Robert Kennedy (1863-1939) & Sophia McDonnell (1858-1920)

Robert Kennedy

Sophia (McDonnell) Kennedy

My great x2 grandparents, Robert Kennedy and Sophia McDonnell are well documented in photos that were kept in my grandmother’s overflowing boxes of various collections. When she moved into a care home, my mother took the photos back to our house for us to look at and decode. Robert, a mustached man, well-dressed and with a confident gaze looked back at us from many ages and places. Sophia, who died much younger, is somewhat stern: like a no-nonsense farm wife. From a few documents that were kept: passports, names & dates handwritten in the family bible, & marriage certificates, I’ve attempted to fill out our knowledge of this couple and their family.

According to various records, both Robert Kennedy and Sophia McDonnell were  born in Frontenac County, Ontario. Sophia, 5 years Robert’s senior, was born on June 5, 1858 in the tiny Palmerston township, near McDonald’s corners. Robert’s family, the Kennedys, lived outside of Tichborne, where he was born on March 12, 1864 (see map below). Many of the Kennedy family members lived in Bedford and adjacent Hinchinbrook township.

From an 1880 map of Frontenac County. I’ve highlighted the Kennedy farms (left).

I have no knowledge of how the couple originally met, but they married in a Methodist church in Hinchinbrook township. On October 5, 1883,  a 21 year old farmer Robert Kennedy, son of William & Mary Kennedy, married Sophia “McDonald”, 24 year old daughter of John & “Allice” “McDonald” from Palmerston. The witnesses to their wedding were John Kennedy (Robert’s brother) and John McKerrow from Oso (I am not sure of his relation). Looking at the church marriage register, Robert’s brother Isaac married soon after (he was the next marriage in the church).

It appears that while Robert started out his career as a farmer, like his Irish-born father, he soon decided to enter the mining industry. Gold mining began in the 1880s and 90s in Addington county when the logging started to dry up. This is likely where Robert became a career-miner. In the 1891 Canadian federal census, I’ve found the young family in Addington. Robert (27) and Sophia (32) live with their 3 young sons: six-year-old Johnny (born on July 6, 1884), four-year-old William H. (born March 6, 1886), and one-year-old Robert Jr. (born October 10, 1888). They are also living with another family, the Hughes. I do not yet know what their relationship was to the Kennedy family (family, friends or other), but they are of the same generation. William Hughes (34), a labourer, and his wife Hannah (28) have 2 sons: John (8) and James (4).

The Kennedy family from left to right: Robert, John, Alice, William, Sophia and Robert Jr. in front. This was likely taken around 1896.

Sometime during the following decade, the Kennedy family moved further out to follow the mining frenzy northwards in Ontario. In the 1901 census (below) they are shown living in the town of Creighton Mine, outside of Sudbury. Creighton Mine is now considered a ghost town, but at the turn of the century it grew very rapidly with the influx of laborers and the availability of transport by CPR. The Nickel mine opened in 1900 under the Canadian Copper Company, and at this time there were already 900 people living in the town even though a post office and school were not yet built (these came in 1902 and 1904).

With upwards of  10 years mining experience, Robert was given the position of foreman, and earned a good salary of $650 for 10 months work per year in the mines. He needed this to support his family of 5 children, as two daughters had been born into the family: Alice (born February 19, 1892) who was named for her maternal grandmother,  and Mary B. (born on March 13, 1896), my great-grandmother, who was named for her paternal grandmother. Eldest son, John who was 18-years-old, worked as a labourer, while poor William, age 16, was considered “infirm” and suffered from an illness. The Kennedy family still continued to live with lodgers, likely to save money on their home. In 1901, they had four mining men as lodgers, one of whom was French-speaking.

The family would have stayed in the Sudbury area for some time. I do not have any knowledge of the final years of Robert and Sophia’s marriage, but Sophia died on September 11, 1920 at age 62, after suffering from some form of cancer for a year. I have letters of correspondence about this sad event between John Kennedy and my great grandmother Mary Bea which give the sense that Robert may not have been living with her any longer (and consequently he did remarry to her cousin Minnie: see my blog entry about this).  She is buried in Eyre cemetery in Sudbury.

