Prize Winner of Seattle, Washington!

Marlborough Apartment Hotel. MH5 9 MP3 1M p80.

Under the progressive tutelage of Publications Director, Jill Morelli, the Seattle Genealogical Society recently held its first-ever family history writing contest. Participants were invited to submit creative nonfiction entries relating to family history of 2,000 words or less. I was delighted to receive the news that my entry, Fire and Ice: Deadly Disaster in Minneapolis was selected as the first prize winner!

Fire and Ice is the story of my great aunt, Marguerite Oberg, her husband William Lee Coovert and their sons, Sander and Edward, and the Marlborough Apartment Hotel fire that took the lives of 19 people in the early morning hours of January 3, 1940, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

As exciting as it was to win, the experience of writing this story was the real prize. It rekindled my belief that only when we take the time to weave together the various names, dates and facts we've accumulated into a narrative form that we're really able to synthesize the story, analyze what is missing and identify what questions remain. I also believe something is better than nothing. Too often researchers get caught up in looking for just one more thing before beginning to write. So, that leads me back to this blog... where I plan to share stories of my family's history and also capture my research in progress. Stay tuned!

What does it mean to be Irish (in America)?

Famine Irish. No Irish Need Apply. Lace-curtain Irish. The Kennedys.

What do you think of when you think of Irish-Americans? Many different images may come to mind, but what does it really mean to be Irish-American? As of 2012, 34.1 million Americans claimed Irish ancestry, more than seven times Ireland's population of 4.6 million today.¹ And, of course, on St. Patrick's Day everyone's Irish!

But when we think of Irish immigration to America it is integrally linked with the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1850) when 500,000 Irish fled their homeland for America between 1850 and 1860.² Those who immigrated during this period were Catholic and largely rural tenant farmers from the south and west of Ireland .³ They were the first wave of poor refugees to arrive on America's shores and eastern cities -- founded by Puritan Protestants -- were ill-prepared for the influx. This led to rampant discrimination and open prejudice against the Irish whose Catholicism represented "Old World" oppression.⁴

This composite picture is the one most people have of Irish immigrants. Yet, this is not the story of my Irish ancestors. My forefather, Owen Flynn, was a carpenter by trade, as were several of his sons, from the Irish province of Ulster. County Cavan, where the family originated is in now part of the Republic of Ireland and is a collar county of Northern Ireland. In America, the family was Episcopalian; its Irish counterpart the Church of Ireland. My ancestors immigrated after the major wave of famine Irish, and had enough financial wherewithal that Owen was able to return to Ireland when he found the New World not to his liking. His children, however, remained.

All this serves as a set up for an Irish folktale in my family. My grandmother always maintained that her Irish relatives had "loaned money to Ireland." Now, which of her ancestors might have actually done this is unknown. During most of her childhood she lived near her Flynn grandparents, and spent a great deal of time with them so likely she heard this story from her grandfather, Lester. Her Irish-born great-grandfather, Arthur Flynn died in 1921, the year before she was born and was prosperous enough that he might have been the one to donate to the cause. But which cause?

As Irish Protestants, was the family in favor of Great Britain's continued rule of Ireland or for Home Rule and Irish independence? Many Americans did help finance Irish republican movements in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.⁵ Are you more Irish if you favored independence? Many of Northern Ireland's Protestants were Scottish, having immigrated themselves to Ireland in the 18th century. Our understanding of our heritage is nuanced and shaded by myth and memory. I consider myself an Irish-American and proud of it. Is my Irish story the quintessential one? No. But I don't think it makes me any less Irish and helps illustrate each of our ancestor's stories is unique.

What I know for sure is my grandmother believed if we "ever got the money back from Ireland" we'd be rich. Now if I could only find that receipt!

Éirinn go Brách!

                                                       

Sources:

1. United States Census Bureau. Facts for Features: Irish-American Heritage Month (March) and St. Patrick's Day (March 17): 2014.
2. PBS. Destination America: European Emigration to the U.S. 1851-1860
3. The History Place. Irish Potato Famine.
4. The Society Pages. Negative Stereotypes of the Irish.
5. History Learning Site. The Great Famine of 1845.

Our Irish progenitors, Martha and Owen

The story of my branch of the Flynn family in America begins with Owen Flynn and Martha Crawford. For many years the only consistent detail passed down about the family was that they emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland, and even that was unsubstantiated for many years. More about that in a later post… 

Biographical sketches of two of Owen and Martha’s sons, James and William, add some details to this family’s immigration story. Although similar in broad terms, there are some key differences. In a sketch of James Crawford Flynn published in Walter B. Steven’s  St. Louis, the Fourth City, 1764-1909 (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1909, pp. 260-261), it states he came to the U.S. in 1857 and "joined his sisters, who were living in Connecticut." 

The 1860 census corroborates this as James is living with his sister, Sarah Flynn Curtiss, her husband and brother Arthur, who likely immigrated together with James. The sketch goes on to say his parents “came about ten years later” and after his mother’s death, his father returned to Ireland, where he later died. A briefer sketch of James appeared  in The Book of St. Louisans by Albert Nelson Marquis (St. Louis: St. Louis Republic, 1912. 2nd Edition, pg. 201) also states James immigrated in 1857.

James’ younger brother, William C. Flynn, was profiled in W. L. Kershaw’s History of Page County, Iowa (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1909, pp. 409-410), but his account of Owen and Martha's journey to America is slightly different:

The parents came to the United States in 1863, the family home being established in Connecticut. The climate, however, did not agree with the father and he returned to his native land in 1864, there passing away three years later. The mother, after her return to Ireland, found it lonesome without her children, who all sought the advantages offered by the new world, and the same year in which she had accompanied her husband on his trip back to the Emerald Isle witnessed her second arrival in the United States. While en route for America, however, she contracted a severe cold, from the effects of which she died a short time later.

So, a few questions about the sequence of events emerge from these two accounts: 

• Did Martha die first and then Owen returned to Ireland?
• Did Owen and Martha both return to Ireland?
• Did Martha leave Ireland for a second time to be reunited with her children before her husband died or after?

The one detail that can be confirmed is that Martha Crawford Flynn died in Naugatuck, New Haven County, Connecticut, on September 24, 1866, at the age of 63, and is buried at Hillside Cemetery, in that city. 

The date of death for Owen -- about 1867, based on William’s sketch -- is right on the cusp of the inauguration of civil death registration in Ireland: 1864. A search of Ireland, Civil Registration Deaths Index, 1864-1958, on Ancestry for deaths of any Owen Flynns between 1864 and 1869 yields several possibilities:

Name:	Estimated  Birth Year:	Date of  Registration:	Death Age:	Registration  District:
Owen Flynn	1800	1869	69	Carrick-On- Shannon
Owen Flynn	1796	1869	73	Boyle
Owen Flynn	1799	1869	70	Longford
Owen Flynn	1798	1869	71	Dublin South
Owen Flynn	1795	1865	70	Mohill

Further research is necessary to determine if any of these are the Owen Flynn we’re seeking! What other questions do these sketches prompt? If you have any details that could help fill out this story, please share below!