Tag Archives: genealogy

April 7, 2011

The Kennedys Who Went To Wisconsin

By Eryne Donahue
image courtesy of yejorgens (ancestry.com)

William James Kennedy and Emily Moore

I’ve recently met Don, from Milwaukee WI, who is doing research for his granddaughter: a descendant of William Kennedy Jr. who was an older brother to my great x 2 grandfather Robert Kennedy. Like many of us who are researching our ancestry, it appears that his drive is to understand the stories of past family members as a gift of story for the next generation. I find myself compiling this website with my own niece in mind. She’ll be turning 1 year old this year and soon enough she will be ready for all of the stories I can tell her about her foundations here in Canada… at least on my side of the family. Don seems to be more ambitious as the Kennedy family is not his own side of the family.  He has put great effort into uncovering the story of William and Emily by contacting the Wisconsin Historical Society for records and collecting photographs of the family descendants. Many beautiful photographs of the Kennedys and their family reunion have also been collected and made public by another descendant of William and James (their great granddaughter) named Yvonne. She and Don have been in contact and through their combined efforts I am able to do my part in compiling this into a narrative into the blog entry below. Out of respect for a descendant who does not wish records found by Don to be posted, I am not including images of these documents. Suffice to say that there are records to back up this narrative. Not only does William & Emily‘s story allow us a better glimpse into our Kennedy clan, but it also pieces together the American and Canadian sides of the family.

Fallowfield churches circa 1910

William James Kennedy was the second child of 16 belonging to farmers William Kennedy & Mary Bridgen. He was baptized in Fallowfield, Ontario, sometime between 1851-1968, and Canadian census dates place his birth date as 23 February, 1851 in Tichborne, Ontario. I gasp when I read the record of his baptism, as it brings the Kennedy ancestors so close to me. While I wasn’t born in Fallowfield, I spent much of my childhood and teenage years living next door, in Kanata, and the name recalls so much for me as I currently live across the country from there.

According to his newspaper obituary, at age 17 (1868) he moved to Wingville township, in the Southwestern corner of the state of Wisconsin and bought land in the village of Montfort. I am unsure what his motivation was to move across the border and leave his family back in Ontario. From all of my research on this family, this question lingers. Two other siblings seem to have moved south also,but not together. The southern part of Wisconsin originally attracted people to mine the land, as it was particularly rich in minerals (especially lead and zinc). However, it soon became apparent that wheat farming was more viable longterm with Grant county’s rich soil, and as William came from a farming family and planned to continue living off the land, this might have been the attractor for him. He likely came to Wisconsin via train which was rapidly being built in WI between 1870 and 1900.

Montfort is the place where he met his future wife, a woman named Emily Jane Moore (1848-1927), daughter of John & Elizabeth. Emily was born in the nearby town of Benton. She and William were married two years after his arrival in Wisconsin, on the 9th of December 1871 in Montford. The wedding was witnessed by George Stevens and Sophia Laird who were both from town. The couple stayed in Montfort, settling on a property at the edge of town next to the flour mill and the train depot (see map below). In 1880, construction on the new Chicago and Tomah line began, linking with Madison by way of the junction next to William’s land. He would have been expected to donate land to the building of these tracks. The railroad also asked the communities along the line to invest money in the railroad in exchange for the building and maintenance of railway depots. By October of 1882, a passenger train left Montfort daily (except Sundays) midmorning, and arrived from its origins in Milwaukee by supper time. There were also one freight and one mixed train that traveled each way, making this location a bustling space of travelers.

I've circled William's property in red

William decided to become a stonemason at some point after moving to Montfort. The income he earned in his profession had to support his and Emily‘s large family of 13 children, 3 of whom died very young (Dora Melissa Kennedy 1879-80, David Walter Kennedy1881-86, and Flossie Kennedy 1896 who died at birth). The ones who survived into adulthood are as follows:

