TIDBITS ON ST. PATRICK'S DAY

The corned beef is cooking in the crock pot (corned beef won over Guinness stew this year at our house) and the Guinness chocolate cupcakes are baking in the oven.  When the cupcakes are cooled they will be topped with a Jameson whiskey caramel frosting.

As I am sipping on an Irish coffee, I am thinking about my Irish ancestors and my two trips to Ireland.  Since last St. Patrick's Day, I found out that my Sherlock ancestors actually originated from the Scurlogs who lived in Wales.  In the last month, I also found out that my Chambers ancestors originated from Abbotshall, Fife, Scotland.  I also spent 10 glorious days in Ireland but more about that in a later post.

I have more hope that my Kilroy and Caffrey ancestors have deeper roots in Ireland than the Chambers and Sherlocks do.  Currently I can trace my Kilroy ancestors back to Patrick Kilroy, who was born in 1730.  Of course, I still need to do a lot more research on the Dever, McLoughlin, Caffrey and Denning ancestors.

While I was in Islandeady in County Mayo this past August, we were visiting St. Patrick's Catholic Church.  It was the childhood church of my Great Grandmother Bridget Elizabeth Chambers Sherlock.  My husband took a photo of a picture that was displayed in the church.  It is the photo below.  I just love the little boy and his dog praying!

I would like to share one of my favorite Irish blessings --

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand

Wishing you all – 

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh!  (Happy St. Paddy’s Day!)

The Dilemma

For awhile now I have been contemplating including my research and stories of my German ancestors, beginning with my Grandma Theresa who was married to Grandpa Charlie in this blog.  Would that confuse people?  Maybe those people following the Irish ancestry don’t want to hear about the German ancestry.  What should I do?

          Well, about six weeks ago, I did encourage my son to start his own blog – not on genealogy – but on something that interested him.  I do believe that blogs need to be about your passions.  Well, he graduated with a degree in Creative Writing and his passion is fiction – books, movies, TV shows.  After giving him the advice that he needs to make the theme general enough so that he would have stuff to write about, I decided perhaps to follow my own advice.  

          So, from now on, I will be incorporating information about the Nebgens, the Homrich’s, the Simons, etc., along with the Sherlock’s and Chambers.  After all, the two families assimilated almost 100 years ago. 

Grandpa Charlie married Grandma Theresa on 23 March 1918 in Crown Point, Indiana.    Charlie Sherlock was 17 years old and perhaps was trying to be independent from his mother Bridget, stepfather Joseph and 5 year old brother Joseph.  Theresa Nebgen, on the other hand, was the youngest of 3 daughters.  Her oldest sister Helen had gotten married in 1917 to Albert Cedargreen.  I can’t tell whether her older sister Ann was already married in 1918 or was to be married shortly.  Theresa also had an older brother Emil who wasn’t married yet.  Needless, to say, whether it was young love or a chance to escape, Charlie and Theresa married in 1918.  Of course, I am sure that they were deeply disappointed when their parents told them they would have to live back with their own families for awhile.  Knowing my grandparents, I am sure that didn’t set well with them. 

          It is rather interesting that in the 1920 census, Theresa is listed as Theresa Sherlock and married while living with her parents, while her spouse Charlie was listed as “single” and he was living with his mother and step dad.  Fifty years later in March of 1968, we celebrated the 50^th Anniversary of Charlie and Theresa.  I was in the 7^th grade and remember the anniversary Mass celebrated at St. Genevieve’s Catholic Church in Panorama City, Los Angeles, California and the party that followed at Uncle Eddie’s and Aunt Dolores’ house.  Their 3 sons, daughter-in-laws, and 14 grandchildren and a few great grandchildren celebrated Grandpa Charlie’s and Grandma Theresa’s 50 years together. 

Note: Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Theresa are on the left in the above photo. My Dad, their son, Donald, is 2^nd to the far right.  The photo was taken in the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood, California in 1946. 

Unrelated Note: For anyone who may be interested, my son’s blog in which he analyzes fiction is at alltherobots.wordpress.com.

Charles Zola Sherlock -- More on His Childhood Years

          In 1906, after Charlie’s return from Ireland and before his grandmother’s death, Charlie’s mother Bridget Chambers Sherlock remarried after being a widow for 5 years.  Bridget married Joseph Francis Gary, a man who was 13 years her junior and who worked as a laborer at the Pipe Company. 

