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

(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.

Traveling Tuesday: Benita Goes to Europe

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick
          (1889 - 1984)

Benita McGinnis, about 24 years old, on the
Cunard ocean liner R.M.S. Franconia, 1913.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I look at these photos of my great-aunt Benita in Europe and realize they were taken exactly 100 years ago.

After finishing her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, Benita's parents, Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, sent her to France and Ireland to enrich her appreciation of art and her Irish heritage.  

Benita had long been fascinated by her father's stories of his travels around the world as a youth. Thomas McGinnis, who was orphaned at a young age, had run away to sea to become a sailor, seeing much of the world before settling down as a family man.  He and Mary Jane spent long hours with Benita, planning her trip and writing to their Irish relatives of her impending arrival.

As respectable young women of that era did not travel alone, she went accompanied by her friend Katharine Cronican, and possibly with a cousin, Eileen Kelly (whose name appears on the ship's manifest on the way back home). 

Eileen Kelly, Chicago,
Illinois, about 1919.

This is a photograph of Eileen Kelly, taken with the McGinnis-Gaffney family at their Drexel Avenue home.  Though I do not have any information to corroborate her family relationship yet, I believe she may be related through Mary Jane's maternal line.

I am unable to determine when the three young women departed for Europe, but I know they returned to the United States through Boston on the Cunard liner, the R.M.S. Franconia.  They could have been away for as short as the summer of 1913 or as long as a couple of years.

Benita McGinnis, center, in white blouse; Katharine Cronican is to her right,
wearing sunglasses.  The other passengers are unidentified.  1913.

Benita's scrapbook is crammed with small 2" x 3" photographs of her days on ship.  Here, she and Katharine hold court with some of their fellow passengers.  It is hard to tell whether Eileen is in this group.

Katherine F. Cronican

We have limited information about Katharine Cronican. From what I can tell on Ancestry.com, she was born on August 11, 1885, in Valparaiso, Indiana.  Her 1910 passport application indicates that she was a teacher living in Chicago who planned to spend two years abroad.  A couple of years after returning to Chicago, she married Joseph Marcinkevich, a Russian immigrant who was a soft drink manufacturer.  The 1920 U.S. Census lists them as living on East 72nd Street, living with two sons.  

A couple of years later, Benita and her family would buy a house around the corner on South Vernon Avenue.  It would be nice to think the two families continued their friendship through the years, with  Benita and Katharine reminiscing about their adventures as young Americans in early 20th century Europe.

A defining moment in young Benita's life, this would be the first of her many trips around the world.

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Wedding Wednesday: Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

Thomas Eugene McGinnis

     (1855 - 1927)

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

     (1858 - 1940)


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

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

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

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

Funeral Card Friday: Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis (1858 - 1940)

The front of this holy card, now
faded reads, "Show us Thy face,
and we shall be saved."

My maternal great-grandmother, Mary Jane "Janie" McGinnis, died at 7:15 in the morning of July 13, 1940, at the home of her eldest child, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, of pernicious anemia, from which she had suffered for two years, along with chronic kidney disease.

Pernicious anemia is caused by the intestine's inability to absorb Vitamin 12. The absence of this vitamin makes it hard for iron levels to remain normal in the body.  Between this and the kidney disease, Mary Jane's 81-year-old body had become increasingly weak and frail, though her granddaughters, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca (my mother) and Jane (McCormick) Olson recalled that her mind was sharp until the end.

Janie was buried at Holy Sepuchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois, next to her husband, Tom.  Years later they would be joined by their eldest son Eugene McGinnis, and youngest daughter, Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon (my grandmother).

It must have been hard for the whole family - her surviving brother and sisters, her children and her grandchildren -  to say their final goodbyes to this great lady who had been the center of their lives for so long.  Still, they would always remember her with great affection and admiration, imbuing this love for her and for Tom, in their own families, some of whom were born too late to know them personally but heard countless stories about them around the dinner table many a Sunday evening.


Copyright ©  2012  Linda Huesca Tully

Talented Tuesday: Domestic Goddess

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis (1858 - 1940)

My great- grandmother, Mary Jane
(Gaffney) McGinnis, wearing a dress she  made
for her engagement.  Conneaut, Ohio, circa 1884.

Known for her generous heart and her delicious pies, Mary Jane McGinnis held a special place in the memories of her descendants who knew her.  My mother, Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca, was sent by her parents, Ralph and Alice  (McGinnis) Schiavon, to live with Mary Jane, my mother’s maternal grandmother, when she was about 3 years old.  It was the middle of the Depression, and her parents could not afford to care for both her and her brother, Tom Schiavon. My mother remembered “Grandma McGinnis” with great love and respect, especially the way she never turned anyone away from her door hungry or cold.  At the time, Mary Jane’s sister, Lyle Gaffney, lived with her and my mother.

Mary Jane, known as "Janie", was the eldest of ten children born to John Francis Gaffney and Bridget (Quinn),  Gaffney, both Irish immigrants from Drumbrick and Cootehall, Ireland, respectively.  She arrived in the world on December 2, 1858, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was baptized at the Cathedral of Saint Mary in that city.

