Friday's Faces from the Past: The McGinnis Family Portrait

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis (1858 - 1940)
Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Francis Eugene McGinnis (1891 - 1961)
John Charles McGinnis (1894 - 1944)
Alice Gaffney (McGinnis) Schiavon (1895 - 1963)

Some time during the late 1930s, the now-adult McGinnis children: Benita, Alice (my maternal grandmother), Gene, and John, gathered at the family home at 8336 Drexel Avenue in Chicago, Illinois,  with their mother, Mary Jane, for a family portrait.

The McGinnis family in the living room of the family
home at 8336 Drexel Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.  
 Clockwise, left to right: Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon,

Eugene, John, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, 

and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis.  Circa 1936 - 1939.

As far as I can tell, this was their last portrait together.  Diminutive matriarch Mary Jane died on July 13, 1940.  By early 1963, Benita, the eldest, was left, her two brothers and sister having preceded her in death and leaving her to succeed their mother as the head of the now-extended family.  

As with another photograph of the family at Sunday dinner in the same home, this picture resonates with me because of its uncanny similarity to the living room in the first home my husband and I owned, in San Jose, California.  Just by looking at this photo, I know the half-height bookcase was one of two that sat under small windows and framed a simple yet elegant Craftsman-style fireplace.  

We did not have a similar decorative screen in our own front window, however. I suspect the  photographer might have placed the one in the picture there for aesthetic purposes, to block out the street view and not distract from the subjects. I wish I'd done something like that when we took pictures in the same spot in our own family home so many years later!
  
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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Thankful Thursday: A Passion for Creating

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

When my  great-aunt Detty, or Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, was born 125 years ago this week (September 30, 1889) in Conneaut, Ohio, I doubt her parents had any idea their daughter would be so passionate about the arts and making her mark on the world.

But that is exactly the way she was all her life. Considering that she lived in an era when society expected a woman to defer to husband and family and home, often putting off her own life dreams, she was unafraid to be her own person and  had her own ideas about how she should develop her talents and accomplishments.

The late 1930s and 1940s saw her broaden her interests as she proved she was not only an accomplished painter and short story writer but also a published playwright and songwriter.

In an earlier blog post, we read a 1937 letter to Benita from The Jewel Tea Company, thanking her for the use of a short story for their commercial Christmas cards.  During that same year, she wrote the lyrics and melody for a musical, "Gingham Apron Strings."  The musical is on file in the Library of Congress and features five rather jaunty songs.  I have not yet been able to obtain copies of the script or the lyrics to the songs (whose titles appear below), but it is easy imagine that their theme and lyrics were as spunky and spirited as their author:

Quick as a Wink

Ha, Ha, I'm Laughing at You

Rumble, Rumble, Rumble

You May Part Your Hair in the Middle

Let's Go to Town on a Waltz

This article, from an unidentified
newspaper (possibly the Chicago
Tribune?) was written sometime
during World War II.  The
original clipping still resides in
Benita McCormick's scrapbook.

Benita adored her mother for her tender qualities and homemaking talents, but she was not the "domestic goddess" her mother was. Nor, for that matter, did she want to be.  In this regard, she was rather like her younger sister (my maternal grandmother) Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon, eschewing the idea of  being homemakers in favor of being artists and businesswomen.  They likely inherited their streak of independence from their father, Thomas Eugene McGinnis, and their five maternal aunts, four of whom were working women and never married.  

Choosing to not stay at home was an unpopular choice for  women in the years leading up to World War II. Indeed, many people at the time believed that women should have no choice in the matter at all.  Despite the passage in 1920 of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, it was still considered "unnatural" for women to pursue work or interests outside the home.

Thankfully for us, Benita McCormick was not one to be deterred by what others thought or said, and she followed her heart's passion, creating thoughtful and sometimes provocative works throughout her life.

