Insert BlakelyPB64 Sammy and Betty, newly wed
“We’re spoiled rotten!” Living up on a hill in the Irish countryside, in a home of their own design, with a beautiful, half-acre garden, Betty and Sammy have come a long way from their very modest childhood. Their lives now reflect the benefit of being married to one’s best friend, the blessing of God on their family, the reward of hard work and diligence, and the positive changes that have happened in their community and country over their lifetimes. Insert BlakelyPB11 Betty and Sammy’s home, “Prospect” Insert BlakelyPB12 garden Insert BlakelyPB13 well-themed garden
On December 28, 1939, Sammy was born to Fred and Hannah Blakely, the second youngest of twelve children. The four boys, eight girls and two parents lived in Derry City, Northern Ireland, in a house with two bedrooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. They had an outdoor toilet and no hot water. His father had been a soldier in both the 1914 to 1918 and the 1939 to 1945 world wars, then worked at a labouring job, and his mother naturally ran the house, reared, fed, and clothed everyone—a truly remarkable woman. “During the time I was reared,” said Sammy, “in Ireland they would have called it a time of ‘need,’ rather than a time of ‘have’, but my mother made sure we had what we needed.” The main jobs during the time were held by women. Derry had six or seven shirt factories, and the women left their homes and went to work at those factories. A song about Derry says that the women worked in the shirt factories and the men stayed at home with the kids and walked the dog. Now, only Sammy and another sibling survive from their family. Insert Blakely1.4 Sammy’s parents on either side of Freddie holding their grandson Michael McMenamin
While most of Sammy’s family remained in Ireland, his brother Fred settled his family in Scotland. Once when they came to visit, their 11-month-old son, Freddie Jr., took ill and was not fit to travel back to Scotland with his family. Sammy’s parents agreed to keep him until he was well, but instead Freddie stayed with Sammy’s family permanently; he was raised as a brother to the siblings yet living at home, and still lives in Ireland. Insert BlakelyPB15 Sammy in front with brother/nephew Freddie and his wife, Mary; nephew Willie and his wife, Kathy
At nine years old, Sammy joined the local flute band and remained a member for 14 years, finally becoming the band piccolo player. Insert Blakely1.3 Sammy in the band, second row behind the bass drummer
He attended the Christian Brothers Technical school from age 12 to age 16, when he left to take a job as an apprentice electrician, working on the Royal Navy Reserve fleet for seven years. He was the only member of his family to attain a second level of education. The rest left school at the age of 14. The girls worked in the shirt factories. His brothers delivered the post.
Betty’s family story is similar to Sammy’s. She was born to Mary and George Devenney on October 18, 1943, 14 miles away in a country cottage at Milltown on the outskirts of Strabane. Betty, the eldest of eleven children, with four brothers and six sisters, lived in town with her widowed Granny Brigid McAteer, to keep her company, and her uncle Frank, starting at about age four. It was not an uncommon situation for a child in those days, and Betty certainly had no regret about it. There were no cars, of course, so on Fridays, Uncle Frank would put her on the crossbar of his bike and take her into town. When Betty was twelve, Granny McAteer fell while she was out in the shed bringing in wood for the range that heated the room and cooked their food. Betty was helping her get the wood so quickly raised the alarm, but she subsequently died the following day at the age of 84. Betty then went to live with her father and mother; she went from a relatively empty house to one with ten or so people. While her family didn’t have much, they did have everything they needed. They had a one-acre garden where they grew raspberries, strawberries, potatoes, and other food. Insert Blakely1.5 Betty’s parents’ wedding day Insert BlakelyPB6 Newspaper obituary of Granny Brigid McAteer
Her father, whom everyone called Geordae, worked as a lorry driver; her mother, known as Mamie, reared the family, with no complaining. Although the family had limited means, Betty’s mother was glad to donate what she could to the nuns and their “mission,” as she called it. Eventually, the family moved to town and their home was pretty much identical to the Blakely home. “We were just like everyone else on the criss-cross of streets in our area. Nobody had any more than anyone else. Everyone was glad to have and keep a job and people did the best they could,” Sammy recalled. Betty agreed that they were rich in community. “Life wasn’t bad,” she said, “we just weren’t rich. We had our suits and ties and shoes; we went to the snooker hall for entertainment. For some, they lived three or four families in one house and it was very difficult to get a job. Families who had a car were considered rich. My friend’s father had a car, and their house had carpeting!” Insert BlakelyPB4 Betty, six months old, with her Mom
It was a time of poverty for the entire country where only the elite and the owners of companies would have been used to “high living” while the rest were workers who just scraped a living, with enough food and clothing, ways to amuse themselves and keep out of trouble—which was easy to get into. Looking back, both Sammy and Betty see their parents as heroes for what they endured. “They managed to perfection.”
