August Brady 1884-1907

A few years ago, I wrote a post about Raymond Brady, son of John Brady and Ann Butler.  While I was writing and checking Newspapers.com for more information, I came across an article about August Brady dying in Buffalo, NY.  So I quickly looked for him in my tree, and found that he would have been 23 years old.  I thought it was odd that a young man would die of heart failure and so far from home.  It also said he left behind a wife and two children.  The last record I had for him was the 1900 census, and he was 16, living at home with his family.  That would mean that in seven years he moved to Buffalo, NY, married, and had two children.  That's a busy seven years for a young guy.  Here's what I found out in the last two days during my Covid19 self quarentine.

I was searching August Brady on Ancestry.com and came across a family tree published by someone else that had my August Brady and his new family.  This is what I pieced together.

August Brady was born in Gordon, Pa in 1884, fourth child born to John Brady and Ann Butler.  I'm not exactly sure of the entire story, but I am guessing that he worked in the steel mill in Scranton, and when it closed and moved to Buffalo, Augustus followed to work in the mill.

Apparently, a young lady from Scranton, Margaret Finnegan also moved to the Buffalo area with her family (Father, Mother, and five siblings).  Augustus and Margaret marry on 20 Feb 1902 in W Seneca, NY and on 24 Jun 1903, Margaret gives birth to a son, Allen.  Gus, Margaret and Allen are listed in the 1905 NY State Census at 229 First St, W. Seneca, NY with Margaret's family on 1 June 1905.  Eight days later, Margaret gives birth to a little girl, Eleanor Margaret, on 9 Jun 1905.

On Saturday August 10,1907, tragedy strikes.  August goes to work at the Lackawanna Steel Plant and dies of heart failure.  He leaves behind his wife and two small children, but there is more.  Margaret is pregnant and eleven days later, she delivers a son, Augustine C Brady, Jr.

Margaret marries a second time in 1911, to a man named Gustave Lawrence Stoehr and together they have six more children.

As for August's three children, here is what happened to them:

Augustine C. Brady, Jr married Adele Schmatz on 13 Apr 1937 in Boston, NY and worked at the Bethlehem Steel Plant in Lackawanna, NY.  In 1945 he moved to Trenton, NJ and became a restaurant manager.  On 1 Dec 1945, he had a heart attack and died at age 38.

Eleanor Margaret Brady married William Murphy on 8 Dec 1923 in Buffalo, NY.  William is a salesman of medical supplies, and as far as I can tell, they had three children, Thomas, William, and Judith. Eleanor dies on 3 Dec 1940, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Lackawanna, NY.  She was 35 years old.

Last, but certainly not least, Allen Brady.  As best as I can tell, Allen did not marry and have children.  He did join the US Navy, and according to his obituary, he died in Vladivostok, Siberia on 4 Jun 1922.  He and seven other sailors  disappeared when their boat capsized, and a two day search of Amoor Bay failed to uncover any trace of the men.  The seven men were in a motor launch from the gunboat USS New Orleans, and it is believed that the boat capsized in a sudden squall.  He was 19 years old.

Pretty depressing story, first August dies at age 23 of a heart attack, and his three children all die before their mother.

So maybe this pandemic isn't so bad, look at what I found out with the extra time on my hands.

McConville-Sullivan

When I first started this venture in about 2004, my mom gave me a family tree that her cousin, Lenore had given her.  She had titled it "The Sullivan's and McConville's Ancestral Chart - Five Generations".  It was more of a spread sheet than a tree, but it was actually very clever.  She had different columns, titled Name, Relationship. Date of Birth, Date of Death, Age at Death, Birth Place, and Final Resting Place.  All on one sheet of legal size paper, very informative and compact.  It took me a computer program and a few banker boxes full of censuses, death and marriage certificates, etc... to get to the same info that she has listed on one page.  But because of her, I had a head start.

So I've had this sheet for about 15-16 years, you would think that I would have gone over it with a fine tooth comb, but I didn't.  For example, I learned from her chart that my great grandmother, Johanna Sullivan, was born in London, 6 Sep 1866 to Michael Sullivan and Mary Dunn.  But I never knew that she had a sister Mary Ann and two brothers Timothy and Michael Jr.  Then for some reason I think I heard that the boys came to the US and lived in the midwest.  Her chart lists Timothy dying at age 39 in London, where he is buried, and Michael Jr also died in London, but I don't know when.  Her sister, Mary Ann, apparently came to the US, but died in 1894 at age 26, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.  But while she was here, she married (poorly - according to another of my mom's cousins), so I cannot verify where she is buried because I don't know her married name. (Another difficulty encountered when researching female ancestors.)

