Obstacles in their path were simply a reason to work harder, for both Michael McGrath and Catherine Brennan. It seems that everyone in Castlecomer region was either a farmer or coal miner. The hardships suffered at the hands of landlords and the terrible shortage of food in the famine had forced their families to leave all that they had known. Their families, neighbours in the townlands of Crutt and Moneenroe, near Castlecomer in County Kilkenny remained friends in Canada.
Michael McGrath was a grown man when he emigrated to Canada in 1847. With him was his mother Mary Maher, step-father Hugh Toole and half-siblings Elizabeth and James Toole. Irish emigrants sharing quarters on the same trans-Atlantic journey might have been their neighbours, John and Ellen Brennan and their children Margaret, Catherine, William and James. After the dreadful Atlantic crossing and the perils at Grosse Ile quarantine station, they all eventually arrived in Bytown. John Brennan died either on the ship, at Grosse Ile or soon after settling in Bytown. Michael McGrath found work as a labourer in Aylmer, just across the Ottawa River, and Catherine Brennan became a servant in a Bytown home.
Michael McGrath, age 34, and 17 year old Catherine Brennan, married in Notre Dame Basilica in Bytown in 1854. Although they’d been acquainted all of Catherine’s life, they did not fall in love until they were settled in Canada. What brought them together in Bytown? We can but speculate that friendship blossomed into love. Michael must have moved to Bytown before their marriage. Their past lives had been difficult but if they’d looked into a crystal ball they’d have seen that they would raise a family that prospered, despite multiple sad losses along the way. Hard work and determination raised them from the grinding poverty that they had grown up with.
Lowertown, where they set up house, was home to most of the Irish population at that time. It was a tough area with few luxuries other than access to local businesses and the farmer’s market. The town was named after Colonel John By who had overseen the building of the Rideau Canal from 1826 to 1832. Its name changed when the city of Ottawa was incorporated in 1855. That same year, the McGraths welcomed their first child, John, namesake of his maternal grandfather. Canada was not yet a country.
The rent on their home was very low, less than five dollars a month. The daily life of a housewife, however, was very onerous. Every day Catherine would carry water from a common well, for cooking, cleaning and bathing. There was no land near their house to grow any vegetables so she would shop at the market to feed her family. The trudge through the rough streets for water or to the market was made much more difficult in Spring when the Rideau River would overflow its banks. What were supposed to be streets, became mud holes. Hitching up her