Both of my mother’s parents, Hannah and Patrick Kelly, came from the west of Ireland. Patrick Kelly from a little town in Co. Claire called Kilmilhil and Hannah Hanrahan from Banogue, a village in Co. Limerick. Hannah left the poverty of Ireland in 1899 to build a new life in the New World. She ended up in Chicago and soon got a job as a housekeeper for the wealthy Hirsh family who owned a furrier company. Hannah, who was only 16 or 17 years old, lived in the 3rd floor maids quarters of their mansion in the Hyde Park/Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago’s south side. My grandmother was the first of her family to leave Ireland.
Working long hours and saving all her earnings, eventually Hannah was able to pay for the passage to America for her sister, Kit. Together Hannah and Kit worked and saved until, one by one, all the Hanrahan siblings came to Chicago; Tom, Annie, Nell, Kit and John. Eventually, their father and mother, Tom & Ann, joined them.
Kit married Michael O’Keefe and had identical twin sons, Michael and Jack. Jack, the only one of the two to marr and who had served in WWII, was killed on his first wedding anniversary. He was an elevated train conductor and his train ran head-on into another train. He was killed instantly. His wife, parents and twin were waiting for him to get off of work and join them for mass and breakfast to celebrate the anniversary. When he didn’t show, his identical twin went to the train station to look for him. When he got there another conductor spotted him and exclaimed, “Jack, my God, I thought you were killed this morning!” That’s how Michael found out his brother was gone. Jack’s wife was pregnant and delivered a healthy baby boy shortly after her husband’s death. The son never married and neither did his Uncle Michael.
Nell married a wonderful Irishman by the name of Ed Hartigan. My recollections of Aunt Nell and Uncle Ed was visiting them in their apartment which, I believe, was over a garage on a corner somewhere near 69th & Halstead. Older and childless by the time I came along, Ed would sit in his chair with a pipe in this hand while Nell served up tea and biscuits for my mother and me. It all seemed so gentile; Nell always used her best china and the table was covered with an Irish lace cloth. They treated me like I was the most wonderful little girl in the world — to them I was beautiful, well-behaved and smart. So naturally I’d be the first one in the car when my mom announced a visit to the Hartigan’s.
Other than my grandmother, Kit and Nell, none of the other Hanrahan siblings married. In 1918 when he was 36 years old, John, a post office worker, fell off the back of a truck and died. Mary died of either TB or the flu (we are unsure which one) the following year; she was only 30 years of age. Tom and Annie lived together until old age but neither married.
The mother of the Hanrahan clan died in 1918 just a couple of months before her son fell off the truck and died. We have no record of when Tom, the father, died but I remember my mother talking about him. Apparently he was blind in his old age; it is speculation but it could have been diabetes.
They are all buried in adjoining lots in Mount Olivet cemetery on Chicago’s south side.
I know the spot well. After my grandma Kelly died, in 1949, my grandpa Kelly would often take me on the streetcar to visit her grave. He would pack a lunch and we would take three streetcars to get there, walk several blocks through the cemetery to the grave, and then sit and have a picnic at her gravesite. Now Mount Olivet cemetery is in the middle of the very populated Mount Greenwood neighborhood surrounded by traffic, homes, parks, churches, commercial buildings … in other words a very busy urban environment. In 1949/ the early 50s it was in the countryside, or at least that’s what it seemed to my four or five or six-year-old self. My grandpa had a cousin who lived just outside the cemetery. We would often stop at her house for tea before or after our visit with grandma. I don’t recall her name but I remember her as a tall older woman, with white hair and a large lump in the middle of her throat. I always was fascinated by that lump but noone ever explained me what it was and I thought it would be impolite to ask. I now realize it was probably a goiter.
A Goiter is a growth in the thyroid gland at the base of the front side of the neck just below the Adam’s apple. It can be attributed to not enough iodine in the diet. Back in the early 50’s there was nothing medicine could do to treat it. So this poor woman walked around with a large protrusion in the front of her neck — which was a fascinating to my six-year-old self.
© pending Eileen Murphy Donnersberger
Growing up in Chicago in the '50's 