MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER - MARY (née DISKIN) BLY

Mary (née Diskin) Bly was my Great Grandmother. Mary Diskin emigrated to the USA from Galway, Ireland, and she is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, Wilkes Barre, PA.

Whenever our parents traveled, they dropped me off in Pennsylvania to stay with my grandparents Frank and Marie Engler in Mill City. I was never tired of the stories about my Grandmother Marie’s mother, Mary Diskin who emigrated from Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania. Mary Diskin married a coal miner named Theron Bly in 1895 and they had three children: James, Marie and John. My mother often described my great grandmother Mary as a woman with a will of iron, whose kitchen was often filled with bottles of homemade wine and the very pungent odor of dandelion blossoms fermenting in pots. On Sunday afternoons Mary would serve wine to the accompaniment of her beloved Irish songs and ballads at her house on 14 Sullivan St., Wilkes Barre, PA. My grandmother Marie would admonish her mother as she passed a small jelly glass with wine to each of her children. But Mary would exclaim in her thick Irish brogue “Oh Marie, it’s good for the blood!"

14 Sullivan St., Wilkes Barre, PA.