Robert, his second wife Minnie, grand-daughters Helen, Bea and daughter Mary Bea

Robert lived for another 19 years, settling in the area around Sophia’s birth town with her cousin. They farmed the land and enjoyed their grandchildren’s visits. Both Robert and Minnie are buried with the McDonnell family in Crawford cemetery outside of Elphin, Ontario.

I have followed the children in years after 1901 to determine their paths and hope to at some point connect with descendants. Below are their stories:

John Oscar Kennedy, the eldest child, married a woman named Julia when he was 18 years old. They lived in the Sudbury area originally, and the 1911 Canadian census shows them in the town of Coleman living next to his parents and other siblings as well as a McDonnel family that I have yet to identify.It appears that he may have been a blacksmith although the enumerator for that particular census had quite illegible handwriting. John and Julia had 5 children: Johnny (b. 1903), Pearl (b. 1904), Ruby Bea (b. 1906), Myrtle (b. 1907) and Nelly (b. 1908).  The family eventually settled in Timmins, Ontario which is where John died, on March 7, 1961.

William Henry Kennedy, the second child, was sickly as a young man and was afflicted with poor health continually throughout his life. Despite this, on February 11, 1918 he married Alexina (“Tina”) Labelle from Quebec in a church in Cobalt where he was living. He and Tina had 2 sons and 2 daughters: Alex, Helen, Llyod, Wilma (b. 1929).

From my grandmother’s collected documents, I have two letters that were sent to my great grandmother Bea from her elder brother William. The letters are sad in that William is quite ill as he writes them (he acknowledges this).

The first, written on Dec 27, 1934 from his home in Frood Mine, describes his illness as being related to his lungs and this may be partly caused by his work and life in mining towns. He has been bed-ridden for months with a second bout of illness after overextending himself by working overtime, moving home, cleaning and building a garage. He also describes his children and brother Robbie who is living in Sudbury. From his description, Robert often travels but doesn’t visit when he is in town. The most interesting point in the letter is his description of Frood: “This is still some rough place and there is not enough soil to have a garden. The only thing that grow here are Blue berries and Tina and the children picked nearly 100 baskets last year.“

The second letter, written on April 3, 1935 from Frood Mine again, describes his ill health again and his pleurisy. He gives a more detailed description of Frood Mine, being “…3 miles from Sudbury and there are 11 houses there.” This gives a sense of how isolated he and his family were and the difficulty they must have experienced with William being unable to work.  He mentions Robbie again and his wife Clara, whom he clearly dislikes. He saw his brother and sister-in-law on New Years, but they do not often communicate: Robert doesn’t write and William “doesn’t have much time for her” (Clara). He relays that Robert works in the Lake Shore Mine at Kirkland Lake. He hasn’t seen John, their older brother, but mentions their niece Viola (Alice’s daughter), who is married to Carl Heitt or Hutt. He writes that she “keeps Gordon and Alice“.

These two letters are extremely valuable documents to me as they describe the lives of the children and the quality of their relationships. It is clear that Mary Bea and William were the only ones who regularly corresponded. William died in Frood Mine not long after these letters were written.

Robert Kennedy Jr., or “Robbie” as William called him, married Clara Margaret Discher in Sudbury on August 31, 1914. I have not found any other records of him beyond letters written by William. From these letters I can glean that he continued to work as a miner in Kirkland Lake.  I do not know if he and Clara had children, nor when he died.

Alice Jewel Kennedy married William Gordon Cameron in Sudbury, on September 25, 1907. From William’s letters I have determined that she lived in Cobalt where there was a smelter. This means that her husband William likely also worked in the mining industry. They had a son and two daughters, one of whom was Violet Bea.

Finally, Mary Bea, or simply “Bea”, is my great-grandmother. She has always been described as a kind woman who was very literate. This is clear from the correspondence she kept with her family, although stories that have been passed down include her being punished for reading late at night by candle light and waking up late with her chores delayed. She also won a writing competition. Bea married my great-grandfather Gordon Leavoy and had six children:  Cynthia Bea Wild (1915-1943), Patricia Claire Crichton (1917-2003), Gordon Robert Leavoy (1919), my grandmother Helen Florine Boomer (b. 1921), Nelson Wellington Leavoy ( b. 1922) and Kenneth Kennedy Leavoy (1923-1993). They lived in Windsor, Ontario where she died of complications after surgery on September 10, 1975.