Ah, the mystery and joy of exploring musty documents - in this case, old U.S. census questionaires. Starting off at the birth of the last century we find (above) John and Mary O'Leary in 1900 residing at 253 S. Western (see map) on the West Side of Chicago with five of their twelve children. Pat and Katie had migrated with them from Ireland twenty years earlier. Fourteen-year-old Nora, born in what is now Forest Park, Illinois (see baby Nora being held by mother Mary in photo above), will eventually become mother to my mother (and numerous other children).
Found on the internet (by Dave Foley): John O'Leary's obituary:
Found on the internet (by Dave Foley): John O'Leary's obituary:
O'Leary, John: Aged 60, native of Killarney, Co. Kerry, husband of Mary (nee Coffey), father of Patrick, Michael, Nellie, Jerry, Katie, Addie, Josie, Nora, Margaret, Hugh and Agnes O'Leary. Funeral from his residence, 268 S. Hermitage ave.* to St. Jarlath's church thence to Mt. Carmel cemetery. --Feb. 27, 1906
Chicago Daily News. (The source for this was Chicago Irish Families, 1875-1925)
* Some early 20th century street addresses can't be found today because those sections of street no longer exist due to 'urban development' and the introduction of the Congress/Eisenhower expressway.
The O'Leary Family in 1910 Chicago. View Large or Larger.
The next Census ten years later finds Mary O'Leary now widowed and living at 423 S. Hermitage (displaced by Eisenhower Expy: see map). Some of her children -including Nora (see below) - have moved out but other extended family have taken up residence with her. Daughter Nora is 24 and will be getting married in two months. Nora's seventeen-year-old sister Agnes is a beauty and will be maid-of-honor at Nora's wedding before entering the Dominican convent as Sr Jeanne.
I can't be sure, but this seems to be Mary's daughter Nora T(herese) O'Leary listed here as a servant living at 1516 Jackson Blvd (see map) in 1910. This address is a few minutes walk from her family's address on Hermitage. This would explain why an unmarried young woman wasn't living with her family. This 'supplemental' census sheet seems to be a follow-up survey picking up people missed on a previous canvass of the neighborhood.
Dan Heffernan in 1910 Chicago. View Large or Larger.
Two months before marrying Nora O'Leary, Dan Heffernan, ten years here from Kerry, Ireland, and holding a good job as an inspector at the gas company, resides in a boarding house at 422 Claremont (displaced by Eisenhower: see map) along with his younger brother Mike. When Dan and Nora wed, Mike will move in with them and never move out. "Heffron" is only one of the many mispellings of Heffernan that have proliferated.
1917: Baby Noreen is born. View Large.
She was raised at home as 'Nonie,' and had to adjust to being called 'Noreen' when she started school. She was unaware of being called 'Nora' on her birth certificate. And no one thought of her mother as 'Honora.' The name of Harlem, Illinois, had been changed to Forest Park ten years before Noreen was born.
1919: Timothy (Ted), Mary, John and (front) Jo, Peg, Noreen. View photo Large or Larger. Click photo for captioning.
The Heffernans on Fillmore, 1920. View Large or Larger.
Ten years after getting married, Nora and Dan are living at 3832 Fillmore (see map) with their six children and Dan's brother Mike.
The 1920 Census finds Mary O'Leary living at 145 Whipple Street (see map) with daughters Abbie, Josie, and Margaret.
In 1920 Mary O'Leary's sister Abbie O'Shea lives two blocks away at 3048 W. Van Buren Street (see map) with children Frank, Cornelius, and Rose.
The Heffernans on Lexington, 1930. View Large or Larger.
Married twenty years, Nora and Dan are living at 4331 Lexington (see map) with ten of their children (oldest child Timothy has already moved out [see below], married, and made them grandparents) and of course brother-in-law Mike. Various other relations will rotate in and out of the crowded household over the years.
Ted and Helen & Jack, 1930. View Large or Larger.
Nora and Dan's oldest child, Timothy (Ted), and his bride Helen are already parents of a one-month-old child and living nearby at 501 Kilbourn Avenue (see map) when the census taker comes by in 1930.
1933: Lexington Portrait. View photo Large or Very Large.
Click photo for captioning.
My dad Patrick Carr leaves Ireland on a journey that will eventually connect him to the O'Leary/Heffernan clan.
Pat Carr in the Bronx. View Large or Larger.
That's my 22-year-old dad, Patrick Carr, on line 58 of this 1930 U.S. Census sheet. He arrived from Kerry, Ireland, three years earlier and is living with relations in the Bronx. His savings went south with the 1929 stock market crash and it will be eleven years more before he can afford to marry. Which is just as well since his bride-to-be (Nora and Dan's daughter Noreen) lives eight hundred miles away and is only twelve years old.
When Pat Carr moved to Chicago, he stayed for a while with his uncle Tom Walsh who lived at 408 S. Kildare, a few blocks away from the Heffernan household on Lexington (see map). Somewhere in the neighborhood, Pat ran into John Heffernan who introduced dad to kid sister Noreen (Nonie).
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