Friday's Faces from the Past: Pictures of a Golden Day

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick  (1892 - 1981)

One balmy Sunday afternoon in October of 1971 on the San Francisco Peninsula, some 2,149 miles and 18,262 sunrises from where they first pledged their love for each other as husband and wife, Phil and Benita McCormick strode confidently into church, arms linked and faces beaming, ready to begin their second half century together.

Re-enacting a photograph taken as newlyweds, Phillip and Benita

McCormick pose on the balcony of their San Mateo apartment

on their 50th wedding anniversary, October 7, 1971.

Some 30 relatives and friends gathered at Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Burlingame, California, to witness the McCormicks renew their wedding vows.  

The McCormick Family, left to right (first row): Phillip E. "Bud"

McCormick; Jane (McCormick) and Suzanne Olson, their

daughter; and Benita (McGinnis) and Phillip C. McCormick.

 Golden Jubilee Mass for Phil and Benita, October 7, 1971, 

Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, Burlingame, California.

Among those in attendance were Phil and Benita's daughter Jane with her husband Eldon "Ole" Olson and their daughter Suzanne; their son Phillip "Bud," who flew out from Chicago with childhood buddy and family friend Jack O'Brien; Phil's cousin Maurice McCormick, his wife, Dorothy (Sillers) McCormick and their sons, Maurice "Mickey" and Kieran; and my parents, sisters, and me.  Kieran and Mickey McCormick, both Catholic priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, concelebrated the Golden Jubilee Mass. 

 

Phil and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, flanked by cousins,
Fathers Kieran (left) and Maurice "Mickey" McCormick,
exit Saint Catherine of Siena Church.
Burlingame, California, October 7, 1971.

An early dinner reception followed at The Castaways, a Polynesian themed restaurant on Coyote Point at the edge of the San Francisco Bay. 

The evening was filled with story-telling, song, good-humored jokes, plenty of Irish blarney, and "more laughter than you could shake a stick at," to quote a saying of the day. 

The restaurant has since closed, but fond memories remain of a close-knit family and the beloved couple who enriched not only their lives but the lives of so many others through their charismatic and vibrant ways.  

Author's Note:  All the photographs on this page courtesy of my cousin, Suzanne (Olson) Wieland.  They are reprinted here with loving gratitude.  LHT

Jane (McCormick) Olson and her cousin,
Father Kieran McCormick, at the reception for
her parents.  October 7, 1971, The Castaways
Restaurant, Coyote Point, San Mateo, California.

Phil and Benita McCormick pose outside the Castaways
Restaurant on Coyote Point, San Mateo, California.

One of my sisters with my father, Gilbert Huesca. October 7, 1971,
The Castaways Restaurant on Coyote Point, San Mateo, California.

My mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca with my youngest sister and me
at the reception for Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil, October 7, 1971.

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Copyright ©  2016  Linda Huesca Tully

Sentimental Sunday: Happy 100th Birthday, Daddy

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)

Everyone knew this gentle man as Gilbert Cayetano Huesca.
But to my sisters and me, he will always be our "Daddy."

Of the many things he did in his 93 years, my father couldn't be prouder of anything more than his family. "She looked into my eyes," he said of my mother. "I looked back into hers. We were very much in love. How lucky I was. How lucky I am. And here (all of you) are the results.

Today, November 1st, is my father's birthday. He would have been 100 years old.

He showed his love for us: my mother, my sisters and me, our husbands, and our children - his grandchildren - in words and actions, every day. And that's why, no matter how many years go by, his love will live on in the hearts of our family.

I think we were the lucky ones. But blessed, too, so very blessed!

Happy Birthday, Daddy! I love you with all my heart. xoxo

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Travel Tuesday: The Exotic and the Mundane in Mexico City

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)
Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca (1928 - 1987)

From the Many Branches, One Tree treasure chest, this 1966 photograph celebrates the spring visit of my great-uncle-and-aunt, Phil and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, to Mexico City, where our family was living at the time.

Cover of the folio containing a souvenir photograph of my
parents' and great aunt and uncle's dinner at the Mauna Loa
Restaurant, Mexico City.

