Once Upon A Time in Tuckerton

Once upon a time in Tuckerton is the story of a fourteen-year-old girl’s journey to America on the eve of World War I. For the better part of her life, she grew up living with her grandparents in a thatched covered cottage in a beautiful, but remote, area at the southern tip of Ireland. The sheltered child never knew a moment of hunger because her grandparents managed to grow enough crops to pay the rent, and still put food on the table. They gave their granddaughter a religious upbringing and set the example that hard work pays off. She was taught how to read and write, and the skill of needlework was passed down to her. After her grandfather's sudden death, the young girl and her grandmother were forced to move into the nearby village with the child's father. For the first time, Magdalen Rose looks past the beauty of Ireland's landscape and only sees the hopelessness of life all around her. That was when Rose Kelly, sensing her granddaughter's despair made the profound statement “In order to survive Ireland, you may have to leave it!” On the ship coming over, the teenage girl has a chance encounter with a streetwise girl from Dublin, and together the unlikely twosome formed a symbiotic relationship that proved to be beneficial. They were among hundreds of ragtag girls, just like themselves, who landed on a New York City Pier each day. This unlikely duo hatched a plan to make themselves stand out and it worked! They also had the incredibly good fortune of being in the right place at the right time when the proprietors of the Carlton House Hotel happened along. Both girls were hired on the spot to work in the seaside resort of Tuckerton, New Jersey.NOTE TO MY READERSPreserving local history is the reason I gave myself for wanting to write “Once Upon a Time in Tuckerton”. I was hooked on the town from the moment I heard “Tucker's Island was the first summer resort at the Jersey shore”. And that in the late eighteenth century, Tuckerton, New Jersey was one of the largest ship building towns in America. Not to mention how surprised I was to learn about the Revolutionary War massacre that took place on the old Island Road that leads to Osborn Island. However, it was not until I heard whispers surrounding the mysterious activities going on at the German-built wireless radio station on Hickory Island, that I settled on the era in Tuckerton's rich history to write about (1912-1925). Read more