Chapter 1
The year was 1830. In the small Irish town of Donegal, there lived a rather big family, the McHanson family, which resided in a small cottage on a luscious green farm. The potato, a very important crop in Ireland at the time, was the sole crop on their farm, as it was all they could afford, for they were rather poor. The family was composed of a father, Edwin; a mother, Kristie; a son and daughter, Danny and Sarah; and, finally, a grandmother, whom they called Mum, whose health had not been so great of late.
The McHanson family had lived a rather comfortable life, though not one of luxury. As long as the harvest went well, they were able to subsist without problems.
A rumor soon hit their small town of Donegal, a rumor of failing potato crops, which had spread from other regions of the Irish countryside. Kristie had heard of these rumors from fellow neighbors, but she kept them from her husband; she did not like it when he was worried. However, a day soon came when her husband learned of the situation, but not from his wife.
Danny, who had been playing out in the green fields with Sarah, ran hurriedly into the house, finding his father seated alone in the kitchen.
“Daddy! I think something’s wrong with the potatoes!” shouted Danny, who was quite out of breath after having run all the way across the field.
Edwin was quite shocked at this sudden burst. “Danny… what do you mean?” he inquired, becoming somewhat nervous. “I mean, what makes you think something’s wrong?”
Danny had somewhat regained his breath at this point. “Well…” he started, “Sarah and I were playin’ in the field, and we saw the potato plants looked all weird.”
“Hey, wait a second, buddy,” he started. Then, turning to the hallway behind him, he shouted, “Kristie! Could you come here, please?” He was sweating.

Kristie soon appeared, a worried and puzzled look on her face. “What do you need, Edwin?” she asked. “I was in the middle of helping Mum out of bed.”
“Danny, tell your mum what you just told me,” said Edwin, trying not to sound too concerned.
“Well, momma, we were playin’ in the field and we saw all the potato plants looked rotten.”
Kristie’s smile drooped to an evident frown. “Oh, no… this can’t be happening to us,” she said quietly, seemingly talking to herself.
“Wait…” started Edwin. “You mean, you knew about this? I mean, has this been going on with the neighbors or something?” The tone in his voice had become more serious.
“Well, last week the O’Connor family said they were having the same problem. They said all their potatoes went rotten for some reason. Think they called it blight or something.”
Edwin, who had at this point been taking his son’s word without even conducting his own investigation, tried to remain hopeful. “We can’t be sure that that’s what’s happened to us, now, can we?” he said. “Why, for God’s sake, we haven’t even seen it yet! Danny, m’boy, why don’t you show your momma and me these “rotten” potato plants, eh?”
“Sure. Follow me!”
With that, he led his mother and father out of the back door of the house and led them through their land. After a few seconds, they came to a point where Sarah was sitting, poking at some potato plants with a stick.
“Daddy!” started Sarah, “there’s this brown stuff all over the potato plants. What is it?”
Edwin inspected the potato plants carefully. A brown, hard layer, no doubt blight, had covered the potato crops as far as the eye could see. Edwin looked up solemnly at his wife, who was staring at her husband intently, hoping for some good news. Edwin softly shook his head.
“Honey,” he said slowly, “I think whatever happened to the O’Connors is happenin’ to us.”

“But—” Kristie started; but she couldn’t finish. Tears soon accumulated in her eyes, and soon enough they were streaming down her face. A tortured cry escaped her lips before she completely broke down, grabbing onto her husband for support.
“Edwin—” she forced herself to speak through her sobs of agony—“what are we— gonna— do!” She paused for a moment, unable to continue. She finally found the strength to continue speaking. “This can’t be happening to us! We don’t have money— how are we gonna support our family? We’ll starve!!” And with that, she fell into silence, her body heaving and shaking uncontrollably as she held her husband in a desperate embrace.
Edwin reassuringly patted Kristie on the shoulder, but he spoke no words of encouragement. He didn’t make her any promises that it would all be okay, that they would live through this, that it would all go back to the way it had been, when they had been able to subsist in comfort. He knew quite well that they would starve if they didn’t do something.

Chapter 2

All four of them returned to the house in silence. Kristie had been able to stop crying, for she was afraid of worrying the children. They were too young to understand what was happening. Upon entering the back door into the kitchen, they found Mum coming into the kitchen with a walker. She had evidently heard the commotion from outside.

“Mum!” shouted Kristie, “what are you doing out here? You shouldn’t tire yourself out like this!”

“Well, excuse me for worrying about my daughter,” she replied. “I heard all the commotion outside, and I thought I’d see what was going on.”

“Mum, it’s nothing—” started Kristie, but Edwin cut her off.

“No, Kristie. I think we should tell them what’s happened.” He turned from his wife, now addressing the entire family. “There are some problems with the potatoes. It may seem scary, but it’s not; don’t worry, guys! We’ll get through this.” It was not often that Edwin lied to his family, but these were desperate times, and a house full of worried people would only exacerbate the situation they were in.

“Ah, well then…” started Mum, “if it’s not that bad, then I’ll get off yer case.”

“That’s right, Mum,” interjected Kristie. “Now, let’s get you into the bath. Come on.” She took her mother’s arm and escorted her back through the hall and to the bathroom. Edwin was left with his children.

“So,” started Danny, “are we gonna be okay? I mean, the plants are all dead, and what else are we gonna eat?”

Edwin was becoming agitated. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” he said. “We’ll be fine. Now stop talking about it.”

