The Story of Mary Connaghan

Adventures Spanning a Lifetime: The Story of Mary Connaghan

Mary Connaghan has over six pages worth of travels logged in a notebook. In January 2000, she said she needed another big adventure. So Connaghan packed her bags to live in California for six months. She was 76 years old.

Connaghan peered into the yellow law pad on her kitchen table. She saw written on the pages all the places she has traveled since 1993. Each year contained lines upon lines of adventures.

Mary Connaghan and her uncle in Cuba.

“I can look at it and remember all the places I have been,” she said. “I can look back and see, ‘When did I do that?’”

In 2012, 87-year-old Connaghan has traveled to Atlanta, Baltimore, Folly Beach, S.C., and Charleston, S.C.

“I am wondering what happened to 2012,” said Connaghan. “I have been back to Folly Beach (S.C.) in 2012, I was there again this summer—Folly Beach (S.C.) and Charleston (S.C.) and Atlanta. I’ll have to mark that down in there.”

Connaghan is a resident of Bethesda Orchard in Webster Groves, Mo. She has visited Ireland, Italy, France, Belize, Cuba and various cities in the United States. Connaghan has also been on seven cruises.

Her love for adventure has defined her life for more than a decade. Connaghan began her travels in 1990. That was the year her husband, John Dennis Connaghan, passed away. Connaghan felt it was time to see the world after his death. She was 66.

“Being alone, I did an enormous amount of traveling,” she said.

CALIFORNIA ADVENTURES

As much as Connaghan loved every place she visited, she said her favorite adventure was when she lived in California for six months. In January of 2000 Connaghan packed her bags for Laguna, Calif. She didn’t return until June of the same year.

“I told my kids, ‘I have to have another adventure. Time is getting away from me,’” said Connaghan. “So I went out to California for six months. I rented an apartment in Leisure World. It’s a gated senior community… And I had a friend from college who lived in Leisure World and she located an apartment for me that a man was renting and I was there six months. I loved it.”

Connaghan traveled all over southern California. She would go to the beach, shop and visit with her two daughters who lived in Ventura, Calif. and Los Angeles.

“I would go down to Laguna Beach a lot. It was just a couple miles away. I would drive down and take myself to lunch or do some shopping or something like that,” Connaghan said. “And I could take the train and go up to my daughter in Ventura or my daughter from L.A. would come down and pick me up because that was not too far from her.”

Mary Connaghan on her wedding day in 1951.

Connaghan is not a stranger to the Californian terrain as she has lived there before. When she married her husband, John Dennis Connaghan, in 1951, the couple moved to California from St. Louis to live on George Air Force Base. John Dennis had been called to serve in the Air Force two times during the couple’s marriage.

Connaghan recalls her first time in California as a “different experience.”

“I grew up in this South St. Louis very religious family…and I get out there and all of a sudden you get to the officer’s club where everyone is drinking their heads off,” Connaghan said. “I wasn’t used people drinking and people flirting with other people’s husbands. So I guess I didn’t really like being in the services as much as I should have. I didn’t like that kind of stuff.”

Connaghan said despite not having the best experience in California the first time, she was more than pleased with her second trip. She said leaving to come home to St. Louis was difficult for her.

“It was six wonderful months. I mean I really enjoyed it,” she said.

CONNAGHAN’S INSPIRATION

Connaghan smiled at the yellow pages of her logbook one more time before setting it across the kitchen table. She placed one of the extracted pages on top of the pad. The cursive handwriting in blue and black ink stared back at her.

“I can die happy saying I saw everything I needed to see,” she said.

Connaghan said she sometimes questions where she gets the energy for travel. As she has gotten older, Connaghan can’t help but notice how it has become harder for her. She said she didn’t feel the effects of aging until recent years.

“I see people who are 76 now and they are so old,” said Connaghan. “You still have so much ahead. I really did not get old until I hit 82 or 83.”

Connaghan said the secret to her energy for life and travel comes from her faith in God. She said her religion has always guided her and been an inspiration.

“My faith, my religion, has been a really big part of my life,” Connaghan said. “And I really credit God for giving me such a wonderful life. … I can’t complain about anything. My childhood, middle years, my years that I was married and the old years… I really have had such faith in God that I have to say that’s the big thing in my life, is my faith.”

As the years pass, Connaghan plans to travel as much as she can. She said the places she has visited have given her great experiences. Her memories have made her happy and she doesn’t regret one moment.

Mary Connaghan and her family.

“I say to my kids all the time, ‘When I die, just say, ‘Oh man, she had a really good life,’” Connaghan said. “I mean I have had sorrows when my husband died, when my parents died, my brother died. Sad things have happened, but they are all things that come with life. I mean those things you can’t get away without.

Connaghan took one final look at the log before taking it back to the desk drawer where it stayed. She returned with a smile and sat in the chair at her kitchen table.

“I have had just such a go.”

A line of people gather for Catholic confession at Mary Connaghan’s apartment twice a year. The Bethesda Orchard resident volunteers her home during Christmas and Easter for fellow residents’ use.

Mary Connaghan rarely takes out the white box from under the shelf in her living room. When she finally opened the container, she saw a pile of old pictures. She immediately picked up a photo of her on a motorcycle with a leather vest on.

TIMELINE

1924- born Mary Louise Rodgers in St. Louis, Mo.