Saturday, February 8, 2014

More about Mary and Timothy Kennedy

Well I told you that there had to be more than just a marriage and one child, and I found more.  Some good news, and some not so much.  The first thing I found was this little item on ancestry.com:

Yeah, not so good.  This is the death of young Timothy Kennedy on 19 Jul 1898 at the age of 1 hour.  So the joy didn't last very long, but the next thing I found was good - another birth.

This one was a girl, born 30 Sep 1900, again in Jersey City.  They named her Mary Agnes and she was Baptized on 14 Oct 1900 - but I don't know where because I didn't order the record yet.  So now they have a little girl.  But I still can't find any census records for Mary and Timothy (and now Mary Agnes).  Mary Agnes was probably not born in time to make the 1900 census, but she should be in the 1910 - but I can't find them.

So, the next thing I found was more bad news - it seems that sometimes the only news that you can find is bad news.  I was looking through some on line newspapers and found this item:

This was in the Jersey Journal 17 Oct 1916.  He was only 46 years old but died after a long illness. I'll see what the illness was when I get a chance to go the the archives and get a death certificate.  The obit is not big, but it has alot of info.  It says he lived at 168 Pavonia Ave - sounds like they lived near Catherine and Charles Cavanagh and Thomas Bergen.  He was in the ocean cattle shipping business - I think the whole family was in the cattle business.  I remember my mom (as well as Aunt Florence) telling me that my great grandfather William "Pop" Bergen was involved in the same business.  Florence said he used to work on the cattle boats from Ireland.  This also says that Timothy is buried in Holy Name - well knock me over with a feather.  So I checked the rcancem.org (that's the website for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark Cemeteries), but I could not find him.  So I called Holy Name and told them I checked the website and could not find him, but I had the obit saying that he is buried there.  The woman checked the card file and found that he is buried there in Sec B grave 12 D.  So I asked if Mary was buried there also and she told me that she was buried there in 1942.  I did not ask about Mary Agnes, I guess I didn't want to press my luck.  But then I remembered that the Hudson County Genealogy and Historical Society has some Holy Name burials on their web page, so I tried that.  There she was - Mary Agnes Kennedy, buried 4 May 1978 in the same plot.  So now I know for sure that they are all there.  Truth be told - I was a little worried that the obit was not for my Timothy Kennedy.  After all it only says that he is survived by a wife and a daughter - God forbid they should actually mention surviving female relatives by name.

So that's my story for tonight and when I get a chance to go to Holy Name, I will get a picture of the headstone.  I almost said "If there is one?" but mom's family was pretty good about marking graves, so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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