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

**********

Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Are you a member of the Gaffney, Huesca, McCormick, McGinnis, or Schiavon  families? 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

**********

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.

Wisdom Wednesday: Wise and Loving Matriarch

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis:  (1858 - 1940)

Friends and sometimes complete strangers often dropped by Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis' home during the 1920s and 30s, hungry for a meal or even advice.  "Janie" gave both quietly and generously, never asking for anything in return.  She was a fervent follower of the Golden Rule:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, at Bluebird Cottage in Wisconsin, late
1930s.   I think this may have been in the town of Berlin, where she often
 visited her maternal cousins, Patrick and Mary McGoorty.  The blue silk
 dress with white polka-dots was her favorite.  She sewed it herself, as
 she had all her clothes. 

Janie was not only the center of her immediate family but also was the darling of her sisters and brothers, who visited her often.  Other than she, the only other siblings who had married were Frances ("Frank"), who married James Cherry; and John Patrick, who married Elizabeth Cain. The others - Lyle, Maggie, Agnes, Delia "Di," and Thomas "Tommy," bought a home together at 17813 Woodbury Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.   Lyle went to live with Janie in Chicago after Tom McGinnis died, where she remained  until her own death in 1934.

My mother, Joan Schiavon, went to live with her grandmother Mary Jane McGinnis and Aunt Lyle as a young child, when the challenges of the Great Depression made it difficult for her parents to feed and clothe their two children.  Sleeping with her grandmother every night and following her around like a puppy dog by day, my mother felt immensely loved and protected.  Years later, she would call this the best time of her childhood.

Janie McGinnis lived a long and happy life, living with her daughters Benita and Alice as the years passed and she began to feel the strains of old age.  When she turned  79, she was diagnosed with kidney disease and pernicious anemia, and she died quietly on July 13, 1940, at Benita's home, surrounded by her children and grandchildren.  She was 81 years old.

Though her death left a huge void in the McGinnis family, her children and grandchildren carried memories of Janie's gentle love, selflessness, and wisdom with them through their own lives.  I would venture to say that many of her qualities have trickled down through them to their own grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who may have been born too late to know her but who to this day continue to benefit from her legacy of love and good works. 

Copyright ©  2012  Linda Huesca Tully

Motivation Monday: How Could I Compete with a Genius?

Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca 

1928 - 1987

My godfather and Uncle, Ralph Thomas
"Tom" Schiavon, United States Army
Signal Corps, Camp Crowder, Missouri

Ralph Thomas Schiavon

1924 - 1993

In her own words  (Part Six)

We have been following my mother's account of her life, written a couple of months before she died of cancer on September 11, 1987.  In Part Six of Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca:  an Autobiography, she remembers her beloved older brother, Ralph Thomas Schiavon.  

My mother idolized Tom, who was four years older, and who in her view, could do no wrong.  She and Tom grew closer in adulthood, and my mother never stopped looking up to her "big" brother.  He, in turn, loved her back with all the tenderness an older brother has for his sister.  He and his bride, Angelina "Angie" Ciliberto, asked my mother to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in 1946 and later, to be the godmother to two of their four children.  She reciprocated the honor; Uncle Tom and Aunt Angie were my very special - and very treasured - godparents.  

Tom's name was one of the last my mother spoke shortly before she died, as she waited for his hurried arrival from his home in Chicago, Illinois, to her bedside in Modesto, California.

"Back to school again, but not to St. Dorothy's this time.  Instead I was sent to St. Joachim's along with my brother Tom.

"This will be your first indication that there was quite a difference between my brother and me.  But there was, and I might as well confess it now.  He was not only a boy (there's a lot of difference right there!), older than I, but even in his earliest years, everyone seemed to agree that he was somewhat of a genius, while I was sweet, quiet, and timid mischievous me!  Not really very bright, but appealing. (Well, I must have had some good qualities, don't you agree?)

