Letters from the frontline: The Irish great great grandfather who fought in the American civil war
ADUSTY old, leather-bound box abandoned in an attic was the beginning of a journey of discovery for Bostonian Ellen Alden and it led her all the way to County Cork.
Ellen would discover a family history wreathed in sorrow and hardship, an emigrant’s tale, the story of her great great grandfather. The letters he wrote to his wife, Ellen, would inspire her to trace her roots to Cork, befriend a local historian, and write her first novel, but it all started with her daughter, Jillian’s third-grade project.
