Many Branches, One Tree: Agnes Evelyn Gaffney

Showing posts with label Agnes Evelyn Gaffney. Show all posts

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Sentimental Sunday: Not About to Let Her Get Away

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Phil McCormick had found someone special in Benita McGinnis, and he was not about to let her get away.

On June 20, 1921, he went downtown to a diamond importer, August Rassweiler, where he selected a diamond engagement and wedding ring for his intended bride. He paid $271.00 dollars for the set, equivalent to about $3,200 today. The couple would later playfully dub the venerable gem, nearly a carat in weight, "San Dimmo," or Saint Diamond.

Receipt for the San Dimmo diamond engagement and wedding ring set, sold to Phillip Columbus McCormick on June 20, 1921.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Either that day or shortly afterward, Phillip proposed to the 31-year-old Benita. She gladly accepted. Soon afterward, Phil invited Benita's family to celebrate their engagement at their future residence at 1435 Midway Plaisance, near the University of Chicago. It was a happy occasion, as the photograph below shows the beaming McGinnises dressed in their best Sunday clothes. Though Benita's brothers Gene and John are not in the picture, her maternal uncle and aunt, Thomas and Cora (Terrill) Gaffney and daughter (her cousin), Agnes, were there, along with her parents Thomas and Mary Jane, and her sister Alice.

Left to right, back row: Thomas Charles and Cora (Terrill) Gaffney, Phillip
McCormick, Benita McGinnis, Alice McGinnis,; center row: Thomas and
Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis; front row: Agnes Elizabeth Gaffney and unknown girl. Circa late June 1921; taken in the back yard of the engaged couple's home-to-be at 1435 Midway Plaisance, Chicago, Illinois.

Some four months later, Thomas and Mary Jane McGinnis proudly announced their daughter's marriage to Phil McCormick on Monday, October 3, 1921, in Chicago:

Announcement by Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney)
McGinnis to friends and family of the marriage of
their daughter, Benita, to Phillip McCormick.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Eugene McGinnis

announce the marriage of their daughter

Benita Elizabeth

to Mr. Phillip C. McCormick

on Monday, October the third

One thousand nine hundred and twenty-one

Chicago, Illinois

At Home
after November the first
1435 Midway Plaisance

The happy couple: Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Columbus McCormick,
on their wedding day, October 3, 1921, in front of the
bride's family home, 8052 Vernon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

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Thursday, August 29, 2013

Thankful Thursday: The End of the Breadcrumb Trail

Thomas Charles Gaffney (1874 - 1937)
Cora Alice (Terrill) Gaffney (1879 - 1951)
Agnes Evelyn (Gaffney) Johnson (1902 - 1977)
Ernest F.W. Johnson (1900 - 1958)

Last of a four part series

Agnes Evelyn Gaffney

Unlike her parents Thomas and Cora (Terrill) Gaffney, Agnes Evelyn (Gaffney) Johnson seems to have enjoyed a loving and stable marriage with her husband Ernest but remained childless as far as the records show.

I cannot find anyone by that her name in her mother's family but suspect she was named after her father's sister, Agnes Gaffney. The photographs we saw yesterday of Agnes and her parents on cousin Benita McGinnis' engagement day suggest they were close enough to gather together for celebrations and special occasions. Add to this that before 1940, Agnes and Ernest moved into a house on Mill Street in Conneaut, Ohio, just two doors down from her paternal aunt, Frances (Gaffney) Cherry, and we can conclude that she got along well with her Gaffney relatives.

The 1950s brought sadness to Agnes' life as she began losing several members of her family. Her mother Cora died in Monroe in 1951 at age 72, and several of the Gaffney aunts died in the years that followed. Ernest Johnson died the day after Thanksgiving on November 28, 1958. Agnes would have been 56 at the time, barely two years younger than her husband.

By then, many of the younger Gaffneys had already left Conneaut for bigger cities. With so many of them gone, it is no surprise that Agnes eventually left, too. Some of the Gaffney cousins had moved south to the warmer climes of Florida, and she might have wanted to move there to be near them in her old age.

The bread crumb trail of records is broken abruptly for nearly two decades between the time of Ernest's passing and Agnes' own death at age 75. It would be nice to know what her life was like during that time.

The Social Security Death Index does give us a clue. It indicates that she received her Social Security Number 1951 through the Railroad Board. She had worked as an office clerk for a railroad company back in 1940 and most likely retired between the late 1950s or early 1960s before moving to Florida.

Until this point (except for during her early childhood when she moved back and forth between several cities with her mother), Agnes lived in Conneaut most of her life. The move to such a different and distant area for a small town girl was a major change for her, especially as a widow. If she had the affable Gaffney personality, though, she should have had no problems making new friends.

Agnes Evelyn (Gaffney) Johnson
- from the scrapbook of Benita (McGinnis)
McCormick, year unknown

The Social Security Death Index also notes that Agnes' last residence was in Fort Lauderdale, the same city in which she died on September 4, 1977.

Agnes' body was returned to Conneaut, where she was buried next to her husband in Glenwood Cemetery.

People are not one-dimensional creatures, and everyone has a story. Some people's stories are harder to find than others. My mother once said she hoped she would not be remembered as "just another name on a family tree, hanging precariously from some obscure branch" of the family tree. I think most of us would agree. All of us deserve to be remembered for more than just our names.