Lazy Days at Big Blue Lake:  (left to right) Tom Schiavon, Elizabeth
"Lyle" Gaffney, and Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon.  Between 1929 - 1932.
Hmm...deep in thought.  Notice Aunt Lyle's curious expression.  Could
she be wondering what her nephew was up to with her in that canoe?

"Genius or not, Tom was a problem to the school and the Sisters who taught there.  My mother claimed that she spent most of her time traveling from the house to the Principal's office to see what Tom had gotten into almost daily.  One time, she arrived at Tom's classroom to find the Sister covered from head to toe with grease from an engine Tom had brought to school.  Another time, she was called to the Principal's office to find my brother and a representative of the Street Car Line. Seems Tom had decided to conduct a scientific experiment to see how awake and aware people were early in the morning, and had taken my Mother's clothesline and interlaced it between the handles on each seat, then sat and watched people on their way out of the street car, falling as they went, and deduced that they really weren't wide awake after all.  

"Still another time, when the Sister in charge of Tom's classroom returned there after recess, she found that he had turned the classroom around, and her desk and that of the students were placed in reverse order than they had been originally.  'Of course,' explained Tom, 'you'll all ruin your sight, as the sunlight is coming from the wrong direction, the way you had things placed before.'

"Now, back to  me, how could I ever hope to compete with that?"

                                                                            - Joan Huesca

Copyright ©  2012  Linda Huesca Tully

Sentimental Sunday: If You Try Hard Enough, You Can Do Anything

Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca

1928 - 1987

In her own words  (Part Five)

On June 24, 1987, a couple of months before she died of lung cancer, my mother, Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca began writing the story of her life. Earlier, she described her earliest memories of life with her parents until the Great Depression cost her father his job and she had to move in with her grandmother, Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis and Mary Jane's sister, Elizabeth "Lyle" Gaffney and life at the family cottage at Big Blue Lake, Michigan.

In this excerpt from her book, Joan Joyce Schiavon Huesca:  an Autobiography, she recalls her first days at school, her paternal grandmother, Emanuella Sannella, and lastly, her beloved father, Ralph Schiavon:

"Grandma [Mary Jane McGinnis] and Aunt Lyle [Elizabeth Gaffney] didn't want me to go to Kindergarten, as they wanted me to stay home with them, and that was just fine with me.  I was so happy there in that home of love, they petted and praised me all the time, and I loved every minute of it!

Emmanuella (Sannella) Schiavon,
Chicago, Illinois

"Finally, though, it was time to start first grade, and I couldn't escape from that reality.  My cousins Jane and Buddy* took me to St. Dorothy's School, dutifully placed me at the end of a long line of children, then got in their respective lines, and in all the confusion of so many children in the school yard, somehow, I would manage to break away and walk home.  There I would be found sitting on the front steps waiting for Grandma to come down and let me in.  I didn't want to leave my two darlings, and school became a terrible drudge to me.

"My Grandmother Emanuella Schiavone had come to live at my parent's home.  I remember that my parents took a trip to Cuba during these years, and when they returned, they decided that I should return home to live.  My Father had started his own business as a Tax Consultant, and was beginning to prosper once again, though we were far from being rich in those days.  I don't really remember much about my Grandma Schiavone at that time, except for one visit to my parents' home while she was there.  She was in the kitchen frying up what my Father called "ladyfingers," made of mashed potatoes rolled up, with parsley and garlic flavored.  I remember they tasted very good.  Grandma couldn't speak any English, so we really couldn't communicate very well, for I couldn't speak Italian, either.

"Let me take the time now, to tell you about my Father.  For all of my life, he has been a sort of hero to me, his early years were very humble.  He was born in a small village called San Sossio**, in Italy, just south of Rome, and north of Naples.  Through the years, Daddy would tell us a few stories about his background and his youth, and these I'll try to relate to you now.

