Treasure Chest Thursday: The Walk Home

John Terrence Cherry  (1907 - 1956)

The third of four children born to James W. and Frances (Gaffney) Cherry, John Terrence Cherry seems to have been named after his maternal grandfather (John Gaffney) and maternal great-grandfather (Terrence Quinn).

John Terrence Cherry

He was born between 1906 and 1907 in Conneaut, Ohio, and from family accounts, was a handsome and charming man who inherited the creative gene. He became a graphic artist and watercolorist.  He also was an art professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived with his maiden aunts, Lyle, Delia, Agnes, and Margaret Gaffney. Toward the end of his life, he moved back home to Conneaut with his mother, Frances (Gaffney) Cherry, where he lived until his death in 1956 at age 49.

My mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, remembered him with fondness.  He was a regular visitor to the Schiavon home in Chicago, Illinois, and their summer cottage at Big Blue Lake, Michigan.

From all accounts, everyone loved him, though he never married. My godmother, Angelina (Ciliberto) Schiavon, once told me a story of his wicked sense of humor. She and her husband, my Uncle Tom Schiavon, were visiting the Schiavon to the Cherry home in Conneaut.  John offered to paint a portrait of Angie and invited her to his studio in the attic.  

As he worked, he looked skeptically from Aunt Angie to the picture.  "You're too sweet to paint," he said.  "You need to look at little meaner!"  As Aunt Angie laughed, he gave her a cigarette (though she didn't smoke).  "Pretend you just shot someone and take a drag on that cigarette," he suggested.  My aunt did her best to oblige.

Although John didn't own a gun, he painted one into the picture.  Aunt Angie thought he must not have been satisfied with the result, because she never got to keep the painting. 

I have only seen two of John Cherry's watercolors, and neither is a portrait. One belonged to my second cousin and was a scene of the view from the Cherry home on Mill Street in Conneaut, done in blues and browns.

The Walk Home, Conneaut, Ohio
Watercolor, John Cherry, date unknown.

My mother gave me the other watercolor many years ago.  Shown above, it measures about 16" x 20" and depicts a procession of sorts by the Nickel Plate Railroad (NKP) workers trudging home through the snowy woods on a mid-winter's day.  Many of these workers probably rented rooms from John's maternal grandparents, John Francis and Bridget (Quinn) Gaffney, who built and ran the large Gaffney House, also on Mill Street.  

I imagine that this picture was special to John not only because of his grandparents' home but because his own father, James W. Cherry, was an NKP railroad engineer.  It is special to me because it soothes me with a lasting and treasured connection to a loving family, my family. It hangs in my living room, hinting of stories yet to be discovered and beckoning me to a place from my family's past I have never known but dream of visiting some day.  

For this, John Cherry, I will always be grateful to you.

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Workday Wednesday: Agnes Gaffney: Teacher and Model of Virtue

Agnes Catherine Gaffney (1872 - 1952)
Part Three of Three



Agnes Catherine Gaffney was one of four students in the graduating class of 1890 from Conneaut High School in 1890.  According to the 1940 United States Federal Census, she went on to complete three years of college, making her the highest educated member of her immediate family and the only one to have gone beyond high school.

Agnes Catherine Gaffney
 From a group photo with her sisters at their home
in Cleveland, Ohio.  It was likely taken in the
 mid-1930s.

She taught at various schools in Conneaut, Cleveland, and Ashtabula, including the Station Street School in Ashtabula and Collinwood High School in Cleveland.  

In those days as now, Agnes would have had to sign a contract upon her employment, agreeing to perform her duties faithfully and diligently. Her duties included not only teaching but also janitorial duties. She would have had to start the fire on winter mornings before her students arrived and sweep and scrub the floors and wipe down the desks and chalkboards at the end of the day.  