This 1940s clipping from an unidentified newspaper in Aunt Detty's scrapbook of memories, tells of her unique contribution to the morale of soldiers in the Second World War:

During World War I, when every one was knitting for the Red Cross, Mrs. Benita McCormick, 8032 Vernon avenue (sic), wasn't.  She couldn't.  She made several vain attempts and gave up the idea.  For her part tho (sic), she painted and gave to the Red Cross a poster which they used quite extensively. 

Now, in World War II, Mrs. McCormick still can't knit.  Her contribution this time is a song, "You're an American, 'n' that Means Free."  It's being readied for publication now.  She got the idea for the song when she saw movies at the battle of the Midway.  She was much impressed with two young anti-aircraft fighters who were shown briefly, and remarked later, "We'll surely win with boys with Plymouth Rock chins like that."  That provided the inspiration for her song, and it has a line, too, about the "Plymouth Rock chin." 

Mrs. McCormick is a former member of the motion picture censor board, and is now secretary of the Delphian society.

Benita was one of those fortunate people in the world who was not only talented but figured out how to make her passions work for others and for her.  In a future post, we will learn more about this side of her from yet another newspaper account about the accomplishments of this fascinating lady who was at her happiest when engaging in the world in her own unique way.

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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

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

Thankful Thursday: "The One"

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

93 years ago this week, my great-Aunt Detty - Benita McGinnis - mailed a rather flirtatious, if not somewhat mysterious, penny postcard to a certain Mr. P.C. McCormick:

(Postmarked May 14, 1921)

Mr. P.C. McCormick 

#112 W. Adams St.

Chicago, Ill.

 
Dear Egg,
Just here for the night - walking up and down this yere ole alley, thinking of you.  When I'm in Chicago for a right while I'll look you up.  If you're ever in our town give me a "ring." $1.00 down bal. on delivery.                                                                                     - B. 

* * * * * * * * * *

The meaning of this postcard remains a secret between the sender and the recipient. Based on the postmark, though, Benita clearly was in Chicago, her hometown, when she wrote this.    

"Egg" was Phillip Columbus McCormick. He had, in fact already given Benita a "ring," all right.  A wedding ring.

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you already know my great-aunt Detty, or Benita McGinnis, fairly well. You've learned she was an outgoing, larger-than-life Ohio native who moved with her family to Chicago, Illinois, at the turn of the 19th/20th century, studied art there and in Paris, had her first serious relationship in Ireland that later left her with a broken heart, and was chief of the motion picture Censor Board in Chicago.

Army Sgt. Phillip Columbus McCormick
Circa 1918.  From Benita (McGinnis)
McCormick's scrapbook.

While Phillip Columbus McCormick was certainly Benita's opposite in temperament and ambition, he proved able to hold his own and then some.  Born on October 24, 1892, in Camden Township, Minnesota, he was one of eight children born to Patrick McCormick and the former Margaret Craven.   When he was about four years old, the family moved about miles away to the town of Hopkins, where Patrick McCormick was appointed postmaster.  

On June 5, 1917, two months after the United States entered World War I in Europe, Phil registered for the newly created Selective Service. At age 24, he was one of many young American men ages 21 - 31 years who did so on that very same day. He was working as a freight service agent in Saint Paul, Minnesota, for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, also known as the B & O. 

He was called up a year later and served in the United States Army for about nine months.  He never went overseas, serving most of his term in Washington State, where he worked his way up the ranks to the title of sergeant.

Upon his discharge at Christmastime in 1918, Phil returned to work for the B & O, this time as an assistant general freight manager in Chicago.  While living there, Phillip and Benita were introduced by a mutual friend named George Butcher.

"George came to see me one day," Aunt Detty told me in May 1981, just two months after Uncle Phil's death.  "He told me he'd learned there was a saint named Philip Benitius.  George thought it was a sign that his two friends - Phil and Benita - should meet."

She was skeptical at the time, not just about George's story but also about his friend.   But it turned out there really was such a saint.  "George was very anxious about this," she recalled.  "He said Phil was 'just my type,' so of course I was wary.  I remember when I finally met this fellow, he had brown eyes. I thought, 'I couldn't trust brown eyes!'"  