One more recent discovery and I won't bore you further.  I think I mentioned that I had found an 1871 Census record from England which lists Michael age 30, Mary age 30, (both listed occupation at Tailor and both born in Ireland) Johannah age 4, Mary age 3, and Timothy age 1.  The children were all born in Lambeth.  Now for the interesting part: their place of residence.

The census says that they live in the Parish of Lambeth, Ward of Princes, Parlimentary Borough of Lambeth, and handwritten in the top right corner is "St Peters Vauxhall". In the box titles Ecclesiastical District St Marys is crossed out.  Here is the good part.  in the column for Road, Street and number or Name of House are ditto marks.  So you have to scroll back about five pages to the the info. It says 1 Vauxhall Row and as you move through the pages it gives a model house number.  The last number I see is Model House 3.

So, with this in mind I was talking a a person at work who is doing her tree and she has people still in England.  Within about five minutes she emailed me this photo:

She texted her friend in England and within a few minutes I had this picture.  When you read all of the small print, the photo is from 1876, five years after the census.  It also says that this was constructed for the Duchy of Cornwall.  The current Duchy of Cornwall is Charles, Prince of Wales (widower of Princess Diana).  This also leads me to believe that family lore may be correct.  Family lore has that Michael Sullivan was a tailor to the Ladies of the Court.  My co-worker's friend said that Buckingham Palace is a 30 minute walk from these houses.   

It also says that there were shops on the first floor and residences above, so maybe they had a tailor shop on the first floor and lived up stairs with the rest of "the help".  Just a theory, but it makes sense.

I Just Found another Ancestor on the Old Sod

I have been sitting at home for the past couple of weeks recovering from a surgical procedure and getting a little stir crazy.  So I decided to start going through all of my old papers and either file them or throw them out (God forbid). I was already sitting, and I started reading through boxes of birth, death, marriage and census records trying to figure out how to organize them.  Organization is the bane of my existence.  As always happens, I started reading papers and came across ancestors that I had put aside before, and starting thinking about other ways to find more about them.  This is why I can never get organized.

I was looking at a record for Edward Bergin and his wife Mary Malone.  They are my great great grandparents, born in County Laois, Ireland.  There they had five children, 3 boys and 2 girls.  The thing that I focused on was Edward's parents: Timothy Bergin and Margaret Kavanagh.  So I decided to search Timothy Bergin on ancestry.com and I used a birth year of about 1820.  Well, lo and behold, I found a baptismal record for Dan Bergin, dated 9 Jan 1846.  The record lists his parents as Tim Bergin and Margaret Kavanagh, it also lists sponsors (Godparents) as Pierce Dowling and Mary Costello.  It appears that the place is Clonlahy (I think).

This record is 173 years old, handwritten in a ledger book and you can read it like it was written yesterday.  The place of baptism is listed as Borris-in-Ossory, Laois, Ireland and the Diocese is Ossory.  This is the same place that I found the record for the baptism of Edward, as well as, his marriage to Margaret Kavanagh.  I also found baptismal records for all five of their children in the same place.  So, I am confident that Dan is the younger brother of Edward (my 2X great grandfather).  If I'm wrong, I can always blame it on lingering effects of anesthesia, so this is a win-win.

The Peppers

As you may or may not remember, my great great grandmother was Anne Pepper.  According to her Death Certificate, she was born on 15 Nov 1848 to Patrick Pepper and Marcella in New York City, NY.  Ann aged quickly, in the 1850 Federal Census she is listed as 10 years old, living in South Cass Twp, Schuylkill County, Pa with her parents and at least 5 siblings.  This makes more sense because her eldest daughter, Susan, is born in 1863.  But that doesn't really matter for our purposes today, because today I am going to talk about her family a little bit.

