Family Recipe Friday: Aunt Di's Millionaire Steak

Delia "Di" Gaffney
     (1864 - 1952)

Delia "Di" or "Deal" Gaffney.  This is part of 
a group portrait of the six Gaffney sisters.  
There seems to be an impish expression behind 
those innocent eyes, as if Di  had to stop whatever
 mischief she was up to to pose for this portrait.

Of the six Gaffney sisters of Conneaut, Ohio, Delia was the joker. There were several explanations for this.  

One story went that when Delia was a toddler, one of her sisters (no one would say who) was carrying her around in the field when she stumbled into a ditch and fell, dropping the baby. Delia's back was injured, causing her to walk with a limp all her life.

The other story was that she was deaf in one ear, a possible result of childhood scarlet fever.

Due to one or both of these incidents, Delia, variously nicknamed "Di" and "Deal," turned to humor as a way of deflecting attention from her physical challenges.   She loved playing practical jokes on her family and many of the townspeople of Conneaut.  She told colorful stories and had a wicked sense of humor that kept people wondering what she would be up to next.  

Di was born at home in Conneaut on June 23, 1864.  She used to say she was born "during the dog days of summer." She attended Conneaut High School as far as her freshman year.  For reasons unknown, she seems to be the only one of the sisters who never held a job outside home throughout her life.  One would think that as a single woman, she would have had to support herself.  She, did, however, contribute a significant amount to the household by cooking and cleaning while her sisters worked. She also looked after their mother, Bridget (Quinn) Gaffney, when Bridget became too old to care for herself.  

She followed the same pattern her sisters had, living first in Conneaut and then moving to Cleveland, where all the sisters bought a house on Rocky River Drive.

In October 1952, Di was diagnosed with uterine cancer.  It progressed rather quickly over the next month, and she entered Longview Hospital in Kingsville, Ohio, in mid-November.  She died there, two days after Thanksgiving.  She was 88 years old.

This cookbook, given to my great aunt Detty in
1921, made its way to my mother, Joan (Schiavon)
Huesca and then to me.  It is now in the possession
of my cousin, Suzanne, Benita's granddaughter.

Di left behind a small memento for us to remember her.  It was a cookbook published by a women's group from the Congregational Church of Conneaut.  Aptly called Congregational Church Recipes, the hardcover book, published in 1917, measured about 6" x 9" inches and contained about 100 pages.  The aged-gray cover is simple with black writing. The inside first page has two inscriptions, both dedicated simply:

       

August 25, 1917

Deal -

With love and kisses

From Mary. 

I would love to know who "Mary" was.  She might have been Di's eldest sister, Mary Jane Gaffney, or she could have been a friend.  

In 1921, Di gave the book to her niece, Benita "Detty" (McGinnis), as a wedding gift for her marriage to Phillip C. McCormick.  Her own dedication is as simple as the one made to her a mere four years earlier.  

To My dear

Detty

1921

The cookbook itself contains advertisements from local businesses and recipes compiled by the women's club of the church.  The recipes are simple and encourage thriftiness; some of the cakes are "eggless, sugarless, and butterless."  Delia herself handwrote some of her favorite recipes on the back pages of the book, including the one below for "Millionaire Steak." 

Wait - Millionaire Steak in a cookbook that encouraged thriftiness?  Maybe it is not so odd.  After all, as a Chicago millionaire once said to one of my ancestors, how do you think the rich get that way?

Millionaire Steak

1 ½ - 2 ½ lbs. sirloin steak, cut thick

1 cup carrots

1 cup celery

1 cup peas

1 can mushrooms

3 tbsp. butter

1 lg. tbsp. ketchup

3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

Cook carrots, celery, peas, mushrooms, butter, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce together in a sauce pan for 20 minutes.  Pour vegetables and sauce over meat and bake in oven for ½ hour.  Serves 6.

**********

Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Are you a member of the Gaffney, Huesca, McCormick, McGinnis, or Schiavon  families? Share your memories and comments below.

Sibling Saturday: Margaret Ann Gaffney

Margaret Ann "Maggie" Gaffney

     (1860 - 1949)

Margaret Ann "Maggie" Gaffney

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been somewhat frustrated in my inability to uncover more about my great-grandmother's five sisters, the Gaffneys of Conneaut, Ohio.

Two things I do know about these loving and much beloved sisters is that they were high spirited and fiercely independent, something that few official records could reveal.