"Daddy told us that there were records in the village church tracing his family back to the time of the early Romans.  But, he didn't seem to know where his Father, Emanuel Schiavone***, had originated from.  Grandpa turned up in San Sossio one day, and must have been a dashing figure in his day, dressed in a long black flowing cape with a gold earring in one ear!  He courted my Grandmother, who was Emanuella Sannella, and married her, and they lived their first years of marriage in San Sossio.  My Uncle Pat (Pasquale) was born, then my Father, and after his birth, since he was such a big baby, my Grandmother wasn't able to care for him, so he was sent to live with some maiden ladies, who sort of adopted him for the first few years of his life.  They were apparently very well to do, and my Father grew healthy and well fed.  He used to tell us, he especially loved goat's milk, and would go right up to the goat, for a fresh drink of it!  He even used to ride on the goat's back, until he got too big for that, and transferred to a donkey!  

Note the submarine
name, "USS South
 Carolina" inscribed
 in Ralph Schiavon's
sailor's hat.

"Daddy joined the United States Navy during World War I, and was active on a submarine.  He used to say how frightened he was, especially since he and his shipmates would be locked into a compartment when the ship was submerged.  Daddy...was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, near Chicago.  There, he met my Mother.  When they married, a few years later, Daddy got a job working in a shoe store, and he attended a night school, until finally, he received a degree to practice government tax laws.  The purpose of this long tale, is to relate to you, something which has always impressed me, with the drive and ambition of this great man who was to be my Father.  His example has been a part of my being since I can remember.  I guess I have believed, because of him, that if you try hard enough, and put your goals high enough, you can do anything.  

"Through the years, my Father prospered, and was quite well to do, but he never forgot his humble beginnings, and he had a devotion to his family, and his Mother and brothers and sisters, throughout their lifetimes...My Father adored his Mother, and his devotion to her was inspirational. Each year of his life, until her death, he would make two trips all the way from Chicago to Boston (one trip, always for Mother's Day), to spend with her."

                                                                                      - Joan Huesca

---

*     Jane and Buddy were Benita Jane and Phillip McCormick, Jr.  Their parents were Phillip and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, and Benita was the oldest child of Thomas and Mary Jane McGinnis.

**   For reasons of accuracy, I have changed my mother's phonetic spelling of my grandfather's birthplace from "San Saucio" to  the official spelling of the village, namely, "San Sossio (Baronia)."  The village is located in the province of Avellino, Italy.
***   My mother, who never met her grandfather, believed his name to be Emmanuel Schiavone.  In fact, his name was Vito Isidoro Schiavone, and he was known as Vito.

Remembering Mary Jane and Elizabeth Gaffney

Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca 

1928 - 1987

In her own words  (Part Two)        

On June 24, 1987, a couple of months before she died of lung cancer, my mother, Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca began writing the story of her life.  In this excerpt from her book, Joan Joyce Schiavon Huesca:  an Autobiography, she tells readers how she came to live with her grandmother, Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis and her great-aunt (and Mary Jane's younger sister), Elizabeth "Lyle" Gaffney, during the Great Depression:

"The years of the Depression were upon us, though I really wasn't aware of it, at the time.  My Father lost his job as a Supervisor with the Internal Revenue Service when the Roosevelt Regime came into Presidential office, and since my parents didn't have any other income, I was sent to live with my Grandmother, Mary Jane McGinnis and my Great Aunt 'Aunt Lyle,' Elizabeth Gaffney, and my 'Uncle Gene,' Francis Eugene McGinnis (my Mother's brother).  Grandma had a small pension from the city, so we were sure of enough to eat.

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis,
about 1935, Chicago, Illinois

"I really don't have much memory of my parents during those years, and only remember one time when they came all dressed up for some occasion or other to my Grandmother's house.  We lived on the second floor of a 'two flat' building owned by my 'Aunt Detty,' Benita Elizabeth McCormick (my Mother's Sister), and her husband, my 'Uncle Phil,' Phillip C. McCormick.  My cousins, Benita Jane (Janie) and Phillip (Buddy) were their children and lived just below us.