She also had to abide by a high standard of conduct in her personal and professional life. As a model of virtue to her pupils, she was expected to avoid anything that might give the slightest hint of scandal.  This meant that she could not be alone with a man unless he was her father or brother. Further, she could not marry during her teaching career.  She could not smoke, drink, or even dye her hair.  She was expected to be home by eight at night.  And home could not be just any place.  Her teachers' pay would have been meager, making it difficult to afford her own home.  If she did not reside with her own family or in a teacherage - a dwelling next to or part of a one room schoolhouse, she would have rented a room from a respected local family.  As a result, she lived in several places during her career, seemingly according to where the jobs were. 

These rules were not unusual in nineteenth and early twentieth century America.  In fact,  to see a typical teacher's contract and rules in 1905 for teachers in Ames, Iowa, another midwestern town, click here.

However, with so many regulations, it is understandable that many women did not teach for more than about five years.

Agnes, though, taught for most of her life and never married.  She retired sometime before 1940.  By then she was 67 and shared a home in Cleveland, Ohio, with her sisters Maggie, Di; and a nephew, John Cherry.  They occupied their days with reading, baking, and visiting friends and relatives; and they spent their summers with the extended family at the cottage of my maternal grandparents, Ralph and Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon at Big Blue Lake, Michigan.

As with several of her sisters, Agnes suffered from obesity and its consequences.  She developed arthritis in her later years and suffered further as she watched her close-knit family succumb to heart disease and various forms of cancer.  She, Maggie, and Di seem to have moved back to the family home at 397 Mill Street in Conneaut in the late 1940s, perhaps because of their failing health.  Frances (Gaffney) Cherry, who had been widowed some time before, still lived there, as did her son, John Cherry.  John Gaffney (another of the Gaffney siblings) had died before 1920, but his daughter, Nancy, was in her 40s by then and also lived in Conneaut.

Maggie, who had suffered from kidney and heart disease, died in 1949. The following year, Agnes was diagnosed with bladder cancer.  It must have seemed like her world was caving in when her sister Delia developed uterine cancer shortly afterward. Still, the sisters were as strong in spirit as they had been close their life long. Despite the gravity of their condition, they helped one another as best they could, together with their older sister Frances "Frank," who was suffering from heart failure.  According to my mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, they never lost their sense of humor and love of life through it all.

In the spring of 1952, Agnes entered Conneaut's Brown Memorial Hospital.  When she died there on April 4, 1952, her nephew, John Cherry, noted that she was only two days away from her 80th birthday.  

Delia and Frances would follow her within the next 12 months.  



Also in this series about Agnes Gaffney:

• Part One:  Church Record Sunday:  Sacred Solos for High Voice
• Part Two:  Mystery Monday:  The Hotel LaRose

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Mystery Monday: Hotel LaRose

Agnes Catherine Gaffney (1872 - 1952)
Jane (McCormick) Olson (1927 - 2011)
Part Two of Three

Hotel LaRose, Santa Rosa, Califormia.
Pencil drawing by Ruth Robertson.  Date unknown.

In yesterday's post, we looked at a book that belonged to my great-grand aunt, Agnes Catherine Gaffney. Agnes, blessed with a beautiful soprano voice, would have sung from this beautiful hymnal, Fischer's Album of Sacred Solos for High Voice, at Catholic Masses, in her hometown of Conneaut, Ohio.  

This century-old book has made its way down four generations since Agnes used it in the mid-1890s. It came to me recently from my second cousin "S.", who inherited it from her late mother, Jane (McCormick) Olson.

Inside was a long sheet of thin onion paper between the second and third pages, ostensibly protecting a 9" x 12" sheet of white paper with the pencil sketch shown above.  The drawing is not dated, and there is nothing on the reverse. It has two small pieces of scotch tape on the back bottom corners, as if it had been taped to a picture mat and framed.

The drawing depicts a three-story stone building, called the Hotel LaRose, flanked by two large evergreen trees and a tall palm tree in front.  There is no other writing except for the words "Restaurant & Lounge" on the front of the awning on the lower right hand corner.  

At first glance, I guessed it to be an early sketch by my late great-aunt, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, a well-known local artist. I wondered whether it had some significance to her, or to Aunt Agnes.  But I also wanted to know:  what was it doing in her hymnal? 

