The old-timers
in the family are primarily Celts,
likely stirred in with
various combinations
of Northern Europeans who found
their way at one time or another to Ireland,
a land with a sufficiently
mystical,
and for the most part non-scientific, past that it seems to be
in
vogue in newer age circles. Most ended up in Counties
Waterford,
Wexford,
Cork, and Clare.
A largely pagan lifestyle, dominated by the
Druids,
gave way
to the influences of Rome in the
fifth century AD. During the ensuing, but probably not consequent, so-called
Dark Ages,
some have made
the somewhat dubious claim that many contemporaries were involved in nothing
less than saving
civilization. Most of such high-minded work ended in the twelfth century
AD, when Dermot
MacMurrough, an ancestor of Mom's
largely Celtic family, the
Kinsellas, invited the
Norman
chieftan
Stongbow
and members of Dad's
family, the
de Paors,
to visit, and they stayed on.
Much as described in
a recent PBS series,
after the
potatoes
failed
thoroughly in the 1840's
famine, most
of the family, joining the
Irish
Diaspora, caught a boat west, went through
immigration
procedures, which may have been similar to those
pictured in the recent
Scorcese movie,
and entered America,
where for better and worse, most vestiges of
Irish
culture have been thoroughly diffused by the lukewarm American semi-melting
pot. Most of the family went straightaway to God's Country: Central Illinois.
After banging around and on the now defunct
Illinois Central Railroad
for a short time
and formally renouncing allegiance to
Queen
Victoria in 1860, the Powers family
turned their talents to agriculture,
mainly growing corn,
in what was by
that time the Land of
Lincoln.
Most of the family has grown strong and true in the hospitable greenhouse
of DeWitt
and McLean Counties,
especially around Wapella
(named after Chief
Wapella),
Clinton,
and Bloomington.
A number of the more recent Powers's spent some time at the University
of Illinois in nearby Champaign
County.
As in the past, a variety of larger influences, economic and
otherwise, have combined to continue the diaspora; so while there remains
a large concentration in Central Illinois, the clan is indeed scattered
throughout the United States at this time.
This page maintained by J. M. Powers. Send
me your inquiries.