But Sarah was still curious. “But daddy—”
“ENOUGH!!” shouted Edwin. He had had enough.
Sarah began crying. She couldn’t control herself. After all, her daddy had never yelled at her before. She ran off, in tears, to her room before her father could stop her.
“Sweetie,” he tried, but it was too late.
Danny went after his sister quickly, leaving Edwin by himself.
“Well, we’ll have to make it work,” he said to himself. He looked over to the corner of the kitchen. A small pile of potatoes stared back at him. It was all they had picked. It would have to do, but for how long it would last, he did not know. It crushed him to think that a pile of potatoes held in itself his family’s fate.
That night, the family prepared only half of the potatoes that they usually prepared for dinner. That is, instead of 6 potatoes, they only prepared 3. Edwin would eat an entire potato, while each member of the family would have only half of one. It was a meager dinner, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances.
When most of them had finished eating (which had not taken very long), Danny looked over at his father with a tortured look on his face.
“Dad,” he complained, “I’m still hungry. Is there anything else we can eat?”
Kristie had a tortured look on her face as well. It killed her that she couldn’t provide for her growing son, no matter how desperately she wanted to. The crops were what determined life or death.
Edwin, however, kept his cool. “Danny, m’boy, there’s only a little bit of food that has to last us a long time. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
When Edwin wasn’t looking, however, nor was Kristie, Mum, who had watched the whole scene sympathetically, gave half of her potato ration to her desperate grandson, making sure that his parents wouldn’t catch her in the act. Detecting a similar look of pain on her granddaughter’s face, she slipped the other half of her dinner to her granddaughter before she could complain to her parents. Sure, Mum had gone without eating dinner, but the sight of her grandchildren being nourished had satisfied her appetite in itself.
And so it went on for a week, the grandma always sneaking her dinner to her grandchildren, never taking any for herself. Now, we must remember that Mum was not in the very best condition to begin with, even before the blight had struck the McHanson family. After enduring malnourishment for days on end for the sake of her grandchildren, the sickness finally took its toll on her.
And so, on the eighth day, the potato supply wasn’t the only thing that died.
Mum’s body was buried in the field. She was a true hero. Even while she had suffered, she enjoyed every moment of it, for she knew that it was her old life in exchange for two young lives.
And the mother, father, daughter, and son were left to mourn in their small cottage in Donegal, with nothing left to keep them from ending up like Mum.
Chapter 3
Edwin returned to his family one afternoon in high spirits. He had with him a small sack of potatoes, enough to last for a day or two. He had sold all of Mum’s possessions to get enough money to pay for this small bag of potatoes. The crop that had formerly been so cheap now came at such a steep price.
Kristie couldn’t help but notice the smile of Edwin’s face. “Well, what is it?” she asked. She then spotted the bag of potatoes. “Oh!” she cried. “How’d you—”
“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted. “Some of the farmers were lucky enough to grow more before the blight came. Anyway, that’s not why I’m happy. Do you remember my cousin, Donald?”
“Donald…” she said to herself. “Isn’t he the one who lives in Spain?”
“Yep, the very same. He lives in Galicia, to be exact, only a few days’ boat ride from Ireland.”
“Honey, what are getting at?” she asked impatiently.
“Well, I received a letter from him this afternoon. He somehow heard about the famine and wrote me asking if we’d like to come and stay with him at his farm. This potato blight, apparently, is only happenin’ in Ireland.”
“That’s—” Kristie started, “that’s fantastic!!! Of course we accept! Let’s get packed right now!” She was unable to contain her excitement. “Danny, Sarah, start packing!” she yelled, running down the hall to their room. “We’re finally getting out of this terrible situation! We’ll have enough to eat again—”

But Edwin heard no more. She had stopped yelling excitedly, and their tiny cottage had now fallen to an uncomfortable silence. Worried, he ran to his children’s room.

He found Danny hugging his mom in tears. He was shaking, but, while Kristie did her best to comfort him, she, too, was sobbing out of control. Edwin had to but glance over at his daughter’s bed to understand the sadness around him.

That evening, Sarah was buried next to her grandmother.

The three ate their pathetic meal in silence that night.

Chapter 4

The following day, the suitcases had been packed, and the McHanson family stepped out the front door of their cottage for the last time. They had paid their respects to Mum and Sarah in the field that morning, and now they had no choice but to move forward in their lives, or a similar fate would await them.

The family walked to the center of Donegal, where they found a carriage that would take them to the shipyard that would in turn get them to Galicia, where their physical suffering would be no more, though they would be haunted forever for what they had experienced. Handing the carriage driver what remained of the potato sack Edwin had brought home the day prior, the driver nodded at them and took off toward the shipyard.

“Well, this is the tenth time I’ve taken a family to the shipyard,” the driver told the family.

“Only 10 families?” asked Edwin, confused. “You mean to say that, despite the fact that 1,000 of our town’s population of 1,100 has disappeared, only 10 families escaped?”

“Yes, sir,” responded the driver. “The rest’ve no doubt died. Be grateful; you guys are some of the lucky ones.”

The rest of the trip was silent, until finally the carriage reached the shipyard.

“Thank you so much,” said Edwin politely.

“The pleasure is all mine,” responded the driver. “All the best of luck to ye.” And with that, he turned around the carriage and went on his way back to the town of Donegal, which was hardly a town anymore, if not a mass grave for those who had died and a place of mourning for those whom Famine had not yet taken.

Edwin took his wife’s hand in one hand and Danny’s hand in his other hand.

The Famine had taken so many, even part of their own family, but they were the lucky ones. As they embarked on the boat to Galicia, a ride on which had cost them their house, Edwin was miserable.

Kristie noticed this look of agony on her husband’s face. “What is it, sweetie?” she asked her husband sympathetically.

“Everything— that’s what’s wrong, EVERYTHING!! It’s just not fair! Sure, we turned out fine, but we lost so much! Our Mum, our daughter, our house— and for what!?”

He, for the first time, broke down in tears. He could not be comforted. For when the struggle was finally over, it had only really just begun. The Famine would haunt them to the end of their days.