Take Margaret "Maggie" Gaffney.  Barely two years younger than her sister Mary Jane, Maggie decided to follow in her path and become a dressmaker. They and all the Gaffney girls had learned to sew at their mother's feet.  Bridget (Quinn) Gaffney, their mother, probably had learned in the same way from her own mother back in Ireland, as was the custom of the day.

Maggie was born April 15, 1960, in Conneaut, only three days after the start of the Civil War.  Her birth must have been a happy moment for her parents, who like most people were just learning the details of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and wondering what the coming months would bring.  We first meet her as a two-month-old infant in the 1860 Census.  It is mid-June and she is living with her parents and two year old sister Mary Jane.  It seems she was named for her maternal grandmother, Margaret (Kelly) Quinn and her maternal aunt, Ann (Quinn) Tinney, also Conneaut residents.

In the summer of 1880, Maggie and her sister Elizabeth "Lyle" were living away from home, presumably as young apprentices in the needle arts. Maggie was 20 years old.  She lived in the home of local merchant James Judson, his wife, Lucy, and their two young children.  She worked for them as a servant, but she was probably apprenticing as a dressmaker at this point, if not for the Judsons, for someone else.  The Judson home, at 134 State Street, was only nine blocks from the Gaffney House at 401 Mill Street in Conneaut.  Lyle, 18,  also was living a few blocks from home, apprenticing as a milliner.

Maggie never married.  She seems to have lived a fairly quiet life, devoted to her family, and she returned home when her apprenticeship concluded. Most of the other children, however, gradually left home. Two of them left to marry and start families, and the others moved to Cleveland, about 80 minutes away.

Maggie's father, John Gaffney, died in 1892 of dropsy of the heart (or heart failure as we know it today).  From then on, she was the sole breadwinner of the household, living at the Mill Street house with her mother Bridget and younger sister, Delia. 

Sometime after her mother's death of chronic bronchitis in 1914, Maggie and Delia moved to Cleveland, to live with their sisters Lyle and Agnes. Maggie moved back home to Conneaut just before she died jon February 26, 1949, just two months before her 89th birthday, of cardiac decompression and kidney disease.

Maggie's sweet face, with its expressive eyes and lips pursed into a quiet, confident smile, gives one the impression that she was a calm, understanding, and caring young lady.  She also has a slightly inquisitive look about her.  With these qualities, she must have been a good listener to whom people might have told many a story or asked for advice. 

Her niece, who was my great-aunt Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, seemed to think so.  She described her Aunt Maggie in her scrapbook as "the wise, the tactful, the wonderful friend!"

**********

Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Talented Tuesday: Domestic Goddess

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis (1858 - 1940)

My great- grandmother, Mary Jane
(Gaffney) McGinnis, wearing a dress she  made
for her engagement.  Conneaut, Ohio, circa 1884.

Known for her generous heart and her delicious pies, Mary Jane McGinnis held a special place in the memories of her descendants who knew her.  My mother, Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca, was sent by her parents, Ralph and Alice  (McGinnis) Schiavon, to live with Mary Jane, my mother’s maternal grandmother, when she was about 3 years old.  It was the middle of the Depression, and her parents could not afford to care for both her and her brother, Tom Schiavon. My mother remembered “Grandma McGinnis” with great love and respect, especially the way she never turned anyone away from her door hungry or cold.  At the time, Mary Jane’s sister, Lyle Gaffney, lived with her and my mother.

Mary Jane, known as "Janie", was the eldest of ten children born to John Francis Gaffney and Bridget (Quinn),  Gaffney, both Irish immigrants from Drumbrick and Cootehall, Ireland, respectively.  She arrived in the world on December 2, 1858, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was baptized at the Cathedral of Saint Mary in that city.

The family moved shortly after that to Conneaut, Ohio, where John made a living as a peddlar, according to the 1860 United States Census.  He and Bridget saved their money and were able to buy a large residence that was big enough to house their growing family  and rent out rooms to the men who worked on the burgeoning Nickel Plate Railroad nearby.  Located at 51 Mill Street in Conneaut, the home became variously known as the Gaffney House and the Conneaut House. And yes, their family grew:  Nine more children would come along:  Margaret, Elizabeth, Delia, John, Frances, Thomas, Agnes, Clara, and Edward.  The two youngest children died in infancy.  