When Betty got married, (“She married well,” says Sammy.) the eleventh and youngest member of her family “couldn’t even come to the wedding, a wee, tiny baby just six months old.” There was no such thing as birth control or anything like that. Contraception was forbidden by the Catholic Church, which now seems rather appalling, so all the families were big. Ireland was just that type of a country. That’s the way everybody lived. “If you had a good job, that was the thing and you just did the best you could,” Sammy explained.
Another difference was that Catholic children then did not get the same quality primary and secondary education and were, for the most part, not allowed in the university. Now, though, it’s expected that children will attend the university. Even the blue collar workers, like Betty’s nephews, had to go to college to do the paperwork after they apprenticed as a plumber and an electrician.
Betty said, “My Mom and Dad, God bless them. I never had a bad day in my whole life, never had a sad day. The only thing I didn’t like or got angry about was that I was the one to push the pram. All those children!” Later, in searching through family papers, Betty found a note from her Mom, saying she was sorry that Betty always had to push the pram while other girls were out playing. But even so, not a sad day of her life.
Back then, the Catholic Church ruled the community with a rod of iron, and to adhere to Catholicism, as it was preached, was very difficult. There was a lot of mystery and things you accepted because you were told to. The children attended parochial school and were taught by very stern nuns, though Betty says she never had a problem with them herself. Except that one time…a lace tablecloth went missing from the altar at the church. “Somebody mentioned my name, and my Mum was—we lived at the bottom of what we called ‘the grove’—up that grove double-quick, and nobody said another word after that! The last thing I needed was a lace tablecloth. To this day, I don’t know where it went.” By now, all the nuns are dead and that big, beautiful convent has been removed.
Betty has wondered since whether, living all together like they did, it was not surprising that the nuns were bad tempered. There was a lot of competition between them. One nun, in particular, was not her friend because she recognized that Betty couldn’t sing a note and wouldn’t let her in the choir. “They could’ve stuck me at the back.” Sister Brandon, on the other hand, was an angel to Betty and took her under her wing. Once she said, “Betty Devenney, come up to the front of the class.” Then she proceeded to point out how perfectly dressed she was, and told all the other girls she wanted them to “show up to school tomorrow just like that, white socks and proper clothes and all.” Betty feared she’d be murdered on the playground. Sammy commented that they had methods back then, like being able to “whack” a student, but teachers now can’t dare touch a student. Betty said she was never given physical punishment, so she was either “a wee angel altogether, or very lucky.” Mention the nuns now to Betty’s classmates, and you would hear, “Don’t. Even. Go. There.”
Even with the financial challenges, when the time came for confirmation and first communion, every girl, no matter who she was, had a beautiful dress and shoes. Nobody went there looking like they couldn’t afford it. Insert BlakelyPB3 Betty’s first communion
After attending “the tech,” Betty felt like, as the eldest of 11 children, she needed to help out by being employed, so off to the factory she went, where everyone else in town worked. She worked at Adria Knitting Factory, a hosiery company which made tights and employed over a thousand workers, mainly from Strabane. At one point, the town had the highest unemployment in Northern Ireland, so the coming of Adria to Strabane was a godsend! The men worked there during the day and the women worked at night. They were good, hard workers and nobody complained. People got on the best they could and most of the Blakelys’ contemporaries did well for themselves, ending up much better off financially than their parents.