Aunt Agnes' hymnal.

Then I put on my glasses - a must these days if I really want to see things as they are! - and looked at the sketch more closely. It turns out the sketch was not signed by Benita, but by Ruth Robertson, who as far as I know is not a relation. 

And there was another thing. Palm trees do not grow in Ohio. The weather is too cold for them. The Hotel LaRose had to be from somewhere else. But where?

I went online and searched for "Hotel LaRose."  The first result revealed a Hotel La Rose in Santa Rosa, California, at the heart of its historic Railroad Square.  When I looked at the hotel's website, I found a photograph that was nearly identical to Ruth Roberton's pencil drawing.

The website went on to note that this lovely hotel was built in 1907, a year after the Great San Francisco Earthquake.  It is listed as a historic hotel with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and was restored in 1985. 

An earlier photograph of the hotel, taken in the mid-20th century, shows that unlike the drawing, none of the windows had any awnings. This begs the question as to whether they were there in the early days or were added after the 1985 renovation.  The answer could help date the picture and even give us a clue about the artist herself.  Google searches did not reveal an artist named Ruth Robertson, much less anyone by that name who lived in Santa Rosa.

Jane Olson and her husband, Eldon "Ole," retired to Santa Rosa in the mid-1980s.  Did they obtain the sketch while living there, maybe from Ruth Robertson herself?  Given their Santa Rosa residence, this seems like the most plausible explanation.

My guess is that there was no connection between the drawing of the Hotel LaRose to Agnes' hymnal or even to Agnes herself, for that matter.  More likely, the large hymnal happened to be a safe place to store the drawing all these years.  

What meaning did it have for Jane?  She did not keep things frivolously unless they had some value or special significance.  Did she and Ole stay overnight at the Hotel LaRose?  Or was this a gift from a friend, a fellow retiree, or even Ruth Robertson?  

If you have any thoughts, let me know.  Otherwise, a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge to the north bay might be in order.  I think I know a good place to stay.


Also in this series about Agnes Gaffney:

• Church Record Sunday:  Sacred Solos for High Voice
• Workday Wednesday:  Agnes Gaffney:  Teacher and Model of Virtue

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Are you a member of the Gaffney, McCormick, McGinnis, or Olson families? Did you know Ruth Robertson, or do you have stories about the Hotel LaRose? Share your memories and comments below.

Church Record Sunday: Sacred Solos for High Voice

Agnes Catherine Gaffney (1872 - 1952)
Part One of Three

Agnes Catherine Gaffney

Not long ago, my second cousin gave me a lovely songbook that had belonged to her late mother, Benita Jane (McCormick) Olson and before her, our mutual great grand aunt, Agnes Gaffney.

Titled Fischer's Album of Sacred Solos for High Voice, it evidently was given to Agnes by her older sister, Lyle (Elizabeth) Gaffney, in 1895. Agnes would have been 23 at the time.  Perhaps that is her approximate age in the photo at right, part of a larger group portrait taken with her five sisters, Janie, Lyle, Maggie, Di, and Frances. 

The book was published by J. Fischer & Bro., an American music publishing company established by brothers Joseph and Ignaz Fischer in 1864.  Originally based in Toledo, Ohio, the brothers moved the company to New York City eleven years later.  The company appears to have published mainly sacred and secular music for choral groups, with organ or piano accompaniment.

Aunt Agnes' hymnal of solos for high voice.

Agnes' book is quite large, measuring about 10" x 14".  Its 116 pages, beautifully edged in red, contain sacred music from some of the great composers, including Gounod, St. Saens, and Verdi.  It remains in good condition, though the corners have become dogeared and the cover has begun to fray.

Inside the book is a dedication to Agnes from her sister, Elizabeth, whose nickname was Lyle:

Agnes Katharine Gaffney

From Elizabeth

Fond du Lac, Wisc.

October 23, '95

The first page, inside, is dedicated to Agnes by her sister Lyle.

