Family Friday: My Great-Grandmother

I'd like to get back into Family Friday posts.  Today I'd like to talk about my Great-Grandmother, Mary Ann McGlynn.  She was born in 1881 in the heart of Anthracite coal country.  She was the 4th of 5 children and the 2nd of 3 daughters.  Her father was a coal miner and a Civil War Veteran.  She and her mother are both members of that long line of strong, Irish women that I know I've mentioned before.  Her father died in 1889 and by 1905 she and her family had moved to New York City where she was working as a dressmaker with her younger sister Maggie.  This is Mary Ann McGlynn:

Don't you just love the look of old photos?  I have no idea what year this was taken or why it was taken, but I'm glad that it was.  I have to wonder if it was taken for my Great-Grandfather and sent to him.  They must have known each other and maybe even grown up together.  I know in 1900 they were both living in the same area and by 1910 they were married and had had their first daughter.  I like to think that the 2 of them wrote letters to each other after she moved to New York and eventually decided to marry so she moved back to Pennsylvania.

My GGmother had 5 children.  She was pregnant with the 5th when her husband died in the fall of 1918.  She had to figure out a way to keep her family going and at some point ran a small shop out of the front room of her home.  I don't know the name of the shop or everything that was sold there or even how long she ran it, but I remember my grandmother once telling me that sweets and bread were sold there.  In the late 1920s and early 1930s, my GGmother became tax collector for the Borough of Coaldale, PA.

She passed away in 1936 before her youngest had even finished high school.  My Mom never got to meet her grandmother which makes me a little sad.  Especially since I think so highly of my grandmother and I'm sure there was a lot of my GGmother in her.

Famly not-so-Friday: GG-Uncle Edward

Well, keeping with how things have been going lately, I'm posting this late.  Today, I'm going to tell you about my Great-Great-Uncle Edward.  He was born in Pennsylvania in 1894, the 7th of 8 children, to a coal miner and his wife.  I don't know much about his young life, but I do know that his mom passed away before his 8th birthday.  According to census records, he worked in the coal mines just like his father and his brothers.  It seems highly likely that he didn't finish school.  He may not have gone to high school at all.  He was drafted into the Army during World War I.

I think these are some of the most interesting photos I found in my grandmother's photos.  He looks SO young too.  I think the last one was taken in France.  I know that he was serving in France in 1918 when his brother Bernard (my great-grandfather) passed away.  I think that must have been really hard for him.  From other things I've seen, he truly loves his family.  How do I know that?  I guess I don't really, but it's a feeling that I get from 3 other items I have: a postcard, another photo, and a funeral card.
 

The picture is of the extended family.  I don't know who everyone in the photo is, but I know that my grandmother and all of her siblings are in the photo.  I believe the other children in the photo are the children of Edward's younger brother and that the other adults are some of his siblings.  Edward is in the middle holding my grandmother's youngest sister.  It looks like this was a fun day and Edward looks so happy to be with his family.  The postcard was written to my grandmother while Edward was serving in the militry.  Finally, there's the funeral card.  I found a few of these among my grandmother's things, but it seemed like she only kept significant ones and she took good care of them.  Edward is one of the people I wish I could ask my grandmother about.  I think she would have great things to say about him.  I don't know much about him, but I know that I'm proud to have him in my family tree.

Family Friday (a bit late)

Well, it was an INSANE week at work so I'm a bit late in my post, but here it is.  As I mentioned in my last post, I've gotten really into genealogy in the last year or two.  It all started here:

Yup, those are two 30-gallon platic tubs (currently sitting in Joe's office).  These two tubs were filled with photos and papers from my grandmother's house.  My MomMom passed away February 20, 1995.  For months after that, I spent a lot of time with my Mom going over to my grandmother's house to help clean it out and get it ready for sale.  My Mom ended up taking all of the photos and such from the house and they ended up in the basement at my parents' house.  And that's where they sat for 15+ years.  I offered one time to take them and go through them all and scan them all in as my Christmas present to her, but she didn't seem interested at the time.  Somehow, I talked her into it and they came to my house in February 2011.

I have found some really cool photos in those tubs.  I was hoping that I would be further along with the scanning and organizing of these photos than I currently am, but this had to be put on hold for after our basment flooded (twice) last fall.  I'm really looking forward to using my Friday blog posts to share some of these photos and tell the stories of my ancestors.  I'm also hoping that this will continue to keep me on pace with getting everything together with these photos.  I'd like to be able to give my Mom, her sister, and their cousins Mary and Joe (whom my grandmother partially raised - more on that next week) each a box of photos and a DVD with the scans of all of them this Christmas.  I'm also planning on giving copies of the DVDs and some of the photos to my cousins and my brother.  I think family is really important and so is knowing where you came from and how far your family has come.  I hope anyone out there reading this will enjoy reading about my family's journey and be encouraged to look into their family's history.