Betty’s and Sammy’s paths crossed in 1962, when they met at a dancehall, The Palladrome Ballroom, in Strabane. Every weekend, several double-deck buses brought loads of young men. On the opposite side from where the young men stood, the young women lined the wall praying they would be asked to dance and wouldn’t be a wallflower. While that was funny, “There’s one thing that everybody needs to know,” says Betty. “There was no alcohol at all at the dancehall. There was mineral water and mineral drinks, no alcohol whatsoever. But the men, before they came in, they would be able to go to the local pub. Not the women. No, no, no! So we were lucky back then that life was much simpler, you know?” Although he smoked from a very young age, Sammy did not touch alcohol and was what the church called a Pioneer. The Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart (PTAA) is an international organisation for Roman Catholic teetotalers that is based in Ireland. Its members are commonly called Pioneers and its members completely abstain from any alcoholic drinks.
Sammy and Betty went out together for two more years, mainly dancing and going to the cinema. Early in 1964, Sammy proposed to Betty. Sammy says, “She couldn’t believe her luck!” Betty clarified, “He said to me one day, ‘Suppose we’d better get married?’ There was no ‘down on his knee’ or anything like that.” In his defense, Sammy says young men in that day and age weren’t very romantic, but to their mutual good fortune, she accepted. (And now, 56 years later with five children and fifteen grandchildren, it still seems like a good idea.) They were engaged, and gathered the money to get married with the help of some poker winnings (a pastime of Sammy’s back then). So, it appears, Sammy was indeed a very lucky young man! They were married August 18, 1964, in Strabane Chapel in Betty’s hometown. Insert Blakely1.2 wedding collage Insert BlakelyWeddingPic Sammy, his Mom, Betty’s Mom, Betty
They spent a week in Dublin for their honeymoon. One entertainment they remember was standing at the airport watching the planes, like two children. There was no thought in their minds that they would ever get on a plane and go somewhere; they were just happy to watch them. Fortunately, they had already paid four weeks ahead on the rent for their apartment; the £5 note in Sammy’s pocket that they had left over from their honeymoon was all the money they had in the world, and had to last until the next payday. One thing that was very helpful was not having to pay for medical needs. Since 1948, Ireland’s National Health Service has paid medical costs including prescriptions. There was also a program to help the underprivileged. Betty and Sammy believe they were really very lucky to be where they were at that time, because for mothers and fathers rearing children in the pre-war time, say the 1930s, if someone was sick there was no money to pay. Insert BlakelyPB7 Sammy and Betty on the train to Dublin Blakely1.9 Betty in sweater she made Blakely1.8 Sammy at the Dublin airport Blakely1.7 Betty at the Dublin airport Blakely1.10 Betty in another sweater she made at the old Dublin airport
Sammy continued to steadily move up in the workplace. In 1963, he got a job as an instrument technician with the DuPont Company in Derry. This American chemical company based in Wilmington, Delaware, was a truly remarkable and good employer. They introduced a company pension, paid a good salary, and made shares available to employees.
Living in that apartment on Great James Street in Derry, their first child was born on the 30th of May in 1965, a boy they named Stephen Samuel. Once when the family lived in the apartment in Derry, three-year-old Stephen Samuel went down to play on the railway line. His parents were, of course, frantic but when they finally found him he was just playing happily. Their second child, also a boy, was born in September 1967, and they called him Paul Anthony. When Paul was five, Betty took him down to the school and returned home with tears in her eyes to go about her work. She looked out the window to see Paul come walking up the driveway. She asked what he was doing and he replied he was coming home to his Mum. “And they didn’t even miss him in class!” Mum took him straight back down to the class, and he never did that again. Insert BlakelyPB8 Stephen 1 1/2, Paul 6 months BlakelyPB2 Stephen and Paul with an organ grinder’s monkey
In 1968, they bought their first house, a terraced house in King Street Waterside, Derry, with three bedrooms and a bathroom—but still no hot water. They later had a hot water system installed.