Ina Florence Kennedy (1872-1942) married and became a Womack;  Emily Frances Kennedy(1874-1955), married an Irish immigrant named John T. O’Brien, and raised their family in Montfort; William John Kennedy (1876-1924) worked as a day laborer and farmed while living with the family; Mary Jane “Minnie” Kennedy (1877-1956), married John P. Crawley in 1896 and moved about within the state, then to Philadelphia, before coming back to Wisconsin later in life. She and her husband had 7 children together. There was Effie Phyllis Kennedy (1884-1972), who married to a man named Charles Guilford; Alta Ann Kennedy (1886-1950), who worked in a hotel while living at home, and then lived in Platteville later on; Wallace Oscar Kennedy (1888-1972) mined lead as a young man in the area to help earn his keep, and later became a butcher by trade. He married a woman called Edith Martha Fischer in Antigo and had a daughter. Another son, Elmer Thomas Kennedy (1890-1967), stayed in Wisconsin, and married a woman named Blanche Moore in Illinois. They had five children. Richard Earl Kennedy (1891-1949), stayed in Montfort where he had a farm. He married Dora Markwardt and they had four children together. Isa Irma Kennedy (1898-1969) who became a teacher and supported her widowed mother in her twenties and then married August Schumann. She had a daughter.

William & Eliza Kennedy's children, courtesy of bigdm50 on ancestry.com

This photograph is believed to be taken at Emily Kennedy's funeral (1927). Individuals pictured are all (except one) children of William and Emily. Back row (L-R): Charley Hill (half brother of Emily), Wallace Kennedy, Isa Schuman, Earl Kennedy, Emily Frances O'Brien, and Elmer Kennedy. Front (L-R): Minnie Crawley, Effie Gulliford, Ina Womack and Alta Schumann.

William clearly had a good reputation within Montfort, because his obituary describes him as such:

Since coming to Wisconsin he has resided in Montfort, and is well and favorably known and highly respected by all. His entire life was characterized by honesty and uprightness, and the community suffers the loss of one of its most worthy citizens in the fall of this good man.

He died of acute indigestion during a visit to his daughter’s home on June 13th, 1912 and was buried in the Montfort cemetery just outside of town. After his death, his wife Emily continued to live with her children as can be seen in the census of 1920. She died in Montfort at the age of 79, in 1927. There are many descendants of William and Emily and several are researching their families. Below is a photograph from their first Kennedy reunion.

Photograph courtesy of yejorgens on ancestry.com

Family reunion of descendants of William and Emily Kennedy (1955)

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March 24, 2011

First Child of Irish Immigrants

By Eryne Donahue

I’ve been corresponding with a man named Mitch who descends from the Donahue-Higgins line since 2006. He has provided me with his tree that illustrates who came after Eliza in the Higgins family, and details about her husband, making sense of census materials. this is the first time I’ve put all of the Donahue-Higgins material onto one page since then.

Eliza was the first child of Dennis Donahue & Julia Ryan– the first of the American born Donahues to Irish immigrant parents. She was born in Massachusetts, before the family went west. My great x 2 grandfather Dennis Edward Donahue was her youngest sibling. This makes myself and Mitch cousins 4x removed.

Eliza married the Irish immigrant, John Higgins, in 1875 when she was 24 years old (he was four years her senior). He had come from Cork County, Ireland to America sometime between 1864-1866. They can be found on the 1880 census living next door to her parents and the Thomas family. John is 33 and farms, while Eliza keeps the home. They have three children: Julia (born in Stewartville on October 10, 1876) named for her grandmother, Thomas (1877), and Dennis (1878), who was named for his grandfather.

Two other children followed and can be seen in the 885 Minnesota state census: Catherine “Kit” (born September 21, 1882 in Olmstead), John “Jack” (November 8, 1884 in Stewartville). Next door to the Higgins are McElgunns who would likely be relatives of Eliza’s sister Julia‘s husband.

Two years later, their sixth child Michael was born (born 25 January, 1887). Sadly, Eliza died from complications after giving birth to baby Michael.  Other American federal censuses (1895, 1900) that follow from this date show John Higgins as a widower, providing for and parenting his children. While he continues to farm, the more detailed censuses reveal that John Higgins cannot read or write in English. Whether or not this is a mistake (this wasn’t recorded on the 1880 census) or with age, it shows the difficulty present during those times for Irish immigrants to manage in a new country with little resources. Looking back at earlier censuses, the Higgins always lived close to the Donahues and other immigrant families which would have made it much easier.