This page shows the publication date of 1894, in
New York and Toledo, Ohio, by J. Fischer & Bro.

Born in Conneaut, Ohio, on April 6, 1872, Agnes Catherine Gaffney was the youngest surviving child in the family of of ten Gaffney children. She was said to be "as sweet as the day was long," and her niece, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, wrote that she had the "voice of an angel."  Her grand-niece (my mother), Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, also admired her beautiful singing voice, understandably so given that she could not carry a tune herself.

Vintage postcard of Saint Mary's Church and School,
Conneaut, Ohio

Singing in her church choir was one of the things Agnes would have been encouraged to do as an educator and influential member of her community.  I can picture her, primly dressed, opening her book during Sunday Mass at Saint Mary's Parish, which was right down the street from the Gaffney House. I can imagine her stepping forward for her solo, looking demurely down at her book and glancing up towards her family as she sang the Ave Maria in her soprano voice with all her heart.  Maybe her dulcet voice was partly the reason this hymn was a Gaffney/McGinnis family favorite.

Also in this series about Agnes Gaffney:  

• Part Two of Three:  Mystery Monday:  The Hotel LaRose
• Part Three of Three:  Workday Wednesday:  Agnes Gaffney, Teacher and Model of Virtue

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Are you a member of the Gaffney, Huesca, McCormick, McGinnis, Olson, 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!"

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Thankful Thursday: A Daughter Remembers

Thomas Eugene McGinnis

     (1855 - 1927)

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

     (1858 - 1940)

Benita Elizabeth (McGinnis) McCormick

     (1889 - 1984)

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, or "Aunt Detty," as she was known to our family, kept a scrapbook of her life and memories.  She began it in the early 1970s and added to it from time to time over the years.  On this page, one of the earliest from her album, she attached a photograph of her parents, Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis.  They were known to all simply as Tom and Janie.

Scrapbook page from Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's album,
written by her at age 82 in 1972, San Mateo, California

Aunt Detty writes here of her father, Tom:

My father was one of the aforesaid young men working for the N.P.R.R. [Nickel Plate Railroad] in the early days of that road. The story was that as he passed the open dining room window of the Gaffney House to register for a room, he looked up, saw mother and fell madly in love.  When he registered my Aunt Margaret who was at the desk, observed, "You are carrying the biggest lunch pail I have ever seen in my life."

"It is?" laughed my father, "I guess it's true.  But I've just seen the girl I want to fill it for me - she's at the window at the back of the hour ironing!"

By the healthy look of the bridegroom in this picture, it would appear that somebody kept his lunchpail pretty well packed. Wouldn't you say?  Of course, in a family boasting four daughters, somebody was usually busy filling lunchpails for hunger men in the sunny old kitchen those days.

The only illness I can recall in my father's life was his last.  He was an unusually athletic, healthy man, with the most happy and genial disposition I have ever known and just about the most popular.  I loved him very much and often feel him near me.  A good father is a great blessing.

On the same page, she also remembers her mother, Janie:

My mother was a clever fashion designer, never using a pattern - simply held a paper up to her subject and cut to suit the figure before her. 

She made the dress she is wearing in this photo.  It was from satin and beautifully draped, as you may see.  Her hat was made by her sister Elizabeth (Aunt Lyle to us children), who was as clever with hats as my mother was with gowns. 

The parasol my mother is carrying was brown silk with a golden brown bone handle.  I recall admiring it.  Sometimes she would let me hold it.  I remember hazily that many years later I glimpsed it wrapped in tissue in an old trunk in our attic.  But it was then beginning to split, as taffeta will in time.

My mother was aged 26 when this picture was taken.  Which makes her birthday in 1858 (December 2).  She died in 1940, at the age of 82 years old (my present age in 1972).  
Some women become morose in old age, but my mother was alert, interested in people and events to the very last - As I write I keep saying, "Thank you, God, for having given us such wonderful parents!"

Aunt Detty notes that her parents' portrait was of "the newlyweds in Cl. O (Cleveland, Ohio), where they spent their honeymoon."

