52 Ancestors - LOSS: Baby John

During the month of March, I will be shining the light on my Irish roots.

I believe this picture is John Killeen, infant son of John Joseph Killeen and my great-grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan.

He was child #3, born 6 Feb 1897 in Manhattan, New York City. He died before the 1900 census was taken.

In 1900, the 3 leading causes of death in children under 5 were tuberculosis, enteritis with diarrhea, and pneumonia in combination with influenza. Whether little John died from one of these or something else like measles, a congenital anomaly or accident is not known.

Unfortunately, I have found no record of his death or cause of death.

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

On This Day - Matt Killeen

During the month of March, I am shining the light on my Irish roots.

 

Matthew Killeen 1918

I do not remember ever meeting my father's uncle Matthew Killeen, known to family as both "Mac" and "Matt," but surely I must have.

On March 7, 1969, Matthew George Killeen died. He was the second child of John Joseph Killeen and Mary Theresa Sheehan, and the only son to survive past infancy.

His death certificate states that he died of natural causes and that “chronic alcoholism” was a contributing factor. No surprise there.

According to family lore, as a pipefitter, Matt had an important job in the shipyard, so important that despite his bad habits, no one would fire him. It was Mary Theresa’s duty to sober him up in the mornings and get him to work.

Matt married Alma Ketchum and they had one daughter, Alma Theresa Killeen, who was born probably 1918 but vital records differ on that count.

Matt’s wife Alma died in 1947; her death certificate claims she was a widow but Matt outlived her by 22 years.

Matt is buried in the All Saints Cemetery
formerly known as St. Paul's Catholic Church Cemetery

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

52 Ancestors - MULTIPLES: Twice a Widow

During the month of March, I will be shining the light on my Irish roots.

Mary Theresa Sheehan 
1869-1939

I cannot imagine what it was like for a woman to be widowed twice before the age of 50. And with 8 children. That was the life my great-grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan faced.

At the age of 17, Mary Theresa emigrated by herself from County Limerick, Ireland in 1886 to New York City. In the 1892 New York State census, she reported living on Clinton Avenue in Brooklyn earning a living as a cook. 

John Joseph Killeen
1866 - 1905

Somewhere, somehow, she met John Joseph Killeen, also an Irishman who had arrived from County Limerick in 1886. In the 1892 census, he was working as a porter.

The 1900 census indicates that John Joseph and Mary Theresa had been married 7 years. They were living in an apartment on 3^rd Avenue in the Bronx. John worked as a railroad guard while Mary Theresa was at home caring for three children: Lillie age 6, Matthew age 5, and Mary (better known to our family as Mae) age 1. Sadly, the Killeens reported that there had been 4 children with just the 3 living.

When New York conducted its State census in June 1905, 36-year-old Mary Theresa had been a widow for 2 months with 5 children to take care of: Elizabeth (Lillie) age 11, Matthew 10, Mae 6, Margaret 4, and Helen 2.

At the encouragement of her sister-in-law, Bridget Killeen Glynn, Mary Theresa packed up her five children and moved to Portsmouth, Virginia “to be with family.” While that sounds like a reasonable thing to do, Mary Theresa was moving to be with her deceased husband’s family while she had her own four sisters and their families right there in New York City.

I don’t get it.

Nevertheless, move she did and by June 1906, she was married to John Fleming Walsh. 

John Fleming Walsh
1868-1918

A news article indicates they married in a Methodist church on either June 12 or 13. 

Newport News Daily Press 14 Jun 1906

Yet there is also an entry in St. Paul’s Catholic Church records that they were married by Father Thomas Brady on June 17. I wonder why they married twice. At any rate, they married and settled into life on Charlestown Avenue in Portsmouth.

Together they had three more children: Julia (my paternal grandmother), Catherine (Cat), and Teresa Mary (Tate).

Walsh worked as an ordnance man for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. When he died in October 1918, the cause of death was officially recorded as pulmonary tuberculosis. Given the timing, though, it is just as likely he had contracted the Spanish flu.

Because Walsh had served as a private in the US Marines, Mary Theresa and the three Walsh daughters qualified for a pension.  

Walsh pension - payable quarterly

Mary Theresa spent the rest of her days as a widow. It is doubtful she had time for a third husband because several of her children were a handful, to say the least. Alcoholism, job insecurity, a baby out-of-wedlock in a good Catholic family, no less, and people moving out then coming back were probably all the issues she could manage. My father used to say she was the only stable force in the family.  

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: 2 Kids and a Pony

 Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo of a postman delivering the mail via horse and cart reminded me of this studio photo:

It is glued onto the black paper quickly chipping away in my grandaunt Helen Killen Parker’s photo album. The two children are just another of the hundreds of mysteries and unidentified friends and family gathered in photo albums and shoeboxes. Studying the faces, enlarging the photo, reviewing family units, and comparing to other photos have produced little to help me draw any conclusions about this charming pair.

The only REAL clues lie in the other photos on the 2-page spread.

On the same page is this phuzzy photo:  

Are they the same children a few years later?

The other photos are just chips, maybe half inch wide by 1”-1.5” long like this one:

The photos seem much older than others that Helen may have taken herself, so I wonder if the photos belonged to her mother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh. Maybe the pictures are of her as a young girl. However, she had at least 2 brothers and 4 sisters, so a photo of just 2 children does not seem likely. Nor does it seem likely she would have had a professionally-produced photo of only two of her own 8 children.

Another thought that just today occurred to me is that maybe the two children are Helen’s father John Joseph Killeen and his sister Bridget as children. That certainly matches the family makeup. Do the photos look like they date from the 1870s-early 1880s when they would have been children in Ireland?

What about this photo of a young boy with cow? The boy certainly resembles the child in the cart. Is that a thatched roof in the distance?

Thinking out loud here on my computer screen has brought me to a realization that should have been obvious before now: as a descendant of John Fleming Walsh, Mary Theresa’s second husband and Helen’s stepfather, I need to remember that in a blended family, those unidentifiables may very well be from the “other” family whose importance cannot be denied.

Quit horsing around and make your way to Sepia Saturday for more photo phun.

Wendy

© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.