As John got older, his children supported him. Dennis and John Jr. labored on the farm with him, and Katie kept the home while Michael went to school. The family seems to have  survived and coped with the loss of Eliza. The farm is mortgaged, however, and John may have had difficulty keeping it viable. Then, five years later in 1905 and at the age of 59, John Higgins died. He was buried in St. Bridget’s cemetery alongside his wife. Mitch, my correspondent on this family has taken photographs of their grave sites.

Their children’s stories are as follows:

Julia Higgins

Julia stayed in Minnesota and married Michael James Griffin, who was also from Olmstead,  in 1899. He was previously married and came into the marriage with two daughters. They lived in the town of Simpson, where Julia opened her own restaurant that thrived for twelve years in the sale of various home-made goods. She must have been well practiced at cooking for large groups as she had a large family: she and Michael had two daughters and seven sons. After the premature death of her husband following a brain hemorrhage (1912), she moved to Rochester and lived there for 30 years before falling ill. She died at age 73 on December 19th, 1949 in the town Wabasha and left a legacy of 26 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. Her and Michael are buried at St. Bridget’s cemetery.

Mitch did not have any knowledge of what happened to Dennis Higgins, although he did live in Rochester. His fate is left to be discovered.

Thomas moved to Montana where he worked as a park ranger in Glacier Park. He died of a heart attack on February 3, 1949 (the same year as sister, Julia) in the home of his niece and her husband near Geraldine, Montana.

Catherine Higgins married Matthew Carr in 1911 at St. Bridget’s church. He was also born and raised in Olmstead.  They moved to Montana like her brothers and had 3 sons and 3 daughters there.  Catherine died in Fort Benton Hospital, Chouteau Co., Montana on July 14, 1973, 15 years after her husband passed.

Jack married twice, first to a woman called Elma Juleson around 1910. They moved to North Dakota and had a son, but Elma died during childbirth. Until Jack remarried, his sister Catherine Higgins raised Jack and Elma’s little boy. Later Jack married a woman named Nettie MacMillan from Wisconsin, in 1915. Nettie gave birth to a daughter and then the family moved to Montana where they had two sons. Jack died in Flaxville on November 26, 1941, and Nettie died in 1965.

Michael Higgins stayed in Olmstead where he married Susie Griffin from a nearby farm. They had a son and to daughters. Michael died on May 7, 1943 and is buried alongside his wife at St. Bridget’s.

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March 21, 2011

Grandma Minnie

By Eryne Donahue

"Minnie" Marion (Sergeant) Kennedy, 1877-1970

This seems premature as I am currently desperate to get all of my research up onto the site for other family lines (currently I’ve been working on the Donahue and Boomer lines), but an email that I opened up this morning has inspired me. Jim, a distant relation from the Harrower family in the Leavoy-Kennedy-McDonnell strain of my family has contacted me with first hand knowledge of an interesting character.

My great-great grandfather, Robert Kennedy, had a second marriage long after his children were born.  His first wife and the mother of my great-grandmother, Bea, was a woman called Sophia McDonnell. She died of cancer at age 62, and part of me wonders how much of this illness had to do with her life growing up in the mining communities up in Northern Ontario.

Robert, Sophia and family

Robert must have married Minnie Sergeant after Sophia’s death and before 1930. I haven’t found any marriage certificate for the two as of yet. They likely knew one another early on, as Minnie and Sophia were cousins, and their families lived in the same region.

I have a postcard from 1934 (see below) that I’d found in my grandmother’s possessions. It gives a record of Robert and Minnie living together, and this is what the aforementioned email was about. There are many photographs in my collection of my grandmother Helen and siblings at the Kennedy cottage and farm in Elphin, but I wanted to know the exact location. Jim, my distant relative and fellow family researcher actually knew Minnie and was able to give some insight into the postcard.

The postcard is written by 19 year old Cynthia Bea Leavoy to her younger sister Helen (age 13 at the time). Robert Kennedy and Minnie (his second wife) would have owned the farm. They were the grandparents of Cynthia Bea and Helen.

Photograph of a cottage on Lake Dalhousie near Elphin, Ontario.

Jim gave me a link to where the cottage pictured on the postcard was located.The cottage may be the exact one which Robert and Minnie occupied when the Leavoy girls visited, but could also just be representative of the area.