Souvenir photograph of dinner at the Mauna Loa Restaurant
in Mexico City. Left to right:  my parents, Gilbert and Joan
Huesca and my great aunt and great uncle, Benita and Phillip
McCormick.  Spring 1966.

My parents, Gilbert and Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, took them to dine at the legendary Mauna Loa Restaurant at 172 Hamburgo Street, in the Zona Rosa neighborhood of the Federal District.

The Polynesian-themed restaurant was considered by many to be quite exotic in its day.  It later burned down, but its former customers and fans still talk about it today, and you can view photos of it on the Critiki blog. Indeed, my parents and my aunt and uncle shared fond reminiscences of their beautiful evening for many years.

The rest of the McCormick's visit was much more mundane.  Some days after their dinner at the Mauna Loa, my parents and youngest sister travelled on personal business to Brownsville, Texas.  Brave souls that they were, Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil stayed and babysat my other two sisters and me for the week.

Uncle Phil used to walk to our elementary school to pick us up at the end of the school day.  Though in his 70s by now, he remained energetic and relished his daily walks through the city, nonplussed by the high altitude.  One afternoon on our way home, he took us into a candy shop to look at all the treats.  It was Holy Week, and the shop, like most others in the city, was sporting a colorful window display of its most festive creations and goodies in anticipation of Easter Sunday.

As only children could do with a loving uncle, we talked him into buying us half the candy store.

Well, maybe not that much, but it must have seemed that way to Aunt Detty when we got home, licking our sticky fingers and chasing each other around the house on a sugar high. There went her chances of getting us to eat our dinner that night!   

As she regarded us with exasperation, I wonder if she recalled the words of our late grandmother and her sister, Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon.  "Nana" once joked to my mother that having four little girls was like going on a wild adventure with four little monkeys.

Luckily for us, Aunt Detty couldn't stay angry for very long.  Hours later that evening. with Uncle Phil nearby in his chair with his pipe and newspaper, my sisters and I sat at her knee, breathlessly listening to her recount one of her Irish fairy tales in a dramatic brogue.

Monkeys never had it so good.

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Travel Tuesday: Rebirth in the Land of Mañana

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)

When a letter begins with the words, "Sit down," a big announcement is sure to follow.

That was how my great-uncle-and-aunt, Phillip and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, learned that their daughter, Jane, had married her true love, Eldon "Ole" Olson, in a private church ceremony in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in May of 1960.

Reading the news in their Barcelona pension, some 5,000 miles away from home, they were undoubtedly surprised, though maybe not entirely. True, it had been easier to see their son, Bud, marry and start a family, but letting go of their daughter was tougher to do.

They had to admit that she did what they would want her to do, which was to follow her heart and do things her own way.  Besides, she had tried her best to cushion the news.

Did Aunt Detty gold-leaf this small statue of
the Virgin Mary? From her collection of Spanish
Madonnas, it now sits on my dressing table. 

In characteristic fashion, Uncle Phil and Aunt Detty rose to the occasion. Swallowing their pride, they sent her and Ole their congratulations and decided to extend their stay a while longer. And being the larger-than-life couple they were, even in their 70s, their idea of "a while" turned into a year.

Spain, a place to retreat in a moment of uncertainty as they struggled to give their daughter some room to grow, became the place of their rebirth and rediscovery.

They made the rounds of the major art museums and architectural jewels, not just in Catalonia but throughout the country and became active members of the local artists' colony. Uncle Phil, already somewhat familiar with Spanish, began taking a conversational class so he could talk to people during his long walks through town.  Aunt Detty, always looking to reinvent herself artistically, signed on with a master artist to learn the art of gold leaf.

In a 1960 letter to my parents, Aunt Detty's words spill out breathlessly, and she seems to abbreviate many of them to help her fingers keep up with her rapid-fire thoughts.  Here, "g.l." stands for "gold leaf," while "E" stands for España, or Spain:

I've had 6 days of wonderful gold-leaf application.  Yesterday I g.l.  a little shelf.  Today I do the Virgin (plaster) that I helped repair & prepared for g.l. yesterday.  There is no one I know of in our country doing this gold and silver work and after we tour the rest of E, we may return here for Sept. & Oct. do do further study with this wonderful maestro - the head of the craft in Barcelona.  We work in his studio-workshop - the former stables of a castle (walled - even now, if you please) and so old that even Antonio's father, who had the place before him, doesn't know its age.