She decided her sister (my grandmother) Alice would like him, and arranged for them to meet.  

It turned out the entire boisterous McGinnis clan liked him, especially Tom and Janie McGinnis, Benita and Alice's parents.  Whenever he visited the McGinnis home, he was well-mannered, responsible, and respectful of both their daughters. Though from a large family himself, he was quiet and modest, the perfect complement to a family of unique and sometimes competitive individuals who were used to lively conversations around the dinner table. Tom was pleased that Phil was a fellow railroad man and a hard worker. As he had worked on the Nickel Plate Railroad in Conneaut, Ohio, some years before, he and Phil probably got along famously, comparing notes about railroad service and the changing industry. 

Benita's younger brothers Eugene and John enjoyed Phil's easygoing personality and dry sense of humor.  John especially enjoyed talking to Phil about history and his own experiences in the Great War as a cavalryman.  He became a regular visitor to the McGinnis household.

While Phil was kind to Alice, she was not particularly interested in him. On the other hand, he was especially drawn to Benita. Benita, for her part, began to pay more attention to the "man with the brown eyes," and their friendship blossomed into romance. The entire family rejoiced the day she ran into the house one evening and announced breathlessly that Phillip Columbus McCormick was "the one."

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Awkward Family Photo

The Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis Family


What was going on in this picture? 

The best photos are sometimes the awkward ones, the ones that went slightly wrong and no one did what they were "supposed" to do.

The time would have been about 1920 or so.  Imagine the McGinnises, sitting comfortably at the table after dinner one Sunday evening and engrossed in conversation, when someone apparently had an idea to capture the moment. 

Clearly, not all were amused. 

Here are some possible captions for this photo:

"That's right, we won the right to vote!"

"But we've never been to a speakeasy!"

"Next year, let's all wear matching t-shirts."

Left to right, back row:  Edith (Hoag) McGinnis, Thomas and Mary Jane Gaffney)McGinnis, Eileen Kelly; front row:  Benita, John and Alice McGinnis.  Photo
may have been taken by Eugene McGinnis, one of the McGinnis siblings.
McGinnis family home, 8336 Drexel Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, between 1919 - 1921.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Come on, readers.  What do you think the caption should be?

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Sentimental Sunday: Sunday Dinner

Making Memories Around the Table

Left to right:  John Charles McGinnis Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, Alice
McGinnis, Thomas Eugene McGinnis, (John's wife) Edith (Hoag) McGinnis,
cousin  Eileen Kelly, and Benita McGinnis.  Photo taken at the McGinnis home,
8336 Drexel Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1914 and 1920.

Like many a family in the early twentieth century, my maternal McGinnis ancestors reserved Sundays for family gatherings and dinners.  It was a ritual, understood by all that no matter what everyone did during the rest of the week, they came together at the family home on Sunday afternoons.  

It was the weekly after dinner custom of Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis and their children Benita, Eugene, John, and Alice, to linger for hours into the evening to tell stories, read aloud correspondence from far-away relatives, share personal news of the week, and debate politics. 

Extended family and other guests were always welcome. More often than not, my great-grandfather, Thomas, held the room spellbound as he recounted dramatic stories of his adventures around the world while he was a merchant sailor on the high seas. 

Someone must have told a joke right before this picture was taken, because everyone is smiling or laughing, seemingly unaware of the camera.  The exception is Eileen Kelly, a cousin, who is looking at the photographer.  We can surmise that the person taking the picture was a member of the group, as a chair has obviously been pulled away from a place setting at the end of the table.  My guess is that it was my great-uncle Gene, who is missing from this picture.  

I will never forget the first time I really looked at this image.  It was in the mid-1990s, and my husband, our three small children, and I were living in a tiny 1925 Spanish bungalow, our very first home.  It was well after midnight, and despite having tucked our three children into bed, washed the dishes, and started a load of laundry, I was still wide awake. I pulled out my scrapbooking supplies and some old family photos and sat down at the dining room table.  

