Nostalgic account by Neal Shine, former Editor of "The Detroit Free Press" to the birthplace of his mother in Carrick-on-Shannon to sprinkle her ashes on the River Shannon: "We brought her through the town one last time...down the narrow streets of her childhood, past places remembered, places cherished, past the shops where merchants were just opening their doors and rolling back the shutters, arranging their wares on cramped sidewalks freshly swept. Shop names, such as Costello, Duignan, Flynn, Doherty. The Commerce of Carrick-on-Shannon being put in place for another day. Past by the Bush Hotel where, as a little girl, she wished more than anything else to be able to climb to its second floor and see through its high windows the wonders of Carrick arrayed before her. And past Dr. Bradshaw's still substantial house where at 14 years, she had gone to live and work as a serving girl. Where she decided that the world held more promise for her than this. We took her past the heavy oak doors of St. Mary's Church where, on a cold January day 80 years ago, she was washed in the waters of Baptism, where she was Confirmed and had made her First ! Communion. Where her name is inscribed in Latin in the strong hand of the Parish Priest -- "Maria Helena Conlon," (Mary Ellen Conlon) -- it was the Church where she had stopped on the way to the station one morning in 1927. The day she was taking the first uncertain steps to a new life in America. A frightened 18-year-old come to ask God not to forsake her in the strange new land and to see her safely across the ocean to this great new adventure. Now she was back again, back for the last time, because we had promised her that when she died, we would take her Ashes back to the West of Ireland town where she had been born and spread them along the Banks of the River where she had played as a child. We were her Sons, she was our Mother. It was Spring and there was a promise to be kept. Part of her Ashes were buried with my father in Mt. Oliver Cemetery, the rest would drift off on a soft breeze over the dark waters of the Shannon as free as her Spirit when she lived. When we were children she told us some little bit of her never left that peaceful place. That it would always be there, it was why she asked us to take her back. With my brothers, Jim and Bill and our wives, we walked to the Quayside in the shadow of the Old Stone Bridge near the Warehouse in which her father had supervised the unloading and distribution in Carrick of the barrels of Guinness Stout. Near the opposite bank where, as the oldest child, she was permitted to row the boat while her father fished, two swans moved gracefully through tall rushes. At the water's edge, we said the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. The first Prayers she had learned, the first Prayers she taught us. A large black dog that had followed us, sat quietly while we prayed. We sprinkled the Ashes at the river's edge, no stone or monument to mark the place, just the timeless river moving on to the Sea, 135 miles away." The words of Irish Poet William Allingham... "Four ducks on a pond A grass bank beyond A blue sky of spring White birds on the wing What a little thing To remember for years To remember with tears!" -- Excerpt, "The Leitrim Guardian," 1997