Jane (McCormick) Olson, daughter of Mary Jane’s and Thomas’ eldest child, Benita  (McGinnis) McCormick and another of their grandchildren, recalled Mary Jane describing the way she and the young girls of her day learned Irish step (or “clog,” as it was called then) dancing, noting that long boards would be held up against their spines to train the girls to maintain a very straight posture for this style of dance.

Gaffney House, also known as Conneaut House,
51 Mill Street, Conneaut, Ohio, ca. 1880

One day a young railroad worker by the name of Thomas Eugene McGinnis arrived at Gaffney House to rent a room.  Recently returned from several years at sea as a merchant sailor, he had decided to settle down in the Conneaut area, drawn by the promise of a good job offered by the railroad.  Checking in with Bridget Gaffney, he was greeted by the divine aroma of a warm and freshly-baked pie.  He asked to try a piece, and he found it so delicious that he insisted on meeting the person who had baked it.  Bridget excused herself momentarily and returned with her 25-year old daughter Mary Jane.  

Tom could not believe his eyes as he talked to this young woman.  The slender young brunette had deep blue eyes, long, dark eyelashes, a rosy complexion, and a sweet, quiet confidence that intrigued him.  No longer smitten by just the pie, he fell in love with her on the spot.

Tom and Janie were married a year later on May 19, 1884, at Saint Mary's Church in Conneaut.  Janie, who was not only a superb baker but also an accomplished dressmaker, made her own wedding gown.  Her sister Lyle, a milliner, made her headpiece.

Tom and Janie moved just down the street from her parents to 78 Mill Street and began their own family.  They lost their first child, Mary Margaret, in childbirth, but they went on to have Benita Elizabeth, Francis Eugene, John Charles, and Alice Gaffney, all born in Conneaut.  

Tom continued to work for the Nickel Plate Railroad until a train derailed near Conneaut, killing several men.  Shaken by the tragedy, he decided to move his family to Chicago, where he could find another job.  They arrived there sometime between 1895 and 1900. 

Tom found a job as a cement inspector for the City of Chicago.  He built the family's two-story, Craftsman style family home at 8336 South Drexel Avenue in 1912.

Tom and Janie were fiercely devoted to each other throughout their lives, and when Tom died at age 71 in 1927, everyone thought Janie would die soon after of a broken heart.   

Sustained by her Catholic faith and her love for her five grandchildren, Jack (John McGinnis' son), Ralph and Joan Schiavon, and Buddy and Jane McCormick, Janie McGinnis surprised them all and went on to live another 13 years, devoting herself to her family and looking out for her siblings, friends and neighbors.  Her home was the hub of her family's lives, and all would gather there every Sunday afternoon to share a delicious meal and hours of stories, songs, and laughter.  

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, surrounded
by her four children, (left to right) Alice,
Eugene, John, and Benita. In the living room
at 8336 South Drexel Avenue, Chicago,
ca. 1939.

Besides her baking talents, my great-grandmother Mary Jane was remembered for keeping a pristine home and was expert at the domestic arts so valued at the time.  She made many lovely clothes for her children and grandchildren, including my own mother. She taught my mother to love sewing, especially embroidery. My mother loved the creative outlet she found in sewing.  She went on to become an accomplished seamstress herself and taught my sisters and me to sew so that you could never see the stitches in a garment.  I was quite proud of this accomplishment and always credited it to my mother and great-grandmother.

The pie-making was another story.  Mary Jane was said to make pies with just the right flakiness, warm and light and picture perfect.  After so many stories about those wonderful pies, I was certain that her talent would have to rub off on me.  I was determined to be just as good a pie baker as my great-grandmother.

Unfortunately, I would find out that I was not to inherit the pie-making gene, though I tried in vain to learn every secret technique for baking pies to perfection.  To this day, my pies are more crunchy than flaky, the filling is fair at best, my attempts at crimping the edges are clumsy, and the edges themselves almost always fall off the pan before the pie is even done.  Thankfully, my family still eats them, and no one has died from them yet.

I have had to learn through fits and starts that I will never be a domestic goddess in the tradition of the Gaffney women, though I hope I at least get points for trying. 

On the other hand, my sisters have the Gaffney gene, especially my youngest sister, who is known for her delicious meals and baked goods.  These seem to come naturally to her, as do those long Gaffney eyelashes.

Copyright ©  2012  Linda Huesca Tully