Brooklyn 2026, Day 3. Thursday, September 10, 2026
Today starts with the “pesky job that pays the bills,” a meeting from 9 to 11, taken at the kitchen table on the work laptop. Then straight out the door, because Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Red Hook is now at 11:30, not 1:30. They found “quite a bit” of records, some of the handwriting is hard to read, and they want me to look at it in person.
Three moves in six days
Visitation wasn’t originally supposed to be today. It sat on September 16 for most of the summer, then a staff member called on September 4 to say they had found something and wanted me in. Revision 35 put the appointment on Wednesday the 9th. The FINAL plan moved it to Thursday afternoon. Then Tuesday night, at the kitchen table, another commitment on my aunt’s side pushed it to Thursday morning instead, and that one was on me. Appendix G still has a stale line reading “Wed Sept 9,” left over from an earlier version. It never mattered on the ground. Visitation was on my itinerary for the 10th, after the work meeting.
What the plan said
As revised Tuesday night: work meeting 9 to 11 from the house. Visitation 11:30 to about 1:30. Then Home Day 2, album digitization and oral history session 2 with my aunt, the attic and basement sweep, evening backup, and starting the ship-home staging pile.
What actually happened
The meeting ran on schedule, and the drive to Red Hook took about 15 minutes, just like the plan said. The Pastoral Assistant met with me at 11:30 and handed over handwritten baptismal certificates with sponsors listed, the register index cards, and copies of the actual registry pages. None of it was the struggle to read that the phone call had warned me about.
Seven baptisms came out of that hour: Mary, Stephen G., Ann, Margaret, and Letitia Plunkett, William Bernard Dowling, and one I never asked for, George Plunkett, a child of Peter and Julia Smith Plunkett nobody in the family knew existed until today. No marriage record for Thomas Dowling and Mary Plunkett, so that piece stays open, and I still need to write back and ask specifically for it, plus Peter Francis Dowling’s baptism and Bridget Plunkett’s if she was born in 1858 rather than 1850. St. James is still on my list to contact too.
The albums did not happen. Home Day 2 was supposed to pair them with oral history session 2 this afternoon, and neither one did. It looks like Sunday now. Instead the evening went to scanning, both today’s Visitation records and the Immaculate Heart of Mary certificates from September 8 that had been sitting unscanned, plus dinner with my aunt and my son.
Tonight’s decision log entry
10 Sep 2026. Album digitization and oral history session 2 moved from today to Sunday, September 13. Reason: the 11:30 Visitation appointment and an evening of scanning both the September 8 IHM certificates and today’s Visitation records took the day, along with dinner with my aunt and son. Follow-up needed: write back to Visitation for the 1896 Dowling-Plunkett marriage, Peter Francis Dowling’s baptism, and Bridget Plunkett’s baptism if she was born in 1858. Still outstanding: contact St. James.
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