He said that he remembered Minnie running her own shop in Balderson, Ontario, before retiring back to her house in Elphin. This must have been after Robert had passed away. Robert died not long after he began living with Minnie, in 1939.  Jim sent me a link to Minnie’s house in Google street view which has just come to Elphin. He says that she was living there in 1941.

Minnie Sergant's house in Elphin

He says: “The closed in part on the front was an addition after Mike & Mary Kirkham bought the house about 35 years ago.When I was growing up in Elphin, the house had a veranda with a railing on the front where the additions is now.“

My mother and I took a drive out to Elphin a few years ago. At the time we had no knowledge of this information, and now I am itching to get back out that way the next time I am in Ontario. when we were in Elphin, my mother and I made a trip to Crawford cemetery and we found the site where our Kennedy-Sergeant-McDonnell family was buried. Robert and Minnie are buried beside one another in the Crawford cemetery outside of Elphin, Ontario. They are buried next to Robert’s original in-laws, John McDonnel and Alice Sergeant. Their gravestone inscription reads:

“K/FLT/ Robert Kennedy/ 1863-1939/ His wife/ Minnie J. Sargeant/ 1877-1970/ Kennedy”

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March 18, 2011

Ann Was A Milliner

By Eryne Donahue

I learned a little about Ann Thomas from census records. I am learning much more through my new connection with Amanda– a descendant of Ann whom I’ve met online. This blog entry is devoted to the Donahue-Thomas family and her heritage and will be updated for the benefit of both families and their descendants as Amanda and I correspond.

Courtesy of Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, Pennsburg, Pa

The Donahue farm produced a lot of butter as a part of their livelihood, something that the farm women would typically do as seen in this photo.

Our great x 2 grandfather, Dennis Edward Donahue had 12 children with his wife Hannah. The couple’s first child, Ann E. Donahue, was born in November of 1888 in Minnesota, USA. Their 5th child, Edward, was my great grandfather. This is my connection with my new-found relative Amanda: our great-grandparents were siblings. The catch is that my great-grandfather followed his aunt Julia McElgunn up to Canada and lost many of his family ties in the United States. My grandfather, his son Dennis Edward, spent much time writing letters to his American family trying to regain this contact.

All census records from Ann‘s lifetime show that she grew up in High Forest on the Donahue farm, likely helping out with butter production and house chores. When she was finished school and old enough to earn her own living, Ann became a milliner in a shop in town. I still have to locate which shop it was.

At age 24 (about 1916), Ann married a 36 year old man named Christopher Thomas (1877-1948) who was also born and raised in High Forest. His family must have known the Donahues well, as their farms were in close proximity. His parents, however are listed in censuses as French-Canadian and his brother, who lived with the couple and their children in 1880 had a mother born in Ireland. The couple continued to farm in the area, staying close to their families. One year after their marriage they had their first child, and in following years another 6 were born. They continued to farm but eventually moved on. Word from their single living child, Frances, is that the Thomas family were horrible farmers! Their farm was lost because during the depression they borrowed against it until they could not sustain themselves.

Ann and Christopher Thomas’ children:

Anna Kathleen Shanahan(1915-2005) married Walter Shanahan. She died at age 90.

Etta Marie (1916-2000) married and had at least one child, although I have yet to have located the names of her husband and children. She died at age 84.

Rachel Jamesina Strom (b. 1919) married into the Strom family and had a daughter. She is now deceased.

Francis Emily Peterson is the only living child of this family. I look forward to talking to her. She and her husband had two daughters (one of whom, Faye, passed away in 2007) and two sons.

James Christopher Thomas (1925-2010) died in San Diego, California.

Paul Raymond Thomas (1929-1980), whom my new contact Amanda descends from, married Elizabeth Louise King (1939-2000) and they had four daughters (one of whom, Tracy Ann, is now deceased). Paul was stabbed and murdered on June 4th in Mission Hills, California.

Research from my new contact, Amanda will help to flesh out their stories.

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March 17, 2011

The First to Move North of the Border

By Eryne Donahue

I have been trying to track down my great-grandfather Edward Donahue for some time now with great difficulty. He came to Canada from Minnesota and had a family in Saskatchewan with his wife Clara. I’ve often wondered what brought him to Canada- why did he leave behind his family? Why didn’t he maintain connections?