I wonder if the small statue of the Virgin Mary, shown in the picture above, is the same plaster Virgin that Aunt Detty was gold leafing?  My cousin, her granddaughter Suzanne (Olson) Wieland, gave it to me a couple of years ago, one of a collection of Madonnas Aunt Detty brought back from Spain.

Evidently, her hosts were equally fascinated by their older pupil:

Each day our lesson from 4:30 pm till 8 pm is punctuated by loud rings of the bell to admit some visitor, or client, to meet the "Americana."  [The maestro's] daughter, 14, brings her school friends and his sister-in-law came to check on me. . . . Evidently I pass muster, look harmless, and so get the welcome Española!  I love them all.

Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil were especially taken by the Spaniards' slower pace of life, their philosophy that there is always mañana - another day, and that if things don't resolve themselves right away, they will work themselves out eventually.  In the same letter to my parents, she marvels at this slower pace of life.

Joan, this is a week to the day from the start of this note.... you also know what mañana means - Mary Harlow told me that if a Spaniard says "Mañana - mañana" that really means the next day.  but life is so full here - I can understand how it takes months to get things done.  No wonder they think we do everything by "machinas" we move so much faster than they.

As with everything else they did, Phil and Benita McCormick wholeheartedly embraced the lifestyle of mañana.  Sure enough, they gradually accepted the idea of Jane's being married and lovingly welcomed their new son-in-law, Ole Olson.

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Wisdom Wednesday: Young for Such a Little While

Benita Jane (McCormick) Olson  (1927 - 2011)

Jane McCormick, Chicago, Illinois,
circa 1938

Of all their accomplishments, none brought greater joy to my great uncle and great aunt, Phillip and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, than their two adopted children, Phillip Eugene and Benita Jane, known as Bud and Jane.

My mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, told my sisters and me many stories about her cousins, as they lived only a few blocks from her in Chicago, Illinois. She was quite the tomboy and played mostly with her cousin Buddy.

Jane preferred to stay out of the mischief that my mother and Bud always seemed to make.  It would not be until many years later that Jane and my mother grew close as they discovered in each other common values and experiences as daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers.

At Jane's funeral in 2011, her daughter, Suzanne, shared this poem from her mother's leather scrapbook.  Jane had penned it at the tender age of 16. The Chicago Tribune had published it, no doubt making Jane's own creative mother, Benita, quite proud.

Wistful and wise, the poem is subtly humorous and self-effacing, so characteristic of Jane's personality.  It reminds me of one of her favorite childhood authors, A.A Milne, who wrote the Winnie-the-Pooh books.

When I was very young (almost a year ago)

And thought myself so awfully wise,

I'd sigh and smugly say,

"Aren't children brats?" and

"What makes them act that way?"

I saw them with unseeing eyes.

But now when little girls are lost in make-believe

And grimy boys make cops-and-robbers' sounds, I smile

Glad to hear that happy noise

And wish that I could lose myself, or climb a roof

And skin my knee, as do the boys - 

We're young for such a little while.

- Benita Jane McCormick

   Chicago, Illinois, 1944

(Gratefully published with permission from 

Jane's daughter, Suzanne Olson Wieland.)

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Not-So-Wordless Wednesday: It's All Relative

Phillip Eugene "Bud" McCormick (1927 - 2004)
Benita Jane "Janie" (McCormick) Olson 
                                                          (1927 - 2011)
Joan (Schiavon) Huesca (1928 - 1987)

My great-aunt "Detty," or Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, and her younger sister (my grandmother, Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon), lived several blocks apart on the South side of Chicago, both from each other and from their mother, Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis.  Their children - my mother, Joan Schiavon, her brother Tom (Thomas Schiavon), and Jane and Buddy McCormick, played together happily most days.  

Usually, my uncle Tom, ever the bookworm, kept to his inventions and scientific experiments, while my mother, Joan, was a tomboy and usually played outdoors with Buddy and his best friend, Jack O'Brien.   Jane, on the other hand, was more ladylike, preferring books and dolls to climbing trees and catching bugs.  They also acted in a children's play, Darby and Joan, at the Medinah Chidren's Theater in downtown Chicago.  