So I was looking on ancestry.com and checking on my DNA matches, when I saw a new match.  It is for John E Pepper, (there is a second match further down my list of 4th - 6th cousins with the name T. P., both are managed by the same person.  I am guessing that T. P.'s surname is also Pepper (I was a detective for awhile you know).  This match also says that there is a common ancestor - Patrick Pepper and Marcella M Reilly (Anne Pepper's parents).

I started hunting around on ancestry.com and Newspapers.com (which has several titles from Pottsville, including the Pottsville Republican). I learned from this that Anne Pepper was not an only child - not by a long shot. She had nine siblings - eight brothers and one sister.  The best I can figure is that she had brothers named Francis, Thomas, Michael, John, James, William, Charles and Ainges.  She also had a sister named Mary, who married a man named Hugh Tye, and they had seven children: six boys and one girl, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Apparently the Peppers were a pretty prominent family in Schuylkill County, Thomas Pepper was a businessman, a distiller in Ashland.  Thomas also held the office of County Treasurer, a post he held from 1891 to 1894.  He also was a member of the Ashland town Council for two terms and a director of the Citizens National Bank.  He was married to Elizabeth McDonald and had five children: one daughter, Hannah and fours sons: Frank, John, George and Thomas.

I found an ad for the distillery on Google:

I kinda remember reading that the business was originally a soda bottling company and changed over to a distillery later.  This ad may be after he turned over the business to his sons.  I thought this ad was a great find.

Before I stop for the night, I wanted to mention one other sibling of Anne's, and that is her brother Ainges.  I have never heard that name before and I assume it is Irish, but I have no idea.  The other thing about him is that in 1922 he lived in Scranton, PA.  I know this from a newspaper article that says he was struck by a car, and suffered a compound fracture of the left leg and other minor injuries, according to the article.  The article also says he was an aged man, more specifically 62 (younger than me and I'm not aged) and he lived on North Hyde Park Ave. The worst part is that he was struck by the car on 28 Mar 1922, and I found his death certificate indicating that he died 3 Apr 1922 and the cause is listed as a fracture of left tibia (automobile accident).

When I find some more about her family, I will let you know.  But I do plan on doing this more often.

James Bradley, MInersville, PA

I have been researching on Newspapers.com and I think I mentioned in my last post (I don't remember, it was quite awhile ago) that they now have Pottsville newspapers, including the Miners Journal, the Pottsville Republican and the Republican and Herald.  They cover from about 1884 to present, so I have found quite a bit about my family in that area.  

Tonight I am going to concentrate on my Great great grandfather James Bradley and a few of the articles that I found about him.  I really don't know much about him, just that he was born in Ireland in about 1835, married Annie Pepper and had eight children (six girls and two boys - one of whom is my great grandmother). I am guessing he married Annie somewhere around the start of the Civil War in 1861 (no pun intended).  He died sometime around the turn of the century in about 1900 or so. You may recall that I once posted a picture of his grave marker, and I'll show you again.

It just says;  J BRADLEY, nothing fancy, no dates, not even a death date, I like it.  This is a church graveyard and the parish used to be St. Vincent de Paul, but Catholic churches have been merging all over the country and the new parish is St. Michael the Archangel, just in case you want to look it up.

Anyway, it appears that J Bradley was just a working man taking care of his family.  I could not even find any newspaper articles about his death, but I did find a couple of articles that were interesting.

The first one was in the Pottsville Republican, on the front page, on 20 Apr 1887.  It talks about a Hungarian  man living in a warehouse at the south end of the Palo Alto Bridge (I have no idea where that is, but it must be important) He had apparently rented a house in Minersville and hired a teamster to haul his household effects to that town, where he had gotten a job at the Marion furnace.  He paid the teamster $1.50 to do the work (slightly less than the $15.00 / hour minimum wage they are working on passing today).  The Huns ( that is what the newspaper called the Hungarian and his family) were upset when the teamster demanded an additonal $.50, and and argument and brawl ensued, with the teamster dumping the goods and keeping the money. The "Hun" went to the Squire to have the teamster arrested.  In the second article, the next day, we find out that the teamster was none other that James Bradley.  The newspaper describes Mr Bradley as an honest, hard working, upright citizen, and apparently the "Huns" were having some "adult beverages" at the time, and they were found at fault.  The best part is that James Bradley is described as be about five feet high with a light complexion.

