Johanna Noonan escaped Ireland in the 1860s, lying about her age (34) to meet the criteria of a personal ad. “Teen brides wanted for the Leahy Brothers in Oregon. Reply with tin-type; will send tickets for ship passage via Tierra Del Fuego.”

The Leahy family is large enough to have T-shirts and other merchandise mass-produced for its reunions. Grandma Evelyn Leahy is an army mom, proud that all of her ten children are good Christians, and two-to-six children were born to each of them in turn. She’s written an unpublished novel about that, as well as a screenplay about pirates and indians. When I moved to California, she sent me an envelope with both of these enclosed, hoping I’d pass them along to my higher-up friends in Hollywood. Grandma also writes letters to Steven Speilberg, Queen Elizabeth, and the Pope. (Only the Pope replies, sending her a bounty of embossed bookmarks, publicity photographs, letters of general gratitude for her faith, and copies of the well-known feast-day prayers.)