This is where I believe that Julia (Donahue) McElgunn enters the picture. She was his aunt who came to Canada before him. She may have put the bee in his bonnet to move northwards. In fact, censuses place the McElgunns in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan the year that Edward crossed the border. This is hardly a coincidence because Edward and Clara ended up settling in Gull Lake.

Left to right: John, Dennis (standing), Bert (seated), John Sr., Frank, Annie, Julia, Lizzie, Mike, Leo

Julia (Donahue) McElgunn and her family

Today I made another discovery when I found two other members of ancestry.com who had posted much more detailed information on the Donahue-McElgunn family. There is a photograph of Julia and her husband John McElgunn along with their children (left), and another of Julia as an elderly woman with several of her middle-aged children (below). There were photographs of their children as adults (also below).

At this point I’d just like to thank these two fellow researchers, wbond1958 and TierneyLawler for sending these precious family photos into the nether regions of the internet.

I have determined from these other distant relatives’ research that the Donahue-McElgunn family moved from High Forest, Olmstead, Minnesota (1895) to Redpath, Traverse, Minnesota (1900), before crossing the border. It turns out that the couple had 9 children while still in Minnesota (8 survived), before coming up to Canada to live. After crossing the border, the family lived in Moose Jaw (1911) and then Gull Lake (1916). These children would have all been Edward’s cousins.

The surviving McElgunn children and their stories are as follows:

Frank McElgunn

Frank Thomas McElgunn (1888-1917) lived in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan according to the 1911 federal census. He died in North Battleford, Sask. on March 17th.

Dennis McElgunn

Dennis William McElgunn (1889-1970) was born in Stewartville just south of the Donahue estate. He was likely named for his maternal grandfather. Dennis married a woman called Adah Weaver in Gull Lake on September 25, 1917. He must have eventually moved back to the United States, as he was the proprietor of Mack’s bicycle shop in Phoenix, Arizona. He died there on the 16th of March.

John Edward McElgunn (1890-1916) was born on the 16th of September. Like his siblings, he spent his early childhood in Minnesota and then moved up to Saskatchewan with the family. Unfortunately, as a young man at the age of 25, he died in a farming accident on April 9th-he never married or had children.

Michael McElgunn

Michael Martin McElgunn (1892-1953) was born on February 19th in Olmstead. He did live in Saskatchewan with his family as a teenager, but moved back to Minnesota where he married Ann McDermitt in Rochester in 1918. The couple had at least one child, and Mike moved back to Canada again later on. He died in Lethbridge, Alberta on September 1st.

Ann Veronica Bechtel (1893-1984) was born on July 18th. She married Cyrus Edward Bechtel in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan on November 27, 1912 and they lived in Carmichael for several years. Ann and Cyrus had 7 children (2 daughters and 5 sons), all but one whom are still living. The family eventually moved back across the border to Minnewaukan, Benson county, South Dakota. Ann died in Los Angeles on May 4th.

Ann McElgunn with children

Leo McElgunn

Leo Joseph McElgunn (1894-1977) was born on December 19th in Stewartville. At age 23 he was drafted as a soldier in Regina, Saskatchewan. He married Marie Francis Dyer, although I don’t know whether or not they had children. Leo died in Medicine Hat, Alberta on the 24th of May at age 82.

Bernard James McElgunn (b. 1895) was born on October 25th. Like his brother Leo, he was drafted into the military in 1918 and went overseas to fight in the war. When he returned to Saskatchewan, he married Catherine Philomena Hengel (October 24, 1920) in Shaunavon. They had a son, Myron James,  the following year (now deceased).

Bernard ("Bert") McElgunn

Lizzie McElgunn

Lizzie Gertrude Smith (1897-1988) was born on the 22nd of September in Stewartville.  She married a man named Gordon Murray Smith at City Hall in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan on May 7, 1921. The couple had four children (three daughters who are all still living, and a son who is now deceased). The family eventually moved to British Columbia as her parents had, because they both died in New Westminster, BC.

It has been a wonder to find this McElgunn family, and I plan to head over to New Westminster in the next month to visit Julia’s grave. She and her family are my surrogate connection to the mysterious and ever elusive Edward Donahue.

The McElgunn Family: Leo, Bert, Ann, Liz, Mike & their Mom, Julia

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