The last article is also from the Pottsville Republican  from 3 Jun 1893 on page 4.  This article describes how during the night someone entered the stable of James Bradley at the Delaware, near Minersville, and stole his horse.  James was suspicious of a group of gypsies who had been "plying their trade" near Doudentown.  James went off to find the gypsies and get his horse. He found their encampment near Pinegrove.  The horse was surrendered and the case was dismissed.

Pretty good stuff, he sounds like a decent man trying to make a living and take care of his family.  He was only five feet high, but apparently was not about to let anyone take advantage of him.  Took care of the situation on his own.  You gotta admire that in a man.

Frank E Brady 1889 - 1961

I recently found that Newspapers.com has added a few new newspapers to their database.  The best part is the location:  Pottsville PA.  That's right! Right in the middle of the Brady spawning grounds in Schuylkill County PA.  As you may well imagine, I have been a researching fool lately, finding births, weddings, and obituaries of ancestors.  Or, as we like to call it, hatch, match and dispatch - always like to add a little genealogy humor.

I will get to the Pottsville Republican later, because it will come in handy while researching Frank Edward Brady, born in Gordon, Schuylkill County Pa in 1889 to John Brady and his wife, Annie Butler Brady.  Within a few years the family moved to Scranton, PA.  I had previously found the announcement of Frank's marriage to Mary Regan in Scranton on 15 Sep 1914.  Sometime in 1915, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Helen.  Tragedy struck in April of 1917 when an obituary for Mrs. Frank Brady (Mary) appeared in the Scranton paper.  It says that Mrs Frank died following a few weeks' illness, she was just 26 years old.  It goes on to mention her husband is Frank Brady, a well known insurance man.  After the death of his wife, Frank and Helen live on Ripple St with his parents, and in 1918 Frank registers for the draft for WWI, as do three of his brothers, Raymond, Paul, and Thomas.

On 27 Oct 1921,  31 year old Frank marries 17 year old Agnes Goff in Scranton, PA.  They will have two more children, William is born 4 Dec 1922 and Jean is born in May 1926.  This brings me to the Pottsville Republican.  I found an article saying that Frank is named Asst. Superintendent of the Pottsville office of the Prudential Insurance Co.  So, between children, they move back to Schuylkill County.  Shortly after the move, his brother, Raymond, becomes a widower when his wife dies.  Frank and Agnes have his daughter live with them in Minersville, and an interesting article appears  in the Pottsville Republican 8 Oct 1929 (weeks before the stock market crash).  The article is about a birthday party for Mary and it lists the decorations and guests, and says that Mary is visiting from Scranton.  I like the guest list, it may mention aunts, uncles, and cousins, and Mary's father is not among the listed guests. 

It's funny what they printed in the newspaper back then.  The newspapers published a list of local residents admitted to area hospitals.  This was slightly before HIPPA regulations.

I cannot locate Frank, Agnes, or his daughter, Helen, in the 1940 census, but I did find William and Jeanne (this is the spelling in the census record) living in Scranton with Agnes' parents on Stafford Ave.  According to the census, they both lived at this address in 1935 also.  On 4 Dec 1940 (his 18th birthday) William enlists in the US Navy.  He will be stationed at Pearl Harbor the following December, and survives the Japanese attack, and continues to serve through March of 1946.  William died 1 Dec 2005 in Ormond Beach, FL. The 1940 census is the last record that I can locate for Jean and I don't know what happened to her. 

Unfortunately, the next thing I found was Agnes getting married 17 Sep 1941 in Delaware.  The certificate of marriage says that she is divorced.  It also gives her residence as Scranton, PA.   My first thought was that the age difference may have been too much, but then you check and see what is going on the world at this time.  The Great Depression!  I wonder if work was not steady, or a paycheck was not steady.  There is no way of telling at this point, but it just seems sad.  Our ancestors lived through some tough times.  This is the last record that I can locate for Agnes also, so I don't know what happened to her either.

On 28 Apr 1945, Helen Brady, aged 29, dies of tuberculosis in Ransom Township, at the Lackawanna County TB Hospital  She had been employed as a stenographer for the Scranton School District and lived on Ripple St.  She is buried in Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton and Frank was the informant on her death certificate.  He was also living at the Brady compound at 522 Ripple St, Scranton.

