As we anxiously await news from Grandmont/Hamtramck...other September birthdays...

Note:  I posted this shot a few years ago on the old site and am reposting it in memory of Grandpa, born 9/21/1877, and who, if he were still with us, would be the oldest man alive at 135.  Aunt Eleanor's birthday was  9/20/04, so she would be no spring chicken herself at 108.  RIP to them both.

This is a bittersweet shot of M.E. O'Brien with all six of his daughters and son, John, from his 14-year marriage to his kids' mother, Nellie Harrington, now gone from their lives for more than a-year-and-a-half. Little Rosemary, herself not long for this world, is perched on his leg, her father's big right paw holding her in place, while Martha -- her remarkable hair flowing down her shoulders (the only one of the girls with such long locks) -- is standing just beside her. The rest of the kids are clustered around their father in a semi-circle: John, Kitty, Eleanor, Anne, and Margaret. Like so many such photos from the era, smiles are rare. (In this case, it's as if the photographer is attempting to coax his subjects into cheering up for the camera by making a silly face or by uttering a humorous remark, but the response is, by and large, half-hearted with only Anne and Margaret reacting positively; John and Kitty barely breaking into grins; and the others all but stonefaced). As was his way, M.E. is resolutely not smiling, but at just 41 (this could even be his birthday party on September 21st), with his dear Nell gone, so many young lives to watch over, and living in Detroit, far from his roots and extended family in Copper Country, smiling simply may not have been an option. Incidentally, Eleanor had her 14th birthday on September 20th, so, perhaps, they had all gathered for that occasion, or, for that matter, are having a party for both. She stands just over her father's right shoulder, a picture of grace and serenity, exactly how I remember her over the years.

 

Recently released: the 1940 Federal Census...

Atkinson Street, Detroit, MI

 

1940 United States Federal Census
about Michael E O'Brien

Name: Michael E O'Brien Age: 62 Estimated Birth Year:     1877 Gender: Male Race: White Birthplace: Michigan Marital Status: Married Relation to Head of House: Head Home in 1940: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan View Map Street: Atkinson House Number: 1181 Inferred Residence in 1935: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan Residence in 1935: Same Place Sheet Number: 1B Number of Household in Order of Visitation: 10 Neighbors: View others on page Household Members: Name Age Michael E O'Brien 62 Lyla C O'Brien 57 Martha O'Brien 29 Annie O'Brien 66

Martha O'Brien, still 20+ months away from her marriage to William J. Marion,
was working as a social worker for the Mothers' Pension Bureau, part of the
 government relief effort of the time.  She was living at home with her father,
Michael; step-mother/aunt, Lyla; and aunt Annie (AKA, Auntie). 

The Great Depression was slowly subsiding and WWII was ramping up
overseas, though the U.S. remained on the sidelines. 

In 1940, M.E. was forced to declare bankruptcy; times were difficult
for the O'Briens, but he continued working in the insurance industry, 
and with Mom's contributions, the situation was not dire. 

I couldn't find an entry for William J. Marion (26 years old), though I did
 find MC (Dad's father) in Sunflower, Alabama; brothers and sisters-in-law
Sam and Kate, Mit and Regina, and Jerry and Elizabeth, all residing
in Detroit; and sisters and brothers-in-law Belle and Clyde Findley and
Clyde Jr., (Hamilton, OH); and Dorthy and Tom Chenoweth and
their daughters, Donna and Liz (our first cousins, but whom we've
never met), in Gulfport, MS. 

We haven't tracked down the whereabouts of Dad's other sister,
Jane -- yet.

More to come....


 

Discovery...

Gr Grandpa Pat...RIP

Just before the holidays (you remember the holidays, right?
Those two weeks not too long ago that evaporated like a couple
 of nano-seconds?). Anyway, just before all the commotion took over,
 I got an email from a guy up in the Keeweenaw who volunteers on the
Hecla Cemetery Project** in Laurium, MI, Martha Mary (O'Brien)
 Marion's birthplace.  The O'Briens lived in the Copper Country for nigh
 on 50 years, and some died there as well.  (Mom was born there, but the
family moved immediately down to Detroit, so she had no memories
whatsoever of that area.)


Pat and Mary's first two children (William and John -- GREAT names)
died in infancy in Boston, but have headstones in the Hecla cemetery. (The
newlyweds, just over from County Cork, probably couldn't afford proper
 burials for the boys at the time -- can you say "pauper's grave?" --
and this was their "make good").


.  The next two, Daniel and Mary Ellen, also born in Boston, survived infancy
and made the arduous trip to Northern Michigan with their parents in the early
 1860s, but it didn't end well for them either.  Daniel was killed at 14 in an
 accident at Cliff Mine, and Mary Ellen died at 17.  How she died was not
 passed down. We do know that it could have been anything from...

"...fits, brain fever, childbirth, consumption, liver complaint,
cold on lungs, typhoid fever, whooping cough, dropsy, nervous
 asthenia, poisoning by tainted meat, drowned  in old shaft,
bowel complaint, water on the brain, spotted fever, convulsions, 
scarlett fever, blood poisoning, innervation, pleuresy, measles,
 killed from the kick of horse,  frozen to death...."
(As reported by The Record of Deaths
for Keeweenaw County, circa 1870s) 

In any case, in 2006, the volunteers of the Hecla Cemetery Project discovered,
 dug out, and cleaned up the two stones containing the names of the four O'Brien
children (John and Daniel are on one stone, William and Mary Ellen are on the
other - it's called economizing), but Patrick's had not yet been found, and we had
 no idea where the O'Brien family patriarch had been laid to rest. That changed
 last year when volunteer Greg Sloviak, searching for the gravestones
 of his own ancestors, came upon Patrick's.


So now we know.  And the man who left Ireland in the wake of the
Potato Famine, started a family with Mary Harrington Green, worked
most of his life underground, and then died underground in a mining
accident himself, can finally rest in peace....


**The Hecla Cemetery Project is dedicated to restoring what has been for
decades a derelict, decaying, downtrodden burial grounds.  Thanks to
its volunteer staff, the headstones of our five O'Brien ancestors have
been rescued from oblivion.

Mothers (and others) O'Brien...

Detroit, MI, circa 1963 - These are the mothers (sisters all)

 that WE grew up with, shown here with their father and only brother...

(left to right) Martha Marion, Anne Kelly, Eleanor Fenech, Papa M.E.

O'Brien, Kitty McCluskey, John O'Brien, and Margaret Moore.

Happy Mother's Day to today's generation of mothers!