Sammy’s contemporary and fellow Derry native, the great John Hume, a local French teacher, became an icon in the 20th century civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. He led marches to protest sectarian discrimination, and to peacefully bring to light grievances suppressed by the Unionist government. Starting in 1969, there were civil rights marches against the violence and bombings of those terrible years when the community lost a lot of people. The Good Friday Agreement, negotiated in part by Hume, brought changes. The lives of the people improved tremendously, and the discrimination is now nowhere near what it used to be. John Hume was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 1998 for his work in the Northern Ireland peace process and was revered by world leaders, such as Bill and Hilary Clinton, President Obama, as well as many European dignitaries. Hume died on August 3, 2020. Betty and Sammy proudly remember him as a local Derry fellow, educated at a local college, a famous speaker who went on to be a famous politician, who fought for civil rights. Services for Hume would have been attended by world leaders, but for the restrictions caused by covid. “He was really one of the greats,” Sammy observed. Betty commented, “He wanted a peaceful solution, not bombs, because we had been through a very bad time with the troubles.”
John Hume also became a hero for starting a people-run organization called the credit union. The Irish people were all still struggling financially, even those with a job. If they needed money, they’d go to the credit union to borrow it; the people saved with the credit union too, so there would be money to increase their capital. On a personal note, John Hume married Patricia (better known as Pat), a woman who was Sammy’s neighbor.
In April 1969, Sammy and Betty bought their first car, a yellow Mini. It cost £220. They borrowed the money from their local credit union. Sammy could not drive so he took lessons and passed his driving test the first time he took it, in August 1969. He passed his test on a Monday, and five days later the family packed up and left for a two-week tour of Ireland. “What great timing! The wee Mini was a godsend. We fed the children and ourselves from food we had in the boot of the car,” recalled Betty. No hotels for them, they stayed in B & Bs along the way. They really enjoyed that holiday.
In March 1971, the Blakely’s bought a newly-built, detached bungalow in a new development on Laurel Drive in Strabane. It had a garage, central heating and…hot water! It was a big step up. Insert BlakelyPB1 Paul and Stephen at the Laurel Drive house
In April 1971, Kevin Gerald, their third child, was born. They were still driving an old “banger” of a car, a very rusty Austin 1100, but this house was a new start for them.
In 1973, Sammy was promoted to Maintenance Supervisor at his job, and they were now able to buy a decent car, a two-year-old Vauxhall Viva. Again they borrowed the money from the credit union, but could well afford to repay the loan. They traded in the Austin 1100 and got £50 allowance for it. Sammy began playing golf as his main hobby in 1974.
In 1975, Sammy was given responsibility for maintenance in the Hylene plant, and remained there until he supervised the shutdown of operations in 1982. During the intervening years, Betty worked several jobs and earned money to take the family away abroad on holidays. Their first foreign holiday to the sun was to Majorca in 1980 for two weeks. A fabulous island! The Blakely’s had a holiday in the sun nearly every year thereafter.
The family growth plan had a big, eleven-year gap until 1982. “Then, guess what! We got a wee girl!” Betty said. Elated to have a girl, they named her Karen Elizabeth. Also in 1982, Sammy was transferred to the start-up of a new Hypalon plant and during that time did a correspondence course, sponsored by DuPont, earning his Diploma in Management. Sammy remained in Hypalon until its closure in 1996. Insert Blakely1.6 Betty with Karen on her favorite horse
The last addition to their family, a boy they named Barry Patrick, was born in April 1984. Sammy and Betty were so happy.
Sammy applied for available early retirement in 1996, but was asked to reconsider. He decided to stay on, was then transferred to the Neoprene Plant, and was promoted to the position of Area Engineer and then to Engineering Department Manager.
In 1997 Betty and Sammy purchased a three-quarter-acre site in the Strabane countryside, and designed and supervised the building of a new home there in 1998.
Also in 1998 Sammy assisted in the supervision of the closing down of Neoprene, the first plant to be built back in 1960. He then negotiated the transfer of 53 employees to other plants across the site.
On the 31st of October, 1998, after almost 36 years with DuPont, Sammy finally retired in order to supervise the building of their new home which they moved into at Christmas the same year. On Boxing Day, a violent storm blew a lot of roof tiles off the house and caused other minor damage; the electricity was off for four days. When the electricity was reconnected, they settled down to decorating their new home and playing lots of golf. Insert BlakelyPB5 Betty and Sammy
In 2000, Sammy began to suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis, a very debilitating illness affecting the body joints, bone structure, and ease of movement. The golfing days came to an end and more effort was put into tinkering about in the garden. Betty, thankfully, has maintained good health, being dedicated to walking every day.