Frank was living in Philadelphia, where he dies on 31 Jan 1961 at the age of 71.  His sister Agnes Sipple is the informant on the death certificate.  He is buried in Cathedral Cemetery.  That's the other thing that sticks out, is that no matter what happens, they always turn to family for help.  If you are widowed, family helps out with the children, if you are out of work, or just fall on hard times, there is usually a family member who will take you in and help you out for as long as it takes.  That's the good part about any sad times that I come across.

Fortunately, my cousin Peggy from Scranton gave me a photo of Frank, which I will end with:

Raymond Aloysius Brady 1886 - 1953

Remember in one of my last posts, I spoke about the Bradys in the Iron and Steel business.  I said that I had not really done much research on Raymond A Brady, who was in Buffalo for a short time in 1907. I decided to do some work on him for this post.  I have to say, for some reason I get Raymond mixed up with his brother Frank.  I don't know why, it's not like I knew either one of them, although maybe that is why.

Raymond was born to John J Brady and Annie Butler in Gordon, PA and moved to Scranton with his family.  I found this article in the Scranton Truth from Fri 18 Mar 1910:

In the 1900 Census, Bessie Heffron is identified as Bridget Haffron born Aug 1887 to John Heffron and Ellen Walsh, and depending on the document, she was born in  either Ireland or Scranton.  Although sometimes I think Scranton is a county in Ireland. 

Raymond and Bessie marry and have six children: John, Raymond, Mary, Robert, Paul, and the last child is listed in the 1920 census as "Dustum", a male child born in May of 1919.  I have never heard this name, so I don't know if the census is correct.  After some more research, I accidentally found Augustus J Brady born 27 May 1919.  This is the mystery child formerly known as "Dustum".  After looking at the census, I think the enumerator had some poor handwriting.

As for Raymond, in 1910, his occupation is listed as Round House, in the Locomotive industry, 1920 he is a laborer for a contractor, in the 1926 Scranton City Directory his occupation is "painter", and it remains that way until his death in 1953.  I have not located him in the 1930 or 1940 census records. 

I did find a newspaper article which may somewhat explain the change.

This is from the Scranton Republican Wed. 9 Mar 1927.  Her death certificate says that she died from complication during child birth on 7 Mar 1927 at age 32.

After the death of Bessie, a lot of changes take place.  Changes that would not happen today because of all of the social agencies that have been put in place.  Back in the 20's there was no welfare, food stamps, or Division of Youth and Family, or anything of the sort.  When you are a single parent due to a death, you depend on the generosity of family, friends, and maybe your church or other charitable organization. Raymond was a single parent now, not by choice, but through death.  He has six children and the oldest is 17.  So now the children get split up with other family members.

In the 1930 census, I cannot locate John, the 17 year old.  I assume he may be on his own and working.  Mary is living in Minersville, PA with her uncle Frank Brady and his wife and their three children.  Augustus is living with Bessie's sister, Ellen Farrell with her husband and children in Scranton.  Robert and Paul (the two youngest) are together with Bessie's other sister Mary and her husband Martin McDonough in Scranton. But what has become of Raymond, Jr.?

In the 1930 census, I did find a Raymond Brady, age 16, which is about right, living in Newton Township, Lackawanna County at the Hillside Home (Insane).  That is how the census record lists it.  I cannot be certain that this is him or why he is living there at age 16, but I do know that he is still there in the 1940 Census.  The record says Newton Township, but it is actually on the border with Clark Summit, near my sister's home. I drove over there, but I was too late to talk to anyone but Security.  He gave me a phone number for a social worker, but when I called him, he said that the records are no longer available and had been destroyed.  At this point I am at a dead end, but I may try the Pennsylvania State Archives. 

I wrote this last night, but did not post it, I wanted to read it over before posting it.  I thought about it when I went to bed, and it dawned on me.  Maybe (just maybe) Raymond had Special Needs and no one else in the family had the time or knowledge to care for him.  So he went to this institution where he could be cared for.  Remember, this was not the most politically correct era in our history.  If you were not "normal", you may end up in an Insane Asylum because no one knew what to do for you.  I can't believe it took me so long to think of this, since I have a son with Special Needs.  I don't know how I am going to prove this, but I am pretty confident that this is the answer.

I also happened to find out that Raymond passed away in September of 1984 and is buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery.  His sister Mary took care of the arrangements.