The Roche story

My father, John Vincent Roche, emigrated from County Mayo in 1956. My mother, Anne Josephine (Igoe) Roche, emigrated in 1952. After my father arrived via Ellis Island, he went looking for my mother and found her in Providence, RI, working for one of her uncles, who had emigrated in the 1930s. They had four children, including me, born in Rhode Island. My father had his own barbershop, HVAC, and landscaping businesses.

In 1970, he returned to Mayo with his wife and four children to care for his elderly parents and run the farm. He also worked in Travenol in Castlebar (now known as Baxter). My brother and I attended a two-room national school in Belcarra while our sisters attended secondary school in Balla. We returned to Rhode Island in 1976 after my mother became ill, and the doctors didn't have the advancements at that time in Ireland. She died of colon cancer 5 years after we returned; she was 53.

In my father's final 18 years of work, he was a welder for General Dynamics, welding the Trident submarine class in Quonset, RI. He retired in 1995 and passed away in 2018 at the age of 85.