Leo Tolstoy averred: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

What do writers know?

Clearly, the Russian novelist never encountered our motley crew: Holahans, Callerys, Crawfords, Gabains, et al. We are a relatively happy lot, not deliriously so, but happy enough. And I’m here to testify, after considerable research and personal experience: there aren’t any families like ours.

This book chronicles more than a century and a half of our trials and tribulations and triumphs in our adopted country. We came from somewhere else and decided what America needed was us. We worked hard to make that presumption ring true. We started at the bottom for the most part, below ground, mining coal on one side. On the other, one branch arrived early, right after the Mayflower: this distant relative was not a pious Pilgrim, but rather a convict banished from England.

We progressed from humble beginnings and adapted to changing circumstances. For example, during Prohibition we brewed and consumed our own beer and wine, which was legal—and likely sold the excess, which was not.

We and our ancestors were witnesses to, and often participants in history’s dramas: wars and famines, pandemics and depressions, high and somewhat lower culture. If we are not famous, neither have we been infamous. We strive to do right and often succeed.

What follows is but a survey of who we are and how we got along. Others may want to delve further, as my cousin Steve Knight is doing.

I hope you enjoy getting to know us better. I know I have.

David Holahan