(Not So) Wordless Wednesday: Mac Killeen

Wordless Wednesday is a daily prompt at Geneabloggers that asks family historians to create a post in which the main focus is a photograph or image.

Matthew George Killeen

Photo from Aunt Helen's album
probably taken 1918 or 1919

 8 May 1895 New York - 7 Mar 1969 Portsmouth, VA

Matthew George “Mac” Killeen was my half grand uncle, half-brother to my paternal grandmother Julia Mary Walsh Slade. 

Unfortunately, I have no memory of Uncle Mac even though I was a teenager when he died.  The one story I know about him was that Mac was an alcoholic and would go to work only when he felt like it.  Supposedly Mac performed some job in the shipyard that apparently no one else could do.  My great-grandmother Mary Theresa Walsh's “job” was to sober him up and put him in a car that the boss would send to pick him up.   

And the moral of the story, Boys and Girls, is that if you’re going to be a potential nuisance to society, it’s good to have an invaluable skill.

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.