Decades are Helpful, but They Do Contain Years

Census records gave me information that was fairly accurate, but there is a ten year gap between each one. City Directories were a precursor to telephone books, and were issued each year. Alphabetical listings included names, professions and addresses. Listings were by heads of household, or those that were employed, as well as widows. Actual directories do exist, but both the Maryland Historical Society (http://www.mdhs.org/) and the Maryland Room of the Pratt Library (http://www.prattlibrary.org/locations/maryland/index.aspx?mark=Maryland+Room) have microfilm copies of these that are fairly easy to view and print out. After looking at printouts of successive years, I could see when a family moved, when professions changed, find a soft confirmation of dates of death, see how close by relatives lived, and other factors that led me to conclusions that might be confirmed by more primary sources.

My Development of the Irish Matriarch

The creation of this blog was based on items that I had on hand, and the exploration of various themes that they suggested to me. I began with a collection of photographs I had inherited from my mother, some of which had a little information scribbled on the back, while others did not. The information may have included a name, address or the nature of that person's relationship to someone in the family. This was the basis of my exploration, and the story developed through different discoveries I made along the way.

The first and most valuable information was found in the U. S. Census records, available for free through local libraries. These censuses were taken every ten years, and each has information that is particular to that decade, as different questions are asked, and answered. By going to http://www.prattlibrary.org/, I could click on the "find answers" tab and follow the prompts that would allow me to visit http://www.heritagequestonline.com/hqoweb/library/do/index. With the basic information I had from my pictures, I could type in the names of the people I was researching. This was not always easy, as typographical errors by me, the census taker or the transcriptionist could result in a " no one found" response by the site. Sometimes I had to look at similarly spelled last names or the names of other family members in order to find the person I was searching for. An example of this would be the 1870 Census. The Burgans that I was looking for were listed by the census taker as "Bergen". I knew this was true because the ages and names of the family members matched up to other records I had come across in other censuses. There were also times when the address or neighbors that I knew of would lead me to a record that would have otherwise been undecipherable. An important part of analyzing the different censuses was seeing what information they provided that other ones did not, such as addresses, how many years married, and other questions. The site was very helpful, and is available to anyone who has a Pratt Library card and internet access.

A second excellent site to visit was http://www.ancestry.com/. This is also available at libraries in Baltimore City and County, but you must go into the library itself to use it. There are many different databases linked to this site, and information is easily available there. Slight spelling variations are allowed , and the results are listed by how close they are to the spelling you have input. On Ancestry you can look up anyone, while the Heritage Quest site tends to list more by the heads of family. Some information can be very easily found on one web site, and very difficult on the other. For example, the 1850 census is available through Ancestry. A small detail like this can open up a whole new field of research possibilities. For example, this was the first census to include children's names, and a new generation of ancestors was discovered as a result.

Resting in Her Shade

It is said that one generation plants a tree, and the next one rests in its shade. Agnes Bettie Kenney Burgan, the Irish Matriarch, bought and maintained a home for many years. Four generations would find rest there, but the street that was referred to as a country road by at least one resident became crowded, and a bit seedy. What was once a respite from city life became part of it, and Vi Burgan Sullivan left for a quieter part of town with her husband, aged Aunt Annie, and her two children in 1952. The old "homestead in Homestead" is gone now, replaced by a community garden owned by the city. Just west of that neighborhood, a few houses similar to the duplex they lived in can still be seen. The Patterson Family Cemetery is just around the corner from there, albeit neglected, and the library and firehouse are closed. The family church building is being used by another denomination, and Clifton Park is still a pretty busy place.

I wish that I could have sat on that porch with my Mom, Margaret Mary Sullivan, and Granddad that day. But then, that wouldn't work, would it?

Vi Gets Hitched

After a few years of persistence, Vi Burgan and William C. Sullivan were finally married on December 31, 1936. The ceremony was performed by Bishop Toolen at St. Edward's Catholic Church in West Baltimore.

Brunch was held at the family home, and the young couple left by train to honeymoon in Atlantic City and New York. Vi had her man, handsome and well dressed; he must have reminded her of the father she admired so, and had lost nine years earlier. After their honeymoon, they returned to Homestead to begin a family of their own. Some years earlier, Madison Street had become Montpelier Street, as the annexation of Homestead into Baltimore City had caused the dilemma of two streets with the same name. In proper historical fashion, James Madison's home, Montpelier, made the most sense if a change had to be made, and a renumbering changed the home address to 1443 Montpelier Street.

A Distant Admiration

The Irish Matriarch's youngest, William Edward, continued his marble cutting career wherever it took him. I am trying to figure out who he talked into photographing him while on the job in a cemetery, but here he is. When this blog began, all I knew was that he had worked for the Baltimore firm Hilgartner & Sons (http://www.hilgartner.com/), but I have learned that he traveled to jobs more than I knew. Despite his terrible loss in New Orleans, William supported his family through hard work in other places as well. The Draft Registration of 1918 shows him as working at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I cannot quite read the name of the firm that employed him there, but it wasn't Hilgartner (thanks to Melanie, my classmate, for sending this to me via http://www.ancestry.com/. His interests seemed to include photography and dapper clothing throughout his lifetime.

As his older brother did to a degree, he left the daily care for his daughter Vi to his mother Agnes and his sister Annie Jane. Nonetheless, his daughter thought of him very fondly, and just might have looked for a similar guy that she could call her own.

William would die in 1927, just three years after his mother. His older brother would survive him by ten years, and Annie Jane, eight years his senior, would live for 29 years more.

A Special Life

Vi Burgan is pictured here in her early teens. Her father loved amateur photography, and the family continued to have professional portraits, such as this one, taken as well. Vi was beautiful , sociable and smart, did well in school, and was active in her church and denomination throughout her life. Her Mom passed away when she was five, and her Dad was absent quite often, going to where the work was. Agnes and Aunt Annie raised her, for the most part, but she always displayed an independent spirit. After going to local grammar schools, she attended Eastern High School, which was located at the time at North Avenue and Broadway. She graduated in 1918, during the time of the Great War. Her training there prepared her for office work, including working in the Catholic Office for the Propagation of the Faith. Among the staff there was Father Toolen, a priest that had taught her catechism

as a young girl. He would later become the Bishop of Mobile, Alabama, and offer the sacraments to Vi and her daughter in unique circumstances.

The Irish Matriarch must have taken special pride in Vi. The three granddaughters that she helped to raise ended up in variant circumstances. Maria would die in 1917, and Carrie seems to have married and moved away. Vi would care for Grandmom and Aunt Annie until their death. She delayed her own marriage until 1936, which she explained away with The Depression. I wonder if her husband to be was still a wild rover, and it took her that long to settle him down, at least a little.

Faithful, and a Little Different

Annie Jane was the oldest surviving child of The Irish Matriarch, born in 1867. She lived with her Mom, or right next door, for her whole life. She became a widow after 26 years of marriage, and stayed with her Mom, and then her niece Vi for the rest of her life. This faithfulness to her family must have been a strength to others through the years.

There was another side to her, some parts which are known by me, while others are inferred or assumed. My earliest picture of her, as a child in her mothers' arms, show her as pretty, but a little distant. When time came to marry, she chose a neighbor that was twenty years her senior. Never having children of her own, she helped raise three nieces. In the 1930 census, she might be marked as "insane" by the census taker; it appears that it could be an errant mark on the page. At the end of her life, she joined her niece Vi's family when they sold the "Homestead" and moved to the Woodbourne development in 1952. At that point, she was a recluse, staying in her room constantly. She lived there until her death in 1956, at the age of 89.