This photograph, taken in about 1931, during the height of the Great Depression, must have brought many a smile to Benita, Alice; their husbands Phil McCormick and Ralph Schiavon; and their extended families. Jane and Bud look to be about five or six years old here, while my mother would have been about four.  

Nothing is cuter than small children, except maybe small children with small animals. One can easily imagine people who desperately needed to make money to feed their own children, bringing their domestic animals up and down residential streets, perhaps borrowing cameras, and offering souvenir snapshots to those who answered the door.  

My mother, Joan Schiavon, and her cousins Jane and Bud McCormick, pose
on a billy goat and cart.  Chicago, Illinois, circa 1931.

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Family Recipe Friday: (Old-Fashioned) Salad Dressing

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)

This recipe was written in Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's hand on a back page of Congregational Church Recipes.  The book, first published in 1916 in Conneaut, Ohio, was a gift to her in 1921, presumably as a wedding gift, from her maternal aunt, Delia "Di" Gaffney.

The cookbook eventually 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.

"To My Dear Detty," reads this
inscription from Delia Gaffney,
on the inside first page of 
"Congregational  Church 
Recipes," dated 1921.

Salad Dressing 

To one scant cup of vinegar, add a lump of butter the size of a walnut, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp. salt.  Set on stove in a glass.

Put in a dessert spoon full of cornstarch and ½ spoon flour, 1 tsp dry mustard and mix well.  Add enough water to make a smooth paste.  Beat egg and enough milk to fill the glass.  Stir well and add to vinegar mixture.  Cook till thick.

Being a good no-nonsense midwesterner, Benita titled the recipe simply, "Salad Dressing."   Presumably, she used this recipe often, because the page on which it appears is mildly stained.  Her descriptions of the ingredients ("a lump of butter the size of a walnut") are amusing yet typical of the time.

I wonder if she got the recipe from her mother?

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

The Day JFK Was Shot

I was a third grader at Saint Philip Neri Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois, when the principal’s voice came over the public address system, announcing that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  She asked all the classes to stop what they were doing and join in prayer for our president.  It was just after 10:30 in the morning, exactly 50 years ago today.

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons, roberthuffstutter

For a split second, everyone in our class froze in confusion and disbelief.  Our teacher, Mrs. Tormey, was the first to cry, and the rest of us followed.  The door was open, and we could hear similar outbursts from the neighboring classrooms.  

It took a few seconds before we realized that the principal was still on the P.A., praying the Rosary. We joined in and prayed for John F. Kennedy with all our hearts.

My memory of the next half hour or so is more blurry than the beginning.  The teachers must have been as confused as anyone as to what to do next.  I think there was another announcement, because the teachers brought all the students into the corridor.  There they instructed us to sit on the floor against the walls, as we continued to pray.  This was not unusual to us, as we were accustomed to sitting in the long corridors during tornado warnings and air raid drills. 

The P.A. system stayed on as Sister led us through our prayers, the faint sound of a news broadcast playing in the background. When she broke the news to us that President Kennedy had died, the hall erupted into a chorus of sobs, and we were dismissed for the day.  My little sister and I walked the three blocks home to find our mother glued to the TV set in the living room, crying her eyes out.  She took our hands and led us to the couch, where we all sat down to watch as CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite bravely announced the breaking developments.

I and others my age learned a new and sad vocabulary over the next several days.  Bulletin.  Assassination.  Motorcade. Grassy Knoll. Secret Service. Texas Book Depository. Suspect. Tragedy. Tarmac. Air Force One. Swearing-in. Lying-in-state. Rotunda. State funeral.  Caisson. Taps. Eternal Flame.  We learned new names, too:  John Connolly.  Lee Harvey Oswald.  Jack Ruby.

1963 had been a year of sad losses for me.  It began when my adored Nana – my maternal grandmother Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon, died in the early hours of New Year’s Day.  Six months later, on June 3, Pope John XXIII died.  In my childlike way, I had loved him because he looked kind and grandfatherly and was as close to God as anyone could get. And then we lost our young and vibrant president on that sunny day in November.  My innocent eight-year-old mind could not comprehend any of it.

