Old Granny McCarthy

My mum told me today:
"When I was about 8, around 1930, I lived in Victoria Place - a small yard south of Decima Street. In one of the houses opposite lived the McCarthy family with their old grandmother, Granny McCarthy. One day the family asked me to sit with her as they were going out. They said it would be Ok as she was in bed and was unlikely to get up as she wasn't well. All I had to do was sit with her in her upstairs bedroom and watch her to ensure she came to no harm and when they came home they'd give me a penny for my troubles. They were gone what seemed for hours and the fire they'd built up in the grate had burnt away to embers .. and Old Granny McCarthy slumbered on. It was quite eerie with the snoring and heavy breathing of the sleeper the only noise I could hear whilst I read a copy of "The Al Jolson Story" I had found in the room. After a while a strange noise came from below in the yard and peering out of the window was a street performer, yodelling. Yes, he was yodelling like someone from Switzerland. He expected that the residents would be impressed and toss a penny or two at him from their windows but they were too busy looking after their pennies to fritter them away on such an act. Time passed and from the lowering gloom outside the window there came a face at the window which really frightened me. It turned out to be the street gas lamp lighter, but I was scared. Not as scared, though, when a little later there came a tapping at the window. This time I didn't wait to investigate but hared down the stairs, across the front room, out of teh street door and across the yard to my house, through the street door and up to my bedroom .. where I was safe! I never did get that penny, but Old Granny McCarthy survived.

"Some years later when she died, they laid her out in her coffin in the front room. When nobody was watching the candlesticks which were flickering away on the coffin fell over and a mighty fire started which consumed the front room and much of what was in it, including some of Old Granny McCarthy. When the furore inviolved in dealing with the fire had expired a horse and cart drew up at the end of the yard and bit by bit the remains of the front room where taken away. How much of Old Granny McCarthy was also taken away has remained a mystery to me ever since."

Note .. it seems to me that it is likely that Old Granny McCarthy was Teresa R McCarthy who died in 1938. Unless you know different??