Thursday July 7, 2016

Eureka!

I had signed up for a two week free trial of newspapers.com and forgot to cancel. So, I'm stuck with the subscription. Well it has turned out to be a little goldmine of information. A couple of mysteries already solved.

I guess that "back in the day" pretty much everything made the news. The cities were small and everyone seems to have known everyone else. I'd been spending a little time on the McGrath line as I've been trying to write my grandmother's story. Her name was Agnes McGrath and she kept that until she married. Then she became "Mrs Harry Sunderland". I'm so glad we've moved beyond having your identity depend on your spouse.

Even when she was young she led a pretty anonymous life. Her father was a city alderman for many years and he made the news a lot - mostly for pretty mundane things. The big story was the drowning of Aggie's two brothers, Frank and Allen along with Gordie Belot, the fiance of her sister Elena. Aggie was interviewed by the newspaper as she was the one who had found their boat floating upside down. Their parents were in Montreal at the time and came home by train when they got the news. That must have been a very difficult journey.

The Ottawa Journal of the time gave it extensive coverage and it seems to have been the beginning of a series of family losses. This was the greatest blow and severely affected the health of both parents. They died within four years of this loss. Aggie also lost her husband within a year of losing both parents.

But I digress. Some of the McGraths emigrated to Riverside California. They were a mysterious lot to me but Aggie kept up a correspondence with her cousin Kate who was the oldest of the children who set out for California with her parents. Kate's father John was a master carpenter. He apparently made his fortune building crates for the citrus industry. Later he was known as a master carpenter who built a number of beautiful homes in the arts and crafts style. The family home was built in 1911 and is still in perfect condition. It is a lovely home by any definition.

John was the oldest of 11 children and one of his brothers followed him. I had found the baptism of Michael but then he seemed to disappear. It seems that he followed John to California following a bout of typhoid. I guess I'll have to see what I can find about typhoid in Ottawa in the late 19th century. He had not really recovered when he traveled cross-border and cross-country. My guess is that he went by train, but who knows?

Anyway, in the Ottawa Journal of January 24th 1893, was a short article saying that Michael had died 21 months after arriving in California. His occupation was given as 'stair builder'. I suppose that fit very well with his brother's work. Michael was only 34 years old. Of course all this happened between censuses and little other information has come to light.

When I was in California visiting descendants of John McGrath, we went to Evergreen cemetery in Riverside. We found the graves of John and his wife Johanna and nearby was one for Michael. I had thought it was possibly John's brother but had no documentation. Now we know.

What is still a mystery is that the name of a little girl named Annie is also on Michael's stone. Michael was not married and had never had children. John had no child named Annie. This is another path to go down some day.

Another article appeared in the Ottawa Journal when John passed away in Riverside.  Apparently his death was as a result of an accident. Something else to investigate. So far I have not found any newspapers from Riverside but one day the answer will turn up. Perhaps there was a later article in the Ottawa paper. This one had shown up as related to Alderman E.P. McGrath. I guess it's good to be prominent. Details as I find them.

It's brutally hot these days so I will likely stay indoors and keep digging for information. More to follow.