That evening, overwhelmed by all that had happened that day, I went into the kitchen to be with my mother while she cooked dinner.  I leaned against the refrigerator and stared into space.  The world had suddenly become dark and confusing, and my face felt hot as tears streamed down my cheeks.  “Mommy,” I said somberly, “three people I love died this year:  Nana, the Pope, and President Kennedy. I think my heart is broken.”

My sweet mother turned from the sink and took me in her arms.  There was nothing she could say at that moment.  We just hugged each other, knowing the world would never again be the same.

I think most people felt the same way. In fact, on that day, the immediacy of television for the first time ever brought history right into our living rooms and connected us through tragedy.  No matter who you were or where you were in the world when JFK was assassinated, you were right there - with him, with Jackie and Caroline and John-John, with Lyndon Johnson and all the rest. 

It was a violent day in our history, and Americans of all ages wondered if and how we could go on, but we did.  Perhaps we survived because we believed Kennedy when he said we were "not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sure future.  For the world is changing.  The old era is ending.  The old ways will not do."  

From the depths of darkness came flickers of light as people young and old sought to do good and carry out his vision to better the world. It took time, but we healed, albeit with scars, thanks to the legacy of hope and aspiration and service that JFK had instilled in us during his three short years as president.

As I remember where I was on November 22, 1963, I also remember where I was on July 20, 1969. I had just turned 14. Six years had passed since JFK's death, and our family and millions of others across the globe once again gathered around our television sets.  

This time, the occasion was marked by joy and anticipation. My parents halted their wallpapering project and called my sisters and me to watch as astronaut Neil Armstrong landed Apollo 11 on the moon, fulfilling John F. Kennedy's pledge that the United States would make a moon landing by the end of the decade.  As Armstrong stepped down from the lunar module onto the moon's rocky surface, we cheered triumphantly, for his achievement, for our nation, and for our late president.

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Where were you when JFK was shot?  Share your memories and comments below.

Mystery Monday: More than Meets the Eye

Thomas Charles Gaffney (1874 - 1937)

First of a four part series

Thomas Charles Gaffney,
circa 1910 - 1920

As we conclude our study of the family of the ten children of Bridget (Quinn) and John Francis Gaffney, there seem to be more questions than answers about their son, Thomas.

I had planned to write a brief post about Tommy, as he was known.  Born on July 27, 1874, in  Conneaut, Ohio, he was said to be the family bachelor and lovable comedian, always up to harmless pranks and spoiled by his older brother and five  sisters.

According to my grand-aunt Aunt Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, Tommy lived with his sisters in Conneaut and later in Cleveland.  For most of his 63 years, he worked for the New York, Saint Louis & Chicago (also known as the Nickel Plate) Railroad variously as a brakeman, switchman, and yard man.

Just the mention of Tommy at our family gatherings could elicit laughter. My mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, Aunt Benita, who I called "Aunt Detty," and her daughter, Jane (McCormick) Olson, used to tell funny stories about him, but those were so long ago that I have forgotten them. They are all gone now, and it is too late to ask them the many questions I have.  Aunt Detty probably knew him best.  My mother and Jane's recollections would have been from stories they heard from relatives and their own childhood recollections, because their grand-uncle Tommy died before either of them turned 10 years old.

Aunt Detty had a couple of photographs of him in her family scrapbook.  The photo above is taken from a of a strip of five photos, in which Tommy appears in jaunty and playful poses.  Judging from his face and the club collar shirt and the hats he was wearing, it looks like the photos were taken between 1910 and 1920, when he would have been in his late 30s or early 40s.

The caption, in Aunt Detty's hand, is written diagonally next to the photo strip.  It reads, "Mother's youngest brother, Tommy Gaffney.  Madcap lover!"

These small details were about all I had to go on as I prepared to write about him. I wondered what more there was to say about this man who seemed to bring a smile to people's faces.  He must have done more than just that in his six decades of living. About all I knew when I started was that he was a charming bachelor who had been loved by his parents, brothers, and sisters and that as a railroader, he seemed to have had fairly uneventful life.

Sure enough, as we find out in life, there is more to most people than meets the eye.  And so it was with Thomas Charles Gaffney, as we shall soon see.

In case you missed them:

Part Two:   What the Records Can and Can't Tell Us
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 Gaffney, McGinnis, Schiavon, or McCormick, 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.