          Charles’ death of his maternal grandmother in February 2, 1908 was only the beginning of more tragic times for Charlie (who was also known as Zola) and his family.  A mere six weeks later, Charlie’s older brother Edmund Bernard Sherlock died on 14 March 1908 at the age of 10 years old after suffering from acute bronchitis for only one day and from weeklong cold.  Edmund was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day.

A few months after Edmund’s death, Charlie’s mother Bridget got pregnant – whether it was purposely done to wipe away the grief of Edmund’s death, whether she thought Charlie needed a sibling or whether she wanted to have a child with her husband Joseph, no one will ever know. Bridget gave birth to a daughter, Anna Margrette Gary, on February 13, 1909.  I am sure it must have been a wonderful Valentine’s Day that year for the entire family.   The joy was short-lived however, due to the death of baby Anna almost 7 months later on September 6, 1909.  Poor baby Anna died of infantile atrophy and inanition due to gastroenteritis. 

At this point, you may be wondering when would Charlie and his family’s luck change.  The luck of the Irish was definitely not on their side! Is there more heartbreak in store for Charlie, Bridget and Joseph? Well, three years later, Bridget would give birth once again in the month of February – this time on February 29^th, 1912.   Joseph Thomas Gary was a leap year and day baby. I remember how Grandpa Charlie always made a big deal of Uncle Joe being born on February 29^th and how in 1964, Uncle Joe had only celebrated 13 birthdays when he was really 52 years old.  Uncle Joe is sitting in the front row in the center in the above photo.

After discovering the story of Grandpa Charlie’s childhood, I felt like I finally understood him.  He was always a tough guy with lots of wild stories, but now I understood that he was a SURVIVOR.  How does one carry on with their life when almost everyone you know dies around you?  Does it make you think that you must be special – that there is some specific reason why you are alive and your brothers and sister and father aren’t?

Charles Zola Sherlock -- His Early Childhood

          I remember Grandpa Charlie telling the story of how when he was about to be punished for misbehaving that he would ask his mother (Bridget Elizabeth Chambers Sherlock), “Are you going to punish your only living child?”  Now, I thought that was rather strange but then again Grandpa Charlie was the family’s originator of the 2% rule (stories only needed to be 2% true – yeah, that legend has carried on even until today). 

          I started researching Charles Sherlock and his mother Bridget Elizabeth Chambers and his father Edward Thomas Sherlock in the 1900 US Census.  Since Charles was born on July 9^th of that year, he wouldn’t appear in the census.  I did find both Bridget (although, she was listed under the name Elizabeth B, probably due to the fact that Edward also had a sister named Bridget) and Edward Sherlock, as well as their child, Edmund, who was 1 years old.  In the 1900 census, one of the questions that was posed was “You are the mother of how many children?”   Bridget answered, “2 children”.  When asked, “what is the number of children living now”, she answered, “One.”   Well, a look into the old family bible lists “,  Edward and Thomas” as siblings of Charles. Further research showed that Edmund Bernard Sherlock and Thomas Gordon Sherlock were twins and were born in November 1897.  Luckily, I found the death certificate for Thomas Gordon Sherlock, which showed that he died before his first birthday on Oct. 17, 1898 from meningitis with dysentery as a contributing cause for his death.

 Then Grandpa Charlie was born on July 9, 1900.  Grandpa’s father Edward Thomas Sherlock died on December 9, 1901 when Grandpa was only 17 months old. His death certificate says he died of phthisis (which is a word that means tuberculosis).  According to his death certificate, he had this disease for 6 months. It also said that catarrh of the stomach was a contributing cause of death.  Edward was a butcher and the family lore was that he caught the disease through his work, but we will never know exactly how he caught this disease.

In 1905, when Grandpa Charlie was about 5 years old, his mother Bridget (I’m calling her by that name since that is what he called her by) braved the open seas and took her two sons to Ireland, probably to visit her homeland and family but also to bring her mother back with her to America.  Grandpa Charlie’s maternal grandfather Thomas Chambers died in 1889. 

Can you imagine at the age of 5 years old (kindergarten age in our time) spending 6 weeks each way on a ship on the rough seas (and we are not talking about cruise ship here)?  So, Ann Kilroy Chambers (grandmother to Grandpa Charlie) came back to Chicago and lived with them until her death on February 2, 1908.  The cause of her death is listed as gastritis and a contributing cause was debility from starving because of the gastritis.   

I am thinking I need to stop here with all this cheerful news and continue on with this story in the next post, but just imagine this early childhood of Charlie Sherlock and how this would affect him for the rest of his life!