals, but did no dancing.  But Grandpa, from across the room, kept an eye on her, and when, in her laughing and talking, she turned his way and he grinned and crooked his finger at her.

And my grandmother nodded ever so slightly, so Grandpa came over to talk to her.  

So, by the crook of a finger, here we all are: my dad, his siblings, me and my own siblings, and my cousins, and now the next generation.  It’s an odd feeling to realize an entire relationship existed and generations of the Dempsey family exist by the crook of a finger…