The story of Tommy Gaffney started out as a scant trail of breadcrumbs as I tried to learn what was behind this practical joker and happy-g0-lucky man so beloved by his family. The more crumbs I found, the more they seemed to follow a trail of the twists and turns that all of us experience in our lives. They led us to discover new people and revealed aspects of his life we might never have expected or imagined.

As we reach the end of this trail of bread crumbs of the life of the colorful Tommy that led us to learn more about him and discover his wife and daughter, I wish I could meet them, if only to say how glad and grateful I am to have learned about them.

There might be more waiting around the bend to discover about the Gaffney family, but other ancestors patiently await their turn. For now, we shall say farewell to this wonderful family until we return to visit another day.

May the road rise up to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And the rain fall soft upon your fields.

And, until we meet again,

May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

- Traditional Irish Blessing

In case you missed them:

Part One: Mystery Monday: More than Meets the Eye

Part Two: What the Records Can and Can't Tell Us
Part Three: Wishful Wednesday: Happy and Not So Happy Endings

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Are you a member of the Cherry, Gaffney, Johnson, McGinnis, or Terrill families? Share your memories and comments below.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Wishful Wednesday: Happy and Not So Happy Endings

Thomas Charles Gaffney (1874 - 1937)
Cora Alice (Terrill) Gaffney (1879 - 1951)
Agnes Evelyn (Gaffney) Johnson (1902 - 1977)

Third of a four part series

I have copies of two photographs of my grand aunt and grand uncle, Benita (McGinnis) and Phillip C. McCormick on their engagement day in 1921. The pictures, taken in the back yard of their soon-to-be home, were in Aunt Detty's scrapbook.

Clockwise, from left to right: Thomas Charles Gaffney, his daughter Agnes, his wife
Cora, Benita McGinnis, Phillip McCormick, Alice McGinnis, unidentified girl,
Mary Jane (Gaffney) and Thomas McGinnis.
1435 Midway Plaisance, Chicago, Illinois, June 1921.

Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil are the handsome couple in the center of the photo in the back row. Her scrapbook page identifies her parents, Thomas Eugene and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, seated in front, and Agnes Gaffney, second from the left. Agnes would be about 19 here.

I also recognize my maternal grandmother, Alice McGinnis, second from the right; and my great-grand uncle Thomas "Tommy" Gaffney on the far left, next to his daughter. I do not recognize the little girl next to my grandmother but surmise she could be a cousin. I am also guessing that the woman with her hair piled high may be Cora (Terrill) Gaffney, Tommy's wife. I base this on the fact that they had been married two years earlier and on the affectionate way Agnes' arms are draped around her and Tommy.

The next photo was taken in better focus than the first, making it easier to enlarge and see clearly the faces of the family on that happy day. Little did any of them know that Benita and Phil's marriage would last for 70 years.

Clockwise, from left to right: Thomas Charles and Cora (Terrill) Gaffney,
Phillip McCormick, Benita and Alice McGinnis; middle row: Thomas and
Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis; front row, Agnes E. Gaffney and
unidentified girl. 1435 Midway Plaisance, Chicago, Illinois, June 1921.

If you compare the photos, you will notice that everyone is looking at the camera in the first one. In the second photo, Tommy stands some distance from his wife. This time he does not look at the camera but seems distracted. Though some may deny that this could be a foreshadowing of things to come, one thing is clear: Unlike Benita and Phillip McCormick, Cora and Tom Gaffney were no longer together by the time the next census taker came to the door.

These photos depict Agnes as a tall and slender beauty, her fashionably short bob and tilted head giving her a look of confidence that must have attracted many a young man. She has her father's face; maybe she also had his sense of humor.

About six years after this picture was taken, Agnes married Ernest F. W. Johnson of nearby Ashtabula, and they moved into the house next door to hers at 331 Sandusky in Conneaut. By 1930, with the Great Depression in full swing, both were fortunate enough to have jobs, Ernest as a machinist and Agnes as an office clerk for a steam engine railroad. (Had Tommy helped her find that job?) They had no children, but there was a third person living with them: Cora Gaffney, now age 51.

The situation gets even more interesting here, albeit confusing. Cora's marital status in the 1930 Census was "married." Tommy, on the other hand, was living with his sisters again, this time in Cleveland. His own marital status on the census sheet is hard to read, but it is not "married." The letter looks like an "S," indicating "single," but it is looped in such a way that it also could stand for "D," as in "divorced."

Whichever he considered as his marital status, why did Cora say she was married? Was she still trying to escape the stigmas she had endured as the child of divorce, as an unwed mother some years later, and now as a divorced woman herself? I am inclined to think that "separated" might be the closest answer here, as it validates the status of both sides. That status was not an option in the census, which might explain the difference in Tommy and Cora's interpretations.

Societal attitudes had begun to change somewhat in 1930s America, yet it still must have been a rough time to live a life that fell outside the norm. Even today, the dissolution of serious relationships, especially marriages, almost always inflicts painful wounds and deep scars. I cannot help but think that Cora, Tommy, and Agnes must have suffered their share of indignity and sorrow.

By 1935, Cora left her daughter's home and moved back to Monroe, where decades earlier she had raised her sisters. This time she rented a room from a man about ten years her senior named Haltie Eaton. Meanwhile, Tommy, who like his siblings was afflicted with a hardening of the arteries, died of a stroke in a Lakewood, Ohio, hospital, on June 2, 1937. He was 63 years old.