The family moved shortly after that to Conneaut, Ohio, where John made a living as a peddlar, according to the 1860 United States Census.  He and Bridget saved their money and were able to buy a large residence that was big enough to house their growing family  and rent out rooms to the men who worked on the burgeoning Nickel Plate Railroad nearby.  Located at 51 Mill Street in Conneaut, the home became variously known as the Gaffney House and the Conneaut House. And yes, their family grew:  Nine more children would come along:  Margaret, Elizabeth, Delia, John, Frances, Thomas, Agnes, Clara, and Edward.  The two youngest children died in infancy.  

Jane (McCormick) Olson, daughter of Mary Jane’s and Thomas’ eldest child, Benita  (McGinnis) McCormick and another of their grandchildren, recalled Mary Jane describing the way she and the young girls of her day learned Irish step (or “clog,” as it was called then) dancing, noting that long boards would be held up against their spines to train the girls to maintain a very straight posture for this style of dance.

Gaffney House, also known as Conneaut House,
51 Mill Street, Conneaut, Ohio, ca. 1880

One day a young railroad worker by the name of Thomas Eugene McGinnis arrived at Gaffney House to rent a room.  Recently returned from several years at sea as a merchant sailor, he had decided to settle down in the Conneaut area, drawn by the promise of a good job offered by the railroad.  Checking in with Bridget Gaffney, he was greeted by the divine aroma of a warm and freshly-baked pie.  He asked to try a piece, and he found it so delicious that he insisted on meeting the person who had baked it.  Bridget excused herself momentarily and returned with her 25-year old daughter Mary Jane.  

Tom could not believe his eyes as he talked to this young woman.  The slender young brunette had deep blue eyes, long, dark eyelashes, a rosy complexion, and a sweet, quiet confidence that intrigued him.  No longer smitten by just the pie, he fell in love with her on the spot.

Tom and Janie were married a year later on May 19, 1884, at Saint Mary's Church in Conneaut.  Janie, who was not only a superb baker but also an accomplished dressmaker, made her own wedding gown.  Her sister Lyle, a milliner, made her headpiece.

Tom and Janie moved just down the street from her parents to 78 Mill Street and began their own family.  They lost their first child, Mary Margaret, in childbirth, but they went on to have Benita Elizabeth, Francis Eugene, John Charles, and Alice Gaffney, all born in Conneaut.  

Tom continued to work for the Nickel Plate Railroad until a train derailed near Conneaut, killing several men.  Shaken by the tragedy, he decided to move his family to Chicago, where he could find another job.  They arrived there sometime between 1895 and 1900. 

Tom found a job as a cement inspector for the City of Chicago.  He built the family's two-story, Craftsman style family home at 8336 South Drexel Avenue in 1912.

Tom and Janie were fiercely devoted to each other throughout their lives, and when Tom died at age 71 in 1927, everyone thought Janie would die soon after of a broken heart.   

Sustained by her Catholic faith and her love for her five grandchildren, Jack (John McGinnis' son), Ralph and Joan Schiavon, and Buddy and Jane McCormick, Janie McGinnis surprised them all and went on to live another 13 years, devoting herself to her family and looking out for her siblings, friends and neighbors.  Her home was the hub of her family's lives, and all would gather there every Sunday afternoon to share a delicious meal and hours of stories, songs, and laughter.  

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, surrounded
by her four children, (left to right) Alice,
Eugene, John, and Benita. In the living room
at 8336 South Drexel Avenue, Chicago,
ca. 1939.

Besides her baking talents, my great-grandmother Mary Jane was remembered for keeping a pristine home and was expert at the domestic arts so valued at the time.  She made many lovely clothes for her children and grandchildren, including my own mother. She taught my mother to love sewing, especially embroidery. My mother loved the creative outlet she found in sewing.  She went on to become an accomplished seamstress herself and taught my sisters and me to sew so that you could never see the stitches in a garment.  I was quite proud of this accomplishment and always credited it to my mother and great-grandmother.

The pie-making was another story.  Mary Jane was said to make pies with just the right flakiness, warm and light and picture perfect.  After so many stories about those wonderful pies, I was certain that her talent would have to rub off on me.  I was determined to be just as good a pie baker as my great-grandmother.

Unfortunately, I would find out that I was not to inherit the pie-making gene, though I tried in vain to learn every secret technique for baking pies to perfection.  To this day, my pies are more crunchy than flaky, the filling is fair at best, my attempts at crimping the edges are clumsy, and the edges themselves almost always fall off the pan before the pie is even done.  Thankfully, my family still eats them, and no one has died from them yet.

I have had to learn through fits and starts that I will never be a domestic goddess in the tradition of the Gaffney women, though I hope I at least get points for trying. 

On the other hand, my sisters have the Gaffney gene, especially my youngest sister, who is known for her delicious meals and baked goods.  These seem to come naturally to her, as do those long Gaffney eyelashes.

Copyright ©  2012  Linda Huesca Tully