"Grandma and Aunt Lyle were the dearest, most loving people I have ever met in my lifetime.  My life was full of their Irish humor, blarney, and love, even complete with little Irish ditties:

'Saint Patrick was born at four in the morning,

His Mither and Fither were there at the time.'

"My earliest memories with Grandma and Aunt Lyle were of so much love.  They were wonderful to me.  What can I tell you about Aunt Lyle?  She was always smiling (I heard that she had quite a taste for liquor).  But, though I guess I have to be truthful and say she was fat, she had the softest lap in the world. I've been told that I was her favorite.  (Lucky me.)  Another early memory was the beautiful little coat she made for me.  It was a light salmon pink velvet, trimmed in ermine balls.  Aunt Lyle had been a Milliner, and was famous for the beautiful hats she made.  I understand she used to design a special baby bonnet for the babies in the Henry Ford family.  I never saw a million dollars, but I did have a lot of those bonnets, too, along with many hand-smocked little baby dresses that the Fords didn't have.

My mother, Joan Schiavon (far left), with her cousins, Benita Jane "Janie" and Phillip "Bud" McCormick,
about 1931, Chicago, Illinois

I guess that Grandma McGinnis was the example of what I always had hoped I would be like.  Grandpa [Thomas Eugene] McGinnis died a year before I was born, but always it seemed to me that Grandma had lived just for him, loving him completely.   (I, too, have been blessed with the dearest Husband ever, so it seems my prayers had been answered in that respect.)  Grandma had the bluest eyes.  How well I remember them, they were always full of love.  Two days a week were 'baking days,' and Grandma would produce all kinds of delicious pies, cakes, and bread.  

Elizabeth Gaffney (1862 - 1934)
The back of this photograph reads "Pin-Lock
Medal, Chicago" and is dated
May 31, 1898.

There was always extra dough, most of the extra would be made into 'little pies,' little triangles with either cinnamon and sugar inside, or 'leftover' apple slices from the bigger pies.  The 'little pies' were just for me.  I can remember sitting at the kitchen table for hours, my nose barely reaching the top, rolling a little ball of dough (sort of smudged looking, 'cause my hands weren't always as clean as they should have been), and when Grandma would turn her back, I'd pop the whole thing into my mouth.

Our house was always full of delicious aromas of baked goods, and some of this must have wafted out of doors, as there always seemed to be a stream of people at our back door, especially when Grandma had been baking. People were desperately hungry, and they seemed to know that there would always be something for them at Grandma's.  I didn't mind all the people who came around, as to this day, I love to have company.  I do remember one 'visitor' especially.  A gentleman, who seemed quite poor, but was different from all the others, as he came around to sell things such as aprons, pins, needles, pot holders, etc.  Grandma always asked him in, sat him down for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, and as many times as she could, would buy something.  In later years, this same man, whose name was Morris B. Sachs, became quite wealthy, owned a large department store in Chicago, and finally, became the Treasurer of the City of Chicago.

Elizabeth "Lyle" Gaffney's millinery shop, early 1900s,
either Conneaut or Cleveland, Ohio.  She also made
hats for Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher and
was the chief milliner for Marshall Fields 
Department Store in Chicago.

"Sleeping with Grandma would be the happy time of the day for me.  Grandma wouldn't let me get up as early as she, so I would lie there under her big quilted comforter, and play imaginary games on the stitching on the comforter, imagining that I was traveling roads to heaven knows where.

"Those were days of imagination, and our toys were mainly very small things, for no one could afford to buy much in the way of toys.  I would play for hours with local politicians' business cards, standing them up along the window sill, and pretending that I was their teacher, and they my pupils. . . . Memories such as these seem to live on with one through their lifetime."

                                                                                      - Joan Huesca