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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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

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.  

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 Four:   Thankful Thursday:  The End of the Breadcrumb Trail

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

What the Records Can and Can't Tell Us

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

Second of a four part series

When we examine the lives of our ancestors, we depend on records to give us the facts about them and shed some light on why things turned out the way they did. Unless we are lucky enough to find some narrative or know some story about a person, we can be left with more questions than answers as we seek to know him or her better. This is one reason it is so important to record and preserve stories about the people we love.

Thomas Charles Gaffney in a photo strip.
Conneaut, Ohio, circa 1910 - 1920.

When I first saw this photo strip of my great-grand uncle Thomas Charles Gaffney, I was intrigued.  It was in a scrapbook that belonged to my grand aunt, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick.  Her jovial comment, "Madcap Lover!" next to her uncle's pictures and the silly expressions on his face in the various poses suggested that this was a man with a story. Determined to learn at least some new detail about my great-grand uncle Thomas Gaffney, I have been combing Ancestry.com and quite a few other tried and true genealogy sources, including local newspapers, for some small mention about our mystery man. 

You would think it fairly easy to find something beyond the small bread crumb census records that showed him living between Conneaut and Cleveland, Ohio.  After a few red herrings and false starts, persistence paid off.  (If you are able to view Ancestry.com, you will be able to see some of the records mentioned here.) t turns out that there had been a big detail left out of the meager accounts about Tommy I had heard from my relatives.  

He had a daughter.

Sometime around 1900, Tommy, as everyone knew him, met Cora Alice Terrill of nearby Monroe   Township. In that year, 21-year-old Cora lived in a rented house where she looked after her two younger sisters, ages 17 and 15.  Though one might surmise that the sisters were orphans, that was not the case at all.  

In fact, their parents, Nancy (Goss) and Nathaniel Ellery Terrill, had divorced over a decade earlier.  Each of them had remarried and started new families, in 1891 and 1896, respectively.  Nathaniel, his new wife Mary and their two children lived on a farm in Monroe.  Nancy, her second husband Joseph Frick, and their two sons lived on a farm in Ashtabula.

One wonders whether Nancy (Goss) Terrill, now Nancy Frick, had much of a relationship with her daughters if she did not have them living at home in that era. In 1900, the United States Census asked women how many children they had given birth to and how many were surviving.  Nancy apparently told the census taker that she had a total of two children, both of whom were still living. Given that she and her husband, farmer Joseph E. Frick, were listed in the census with their sons Wilson and Walter, Nancy's answer begs more awkward questions:  Why did she exclude her three daughters from the count, and how did that attitude affect them and Cora in particular?

And who was awarded custody of Cora and her sisters after the divorce? The records may give us clues to the who, the what, the when and the where, but they stop short there, ruthlessly leaving us to wonder about the hows and the whys behind the clues.  And because we care about these people and want to understand who they were, we keep seeking answers. 

We have no idea what kind of people Nancy and Nathaniel were or why their marriage failed.  I am unable to find the divorce papers but know that Cora was not more than 11 years old when the marriage ended; her youngest sister would have been no older than 5.  

Neither do we know how the parents viewed bringing their children with them into a new marriage.  Did they shuffle the children back and forth during that time until they reached the turbulent teen years? What were the circumstances behind the girls living on their own? Were Nancy and Nathaniel afraid their adolescent daughters would be too much for their stepparents to handle? Maybe evidence will turn up someday that will paint a rosier picture of this family.

Divorce takes a toll on all members of a family, even today.  In an era when divorce bore an added stigma for the separating spouses and their children, the Terrill sisters' independent living situation - with or without family support - must have been challenging and emotionally difficult, to say the least. Considering Cora's young and impressionable age and the heavy responsibility she shouldered, it is easy to imagine that she could have felt overwhelmed and uncertain of her future.  She probably was so busy being a breadwinner and mother to her sisters that she had precious little time for herself.

So when she met Tommy Gaffney, maybe she was flattered by his interest and attentions and charmed by his good looks and sense of humor. Maybe she saw in him a way out of her situation, or as a brief distraction from her burdens.  Maybe she was starved for love and was happy to find someone who cared about her.

And Tommy?  Photos of him and his relatives' good-natured comments make him out to be a funny romantic but utterly charming man with a good heart.  When he met Cora, did he see a damsel in distress he could rescue? More simply, did the two of them genuinely fall in love?  These are questions that records can't always answer.

There is one record, however, that tells us that Cora Terrill gave birth to a daughter, Agnes Evelyn Gaffney, on May 19, 1902, in Pierpont. The entry in the Ohio Births and Christenings Index of 1800 - 1962 listed Thomas A. Gaffney of Conneaut, Ohio, as the father.  

It also marked Agnes' birth with the letter "I," labeling her as an illegitimate child, the  sobering term in those days for a child born out of wedlock.

For the benefit of our younger audience who may be shaking their heads at this label right now, let us interrupt this narrative for the following 21st century editorial opinion:   No matter how or when they are born, babies do not break the law; and there is no such thing as an illegitimate child.  Every child is legitimate.  Period.  

Unfortunately, society a century (and even half a century) ago did not see it that way, and this label caused many innocent children to suffer social stigmas as a consequence of their parents' choices or even circumstances beyond their control. Moreover, their mothers  could be thought of as less than respectable women. So Agnes E. Gaffney made her entrance into the world with two strikes already against her, especially in a small community where tongues wagged, stories were embellished, and reputations were all-important.

Life was hard for a single mother and her baby. City directory listings and census records of the time indicate that Cora raised Agnes by herself and that they lived in at least three different towns over several years.  It would be nice to know that Tommy accepted the child as his own and offered financial and paternal support during this time, but we cannot say for sure.  

As for family, it looks like Cora stayed in touch with both her parents during this time. A newspaper clipping of the time mentions  that "little Agnes Gaffney" visited some of the Fricks in Pierpont in 1904.  Other records and a later photograph we will see shortly allude to a congenial relationship with the Gaffneys, on Tommy's side.  This would make sense, as Agnes' given name  suggests she was named after her spinster aunt Agnes Gaffney, Tommy's sister and a well respected lady in her own right.

Cora lost her mother and her sister Nora within two months during early 1906. After their deaths, she moved with Agnes to her hometown in Cumberland County, Tennessee, where her mother's relatives lived. We find mother and daughter in the 1910 U.S. Census, living with relatives Albert and Lora Norrod. The still-single Cora was working as a cook by then.

By contrast, the Conneaut City Directory of the same year reveals Tommy still lived at home in Conneaut with his mother, Bridget (Quinn) Gaffney and sisters Elizabeth, Delia, and Margaret. It would seem from all intents and purposes that he and Cora had broken up.

Cora and Agnes eventually returned to Ohio, and the next two censuses (1920 and 1930) reveal that Cora and Tommy  married in 1919.  The 1920 U.S. Census is the only evidence that the the family of three finally was living together, in a rented home at 327 Sandusky Street in Conneaut.  By now, Agnes was 17 years old.  Things seemed to be looking up for the family.

Sadly, the marriage was not to last.

In case you missed it:

Part One:     Mystery Monday:  More than Meets the Eye
Part Three:  Wishful Wednesday:  Happy and Not So Happy Endings
Part Four:    Thankful Thursday:  The End of the Breadcrumb Trail

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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