When I came to this picture, I stared at it in disbelief.  Except for the McGinnises, it could have been taken in our very own dining room.  It had the same built-in buffet and the same large window to the left of the table. Looking at the door next to the buffet, I knew it led to the McGinnises' kitchen, just like ours.  And I was certain that there was a large opening into the living room, right about where the photographer would have stood.  

I thought back to when we bought our house, when something about it that I could not pinpoint seemed oddly familiar, and I knew I wanted to live there right away. It was quaint but looked nothing like any of the homes I had lived in, except that it had a breakfast nook that reminded me of the one in my childhood home in Chicago.  Despite living far away in California, I felt an inexplicable closeness to my ancestors in that house.

Left to right:  Erin, Kevin, Charles, Welner "Bing," Patricia (Fay), Michael,
and Linda (Huesca) Tully.  Photo taken by Gilbert Huesca, at the Tully home,
San Jose, California, in November 1996.

That evening, as I studied the photo of the McGinnises and another of them from roughly the same time, I understood.  Though my great-grandparents' home had been a Craftsman bungalow, its interior design and floor plan was roughly the same as our little house, even down to the built-in furnishings in the dining room, living room, and kitchen.  The funny thing was that as far as I know, I have never been there.

I framed that old photograph and kept it on our buffet in our look-alike dining room while we lived there, next to a similar, more recent photo of us at our own Sunday dinner, some 70 years later.  

We no longer live in that house, but to this day when I see the pictures, I can still hear the laughter of our families as they meld together through time and tradition, the stories still as earnest, the news just as urgent, the political debates just as fervent, and the laughter around the table still hearty and memorable.  

Surely some day, our children will think of these as the good old days.

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Friday's Faces from the Past: More Irish Mystery Cousins

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick
          (1889 - 1984)

"Baby Maureen" is the only person we can (partially) identify
 in these pictures.  Here she is, with (possibly) her parents and another man.
Might her mother be cousin Bessie Quinn?

More Mystery Cousins!  As with the other photographs we've seen recently on this blog, these come from my great-aunt Detty's (Benita McGinnis McCormick) scrapbook pages of her 1913 visit to Ireland.  She had a grand time on the "auld sod," visiting with her Irish cousins, and these photographs show they were quite a playful lot.

As with the other photographs we've seen recently on this blog, these come from my great-aunt Detty's (Benita McGinnis McCormick) scrapbook pages of her 1913 visit to Ireland.  She had a grand time on the "auld sod," visiting with her Irish cousins, and these photographs show they were quite a playful lot.

Unidentified cousins with Baby Maureen.  The man holding
her may be her father.  The man in the cap appears to be
younger - maybe her older brother?

Unfortunately, as we have seen already, Aunt Detty unwittingly left it to us to figure out just who these lovely people were by not leaving us any identifying information about them.

Our family's Irish ancestor surnames were McGinnis, Healey, Kelly, Gaffney, and Quinn. Because Benita's father, Thomas Eugene McGinnis, lost his parents when he was a small child, he might not have known much about his relatives in Ireland (where his father is said to be born) or in Scotland (his mother's birthplace, according to some census records). For this reason, I would be less inclined to think any of these people were McGinnises, though I would not rule it out entirely.

Aunt Detty captioned this, "Baby Maureen and Nurse."
Was the nurse a nanny, or one of the nurses from
Mountjoy Prison hospital?

I know nothing about the Healeys and the Kellys, except that they are ancestors of the Gaffneys and the Quinns, respectively. As noted previously, we have a picture of Benita's cousin, Eileen Kelly, with the McGinnis family in their Chicago home in 1919.  

I am fairly certain Eileen traveled with Benita to Europe, as her name appears on the ship's manifest back to America. Hence, we have another hint that the Gaffney-McGinnis family kept ties with their Kelly relatives in the U.S. and maybe back in Ireland.  That could make the Kelly branch another possibility for these pictures, though Eileen will have to await her turn patiently while I try to confirm her family connection at a later date.  So many relatives, so little time!

