Hello to all. I am John Ginnetty and am looking to for a little help with supporting a PEI great relative.

Get comfortable this is a little long winded.

Every year Peter would go down (or up) to PEI in May to open the cottage and would follow up in October to close the cottage up. This would allow the cottage to be used by many. This tradition has been carried on each year and is still available for all to use. (Don’t tell Peggy but Frank had it all up and running in May but Peter would say someone has to put food in the fridge and clean out the fridge in October).The October trip would always be during the Canadian Thanksgiving, our Columbus Day. There was always a Thanksgiving Dinner invite at one of the Curran houses on Beech Hill Farm. For the past several years Kelly Curran (Linda and Gelasius daughter) would open her house for the the celebration. Ricky and Maryellen would be there and there was always a cake to celebrate Ricky’s birthday. Kelly would have long tables set up and there was always plenty of food and wine for all to enjoy.

Jane, Leslie and myself made the trip this past week.

This trip down for Thanksgiving was very much different. After dealing with Covid, Hurricane Fiona, after causing massive destruction in Puerto Rico continued up the Atlantic Ocean and hit the maritime areas. US media did not report much on this. The damage caused to PEI was devastating. House, barns, crop fields and trees were destroyed. At Peakes Tee Golf Course pretty much all the trees were leveled. (Erin, tell Tom his golf ball finally came down out of the tree and when checked it was found not to be a regulation size ball. Take the trophy back). The total landscape of the island has changed. Deanna’s shoreline area lost about 10 feet and now is big cliffs. The gazebo Peter built up on the shore for Mary MacIntyre did not budge an inch. There were many questions asked about how that was constructed for all the other buildings up there were damaged. Some destroyed. I told them Peter built like a interlocking system or perhaps it was a shingling of the roof by Uncle John & Uncle Ricky. Power outages were pretty much the entire island. Some were still out when we returned to Boston on October 11 (the storm landed September 23). Barns, houses and garages picked up off the foundations and thrown into fields. Pretty much every farm had some type of destruction. Worst weather incident they have ever experienced. I could go on and on but it has to be seen to fully understand how damaging this was.

Fortunately no one was injured.

The hardest site was seeing Kelly Curran’s home which she purchased several years ago destroyed and not in the location where it had originally been. Kelly was in the house at 2:00am when Fiona’s landed. Fortunately she was not injured but will have a lasting fright in her mind for some time coming. Insurance adjusters and inspectors have been to her homesite and she is awaiting word on what will be done to rectify. In seeing the damage I would imagine it will be a total loss. She is not being allowed to remove any belongings and meanwhile the weather will be causing further damaged due to the house not being weather tight.

Kelly has always played a major role in the planning of the Curran-Mooney Reunions and for those who got to enjoy the hayrides at Linda and Gelasius farm, Kelly was a big part of that. With all that she has going on now here she was this week planning a Trivia Night at The Bog Side Brewery in Montague for the next reunion in 2025.

So to get to the point, the Curran-Mooney family has many traditions. One being to offer support to someone when the need was present. Hopefully the current generation can keep this long standing tradition going. Kelly is going to have a major rebuilding on her hands and I am sure we can be of help. Hopefully the insurance will handle some of this however I believe much won’t be covered.

So in hopes of helping out, a Go Fund Me page has been set up and all the proceeds will go to Kelly to help her rebuild her life.

Each year Gelasius takes a bus tour of island shoppers to North Conway and this year around our Thanksgiving Kelly will be coming along as chaperone and it would be nice to send her back with a bit of Curran-Mooney support.

Please pass this on to any family members who may not be on this email.

Thank you.

And keep 2025 open for a much needed reunion.

The Boston Curran-Mooney Connection