However, after comparing the above photo with the engagement portraits they had made before, Tom looks a bit older and considerably stockier than he appeared in his original photograph, no matter how well Janie may have packed his lunch pail.

Janie McGinnis (the former Mary Jane Gaffney) also appears a bit older here.  Was this taken in 1884 or sometime later, perhaps during a later trip to Cleveland?  Although the cabinet card style photograph shows that they were in Cleveland wearing their wedding clothes, I would love to know why and when they were there.  Did they return to Cleveland after honeymooning there, maybe for an anniversary or other special occasion?

What do you think?

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Wedding Wednesday: Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

Thomas Eugene McGinnis

     (1855 - 1927)

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

     (1858 - 1940)


The photograph below comes from a page from the scrapbook of my great-aunt, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, in honor of her parents, Thomas McGinnis and Mary Jane Gaffney.   They were married on May 19, 1884, in Conneaut, Ohio.  According to Benita, this photograph was taken on their honeymoon in Cleveland, Ohio.

Thomas Eugene and Mary Jane (Gaffney)
McGinnis, Cleveland, Ohio.  Could this photograph
 have been taken sometime after their 1884 marriage?

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Those Places Thursday: Gaffney House, Conneaut, Ohio

John Patrick "Jeff" Gaffney

    (1826 - 1892)

Bridget "Bridey" (Quinn) Gaffney

     (1843 - 1914)

Thomas Eugene McGinnis

     (1855 - 1927)

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

     (1858 - 1940)

Benita Elizabeth (McGinnis) McCormick

     (1889 - 1984)

When my great-aunt, Benita "Detty" McCormick reached the "young" age of 92, she created a scrapbook of her life.  She devoted the first pages of her scrapbook to her parents and grandparents, Thomas Eugene and Mary McGinnis; and John Patrick and Bridget Gaffney.  

One of those pages contained a photograph (below) of the Gaffney House in Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio.  Located at 58 Mill Street, it was also known to some as the "Conneaut House." The house belonged to Mary Jane's own parents, John Francis "Jeff" and Bridget (Quinn) Gaffney.  

John and Bridget were Irish potato famine immigrants to America.  Both were from County Roscommon- he from Drumbrick and she from Boyle.  Did they know each other before crossing the Atlantic? It's hard to say, but the towns are about five miles apart, so it is possible.  It appears, though, that they married in America. 

John and Bridget lived for a time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Mary Jane, their eldest child, was born and baptized in 1858.  They arrived in Conneaut sometime between 1858 and the spring of 1860, when their second daughter, Margaret, was born.  

The United States 1860 Census indicates that John was a "peddler" who owned property in Conneaut valued at $300. The equivalent today would be over $8,000, an impressive amount of money for that era.  Aunt Detty believed he had been a traveling linen salesman, but it seems plausible that he would have sold other textiles as well, such as cotton.  The demand for cotton was far greater than for linen at this time, due to shortages of flax (needed to make linen) and the rising popularity of cotton as a less expensive and more versatile material.  The demand increased dramatically with the advent of the Civil War and the need for cotton to make soldier's uniforms and medical supplies.  These factors must have contributed a decent income to the Gaffney family and made it possible for John and Bridget to afford such a large home as the Gaffney House. 

The house apparently was big enough to house John and Bridget's growing family - they would have 10 children in all - plus additional rooms to rent to the young men who worked on the nearby Nickel Plate Railroad.  

Page from Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook

The entry in my Aunt Detty's scrapbook (shown above), describes the Gaffney House:

The Gaffney House, famous Conneaut, Ohio landmark patronized especially by Nickle (sic) Plate railroad men.  About 1880 the hotel was the home of more than 30 unmarried young men under the age of 27 years. + The cross on the addition indicates the window to the "Priest's Room" built by my grandfather John Francis Gaffney to accommodate the circuit priest who came when he could to minister to the growing Irish-American population.

John and Bridget had no idea that one of those young men would become more than just a "renter" to them in the years to come.

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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