Rourke Callahan, emigrating from Ireland, attained his vast fortune from the family’s distillery empire. One would assume that it might be considered an occupational hazard for an Irishman to own a distillery; however, the Callahans were experts in this field, having had the finest whiskeys of their youth instilled in them for generations or maybe distilled in them, whichever the case may be. The Callahan Clan settled their roots in the quaint countryside of Fairfax County in Southern Illinois Rourke Callahan married Charmaine Donnay, a vibrant raven-haired, beautiful Cheri of French ancestry. He was older than she was age-wise, but the maturity she possessed was readily regarded as equal to his profound wisdom; she counted her blessings instead of years. A son, Michael (Mic) Rourke, was born a few years after their marriage. According to his late paternal grandmother, Lorraine, being a Callahan brought with the heritage a right to respect the name and treat it with pride. His birth was highly celebrated with the same vibrancy afforded sons of heraldic pageantry. Through the years of amassed wealth, Mic grew to understand that money was appreciated and respected only if it was earned properly. Working along side the other employees in the distillery plant, he tried to create within himself an inherent feeling for the business. He never took advantage of his privileged background and looked to the others for direction. As the heir apparent, Mic soon realized that his father’s urging nature carried with it an entitlement of responsibility he wasn’t willing to neither assume nor enjoy. He was grateful for the fruits of labor his father and family had indured, but he did not want to follow the pre-determined footsteps carved out for him. The silver spoon left an unappetizing taste in his mouth. His father always told him not to tarnish it, as he sought to pursue other avenues more to his liking. The flamboyancy of Rourke’s Irish ancestral roots was wasted on Mic for he did not inherit the genes of grandiosity displayed by his father and his family. Rather he was more polished in a natural felicitous restraint like Charmaine--- quite accepting but low key to the extent of an unassuming posture in his youth. It was a surprise to all when Mic chose a career in law enforcement, which required a more raucous behavioral pattern.
One afternoon, while sorting through his mother’s papers, at her request, he came upon a letter written by Aunt Marie about the Donnay family pilgrimage to America in 1914. Greetings to the Emile Donnay family: From Aunt Marie
* I think my life really began from the time war was declared in Europe in 1914. I was then nine years old, born in Liege, Belgium, which was one of the first towns the Germans invaded. I well remember that day in August…we were in school and suddenly everything seemed to stop. We were sent home and did not go to school again. The Germans had occupied the school and made their headquarters there. The only time we went there was when we went to get something to eat. The bread that you could buy at the stores was made without the proper ingredients and was not fit for anyone to eat. Being children and hungry, we had no pride…we were so young, all of us. We took gunnysacks and as children will, we made the German soldiers understand that we wanted their scrap bread for the rabbits. As you no doubt know, rabbits are raised a lot in Belgium. We received bread from the soldiers. Some loaves had not been touched at all. We would hurry home and Mother would cut the slices off that they had nibbled on and then we would eat. Some of the loaves were quite hard so she would wrap a wet towel around them until they became soft. Once or twice a week we would go to the school to get some soup, which we carried, in pails. You were given so much per person. We were six at that time…with Mother and Father…the youngest of us was two years old. We were two boys and two girls.
This letter gave him an awe-inspiring insight into the sacrifices that his maternal relatives made on their quest to America. Now he understood why Charmaine never took her privileged status for granted and instilled in her son a common thread of respect and decency for their lifestyle. Her Uncle Edward and Aunt Adeline raised Mic’s mother, the niece of Aunt Marie. Edward was the baby boy mentioned in the letter from Aunt Marie. Charmaine’s mother relinquished her rights to her (for some reason only known to those involved). Charmaine settled in Chicago where she opened the Chardonnay Glass Design Studio. This was the place where the romance started with her one true love, Rourke Callahan. Of course it would be asinine to assume that there wasn’t some form of enjoyment Mic derived from the rich background that the wealth provided. However, he refused to be snobbish and was endowed with a charitable nature like his mother. The lessons he learned from her gentle loving hands, to beware of the wickedness of self-indulgence, gave him a stable platform to proclaim his feelings. In fact, his friends thought he was a little crazy for rejecting his position of heritage and seeking a different, lesser road to travel. While weighing all the pros and cons, Mic was just getting all his ducks in a row when his father Rourke succumbed to a massive heart attack.
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