While Benita's father's family seems a remote possibility for the "surname photo match game" we are playing with these unidentified photos, her mother's (Mary Jane Gaffney) family might be more likely candidates. Take her maternal grandfather's side, the Gaffneys, for example. Most, if not all, of Benita's Irish grand uncles and grand aunts had settled in the midwest and kept close contact with one another.  It would make sense that they also kept their ties to their extended family back in Ireland.

Benita's maternal grandmother's family, the Quinns, pose a stronger possibility.  Take a look at the picture postcard below  This postcard did not belong to Aunt Detty but to her younger sister, Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon, my maternal grandmother.

Picture Postcard of "Grandpa" Quinn and Lilly the old driving horse.
The location, somewhere in Ireland, is unknown.

The dedication on the back of this postcard reads, 

This is Grandpa Quinn

and his old driving

horse Lilly.

Alice don't

you remember

Lilly?

I will put

an X on the

horse's blanket.

We are all well.

Hope your the same.

Your loving cousin

Bessie Quinn - 

Write soon

Like Aunt Detty, note that Bessie Quinn does not mention "Grandpa's" first name!  The dedication leaves no room for an address or postage stamp.  The vintage of the picture is similar to Aunt Detty's photos of her trip to Ireland in 1913.  This suggests that the card was either mailed to my grandmother in an envelope or hand-delivered by her sister when she returned from Europe. In either case, the postcard provides evidence that the American Gaffney-McGinnis clan and the Irish Quinns stayed in touch.

Cousins?  

Now take a look at Lilly the horse. She resembles the horse in the other pictures here.  The carts in the pictures all look alike, too.  

Yes, it's a long shot, but could we infer from these pictures that these people are cousins from the Quinn branch of the family?  

And we haven't even talked about location.

We know the cousin who worked at Mountjoy Prison probably lived in or near Dublin.  We also know that Bridget Quinn, Benita's maternal grandmother, was said to be from Boyle in County Roscommon.  But the two places are about 100 miles apart, leaving the location anybody's guess.

Cherubic Baby Maureen and nurse.

With these theories in mind, let's have a further look at these charming photographs, particularly of those with Baby Maureen.

The women in these pictures seem to be several years apart.  Based on the style of her hair and colorful clothing, I would guess that the woman in the very first picture at top, sitting with the baby in a bale of hay, might be Maureen's mother.  The pose is quite charming with  the umbrella suggesting she was protecting her baby and herself from the rays of the summer sun overhead.

It would seem that the man behind her might be Maureen's father, especially as he appears in the picture right after that, this time holding the baby in the horse cart.

Maureen's "nurse" wears her hair down, suggesting she is a young unmarried woman.  I wonder if she is a nanny or one of the nurses from the hospital at Mountjoy Prison?  Or was there no relation at all between these cousins and the cousin who worked as "chief" of the prison?

Don't you just love a good mystery?

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, or are you a member of the McGinnis, Gaffney, Quinn, Kelly, Healey, McCormick, or Schiavon families? Share your memories and comments below. 

Mystery Monday: Is this Lizzie Gaffney?

Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Gaffney
          (1884 - 1960)


Benita (McGinnis) McCormick
          (1889 - 1984)

"My cousin poses," Benita wrote under this photograph, taken in 
western Ireland in 1913.  Could this be Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" 
Gaffney? Compared with the photo below, there seems to be a 
strong  resemblance, but it is hard to say for sure.

There are a couple of  unidentified "mystery" photographs in my great-aunt Detty's (Benita) scrapbook from her 1913 trip to Europe.  The above picture of the young woman on the horse and cart is one of them.

Could she be Mary Elizabeth Gaffney, Aunt Detty's cousin once-removed? If so, this would  mean they were fellow travelers in Europe.

