{"id":276,"date":"2019-09-28T14:06:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-28T14:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.momstribute.com\/blogs\/?p=276"},"modified":"2020-01-06T16:31:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T16:31:52","slug":"family-history-story-to-inspire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/family-history-story-to-inspire\/","title":{"rendered":"Family History Story to Inspire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tom and Bill met over lunch in the Stone Harbor Inn\nin Sturgeon Bay. The view out the window was a waterfront blissfully shimmering\nand very camera-friendly. The boats bobbed in the water and the tiny cars moved\nacross the encompassing iron-clad bridge in the near distance. It seemed\nvaguely familiar as Tom began to be convinced that his parents had brought him\nhere as a child. His memory was jogged but not enough to know the area. Bill\nwas the knowledgeable one and as he was retired with time on his hands, he enjoyed\nthe opportunity to guide Tom around some family haunts. He promised access to a\ngreat historical society within walking distance and a short drive to St. Mary\u2019s\nCemetery where Margaret Ellen and her mother Mary Ann were laid to rest. He\ncould also show Tom where the original forty-acre farm was, although now\ncovered in houses. Bill was to prove to be invaluable in more ways than one; he\nhad in his possession a death certificate for Patrick Conry, the common\nancestor of his and Tom\u2019s. It recorded his date of death as February 17th<\/sup>\n1891 from a cerebral haemorrhage before he passed on. He was born circa<\/em> 1825 in County Roscommon, Ireland.\nAt the time of his death, he was living with his sister, Celia, at 493 35th<\/sup>\nStreet, Chicago and worked as a conductor. Since 1870 he had lived in Chicago\nwith his widowed sister and her sons, Hubert and Thomas. He was aged\nforty-three and Celia was forty-six. In the same building was his forty-year\nold brother, Thomas Conroy, who had a wife, Delea, and two sons. Thomas was a\nrail road conductor and Patrick was a day labourer when he first arrived after\nthe war. Most of the construction of the railroad took place in the 1870s, and\nfor this project the city of Chicago employed 2,700 workers – nine per cent of\nChicago\u2019s labor force. Chicago railroad workers ranged from unskilled freight\nhandlers to locomotive engineers and, while in the early years most engineers\nwere native-born men, over time European immigrants took over, with the Irish<\/a>\npredominating. Patrick may have made a change to railroad conductor via an\nintroduction by his brother Thomas but mid-way from his sister\u2019s home to his\nfinal resting place he lived a single life as miserable and meagre as could be\nimagined. Was he the laborer\nPatrick Conroy, aged fifty and born in Ireland living in a boarding house on\nSouth Halsted Street in 1880? His marital status was \u2018married\u2019.  Or was he in Norwood Park, a community of\nChicago located on the far northwest side of the city? Here there lived a Pat\nConroy, aged sixty, at the Cook County Poor House. He was recorded as single, retired\nlabourer, sick from old age and born in Ireland. Either way, his sister found\nhim and gave him a comfortable home in his last days and administered his small\nestate. The soldier whose memories of a life spent in constant travelling, exciting\nadventure and gratifying farming, had children with no memory of him. Was the\nCivil War too much, too soon? A\nPatrick Conroy in A company, 5th<\/sup> Regiment, US Cavalry served\nalongside a Thomas Conroy which may suggest he joined his brother. One document\nfound in the military archives referred to a Private Patrick Conroy of A\nCompany, 5th<\/sup> or 6th<\/sup> (indecipherable writing) Regiment,\nU.S. Infantry. This soldier was listed in papers transmitted to the Office of\nthe Adjutant General during the Civil War. It described Private Patrick Conroy\nas \u201can insane soldier\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Military life\nwas unknown to Tom. Laboring on a railroad was unknown to him. So was farming.\nHe did not enjoy discipline, gardening, or stoic endurance on a personal level.\nNo matter how he tried, he could not connect with Patrick Conry, Why was that?\nCould his absence from his family have obliterated a route from which later\ngenerations gained their inherited make-up? It was Patrick\u2019s children who lost\nout; he was alive through their adult years yet the opportunity was never\nafforded them to know the joy that can be got from sitting alongside their father over the years and\nunderstanding the story of him growing up and living life. They would never\nhave a sense of cherishing the moment when they would learn of happenings that,\nprior to that, no one knew.It can be a privilege being the trusted\nbiographer of a parent\u2019s life. Emotional notes on a voice recalling memories\nare communicated when trust allows the most inner and important aspects of a\nlife to be shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom picked up the phone and rang Lois. \u201cLet\u2019s have fun, Mom. Tomorrow evening, I will bring over some music and we will write Christmas cards for everyone. All your cousins you have not met for years will get a card this year. We will tell them we cherish their love in our family circle and the memories of happy get-togethers.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom and Bill met over lunch in the Stone Harbor Inn in Sturgeon Bay. The view out the window was a waterfront blissfully shimmering and very camera-friendly. The boats bobbed in the water and the tiny cars moved across the encompassing iron-clad bridge in the near distance. It seemed vaguely familiar as Tom began to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Family History Story to Inspire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.momstribute.com\/company-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}