I never met Mary Elizabeth.  Still, I have a rather odd tie to and a soft spot for Cousin Lizzie, as the Gaffneys and McGinnises knew her, through one of those stories parents tell their children to get a point across.  In my case, my mother used to caution my sister and me not to pick up or carry our younger sisters around, lest we drop and injure them.  According to her, another child (a young neighbor or cousin) had  been playing with baby Lizzie Gaffney in their arms when they dropped her, injuring her hip. As a result, Lizzie never walked without a cane.  

Interestingly enough, a story from another side of the family attributes Lizzie's hip injury to a fall from a high chair. But I never knew of that theory, and my mother's admonition remained with me through the births of my three children.  I remember thinking about Lizzie's unfortunate accident and took great care to keep other children from picking them up for fear the same fate could happen to them.   

Lizzie was the second of four children born to James and Alice (Carlow) Gaffney of Erie, Pennsylvania.  In addition to her disability, she had a childhood that few would envy.  An older brother, James Jr., was stillborn. Her mother Alice, long ill with tuberculosis, died in April 1891, a mere three months after giving birth to her youngest child, May.  Baby May would die that summer.  

With Alice's death, James, an independent grocer and beer bottler with no relatives living nearby, was left alone to raise his two surviving children, Lizzie, then 7, and Alice, 3.  Wanting his daughters to have a mother, he remarried within the year, this time to a woman named Susanne Hurley.   

Sadly, tragedy struck again a mere four years later.  This time, James, who had been trying to cool off in his rocking chair one hot July night, drifted off to sleep and fell backwards off the porch, dying from a blow to the head.  

Whether Susanne could not afford to raise the children on her own after that or did not wish to raise another woman's children, we will never know. What we do know is that although the two sisters were split up and sent to live with various relatives for the remainder of their childhood, they remained close throughout their lives.

The 1910 United States Census found Lizzie living with her paternal Gaffney cousins in Chicago.  These were Mary Jane (Gaffney) and Thomas McGinnis and their four children:  Benita, Eugene, John, and Alice McGinnis.  Lizzie, then 24 years old, was listed as a "roomer" and was not employed. 

Although there seem to be no travel records for Lizzie, this does not mean they are nonexistent. Considering that in 1913 she was 27 years old, she would have been a suitable, mature travel companion for the younger Benita, who had graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and wanted to visit Europe.  It also would have been a wonderful opportunity for both cousins to meet their Gaffney relatives in Dublin and County Roscommon. Furthermore, her traveling there with Benita (along with Catherine Cronican, Benita's friend) would have given Mary Jane and Thomas peace of mind in knowing Benita would be safe and traveling in a group.  It would not surprise me at all if my great-grandparents helped buy Lizzie's passage to Europe.  

Unfortunately, I do not know much more about Lizzie.  As far as I know, she never had a job, maybe because of physical limitations.  My second cousin Jane (McCormick) Olson (Benita's daughter), remembered Lizzie as a lady with a ready laugh despite her disability and a frequent dinner guest in the McCormick household. 

Like her younger sister Alice, Lizzie never married. Alice became a secretary and later worked for the federal government in Washington, D.C. until her death there in April, 1959.  Lizzie must have missed her sister deeply.  She survived her by only 11 months, dying in Chicago on March 16, 1960.  She is buried at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Chicago.

Mary Elizabeth Gaffney in fur collar coat in the
foreground, with her first cousin,  Mary Jane
(Gaffney) McGinnis and two other unidentified
cousins.  Possibly taken in Chicago, Illinois,
the 1920s.   Photo courtesy of Ginny Eakin.
 

Of course, after all this speculation, it could well be that the cousin in the picture at top is not Lizzie Gaffney at all but someone with the same family features.  But who was she, then?

So, dear readers, now I ask your help.  Take out your magnifying glasses and judge for yourself.  Is Lizzie in both these photographs, or do you see a difference?  If Benita's cousin in the top picture is not Lizzie and you know this family, can you help identify her?

Don't you just love a mystery?

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, Mary Elizabeth Gaffney, or are you a member of the McGinnis, McCormick, or Gaffney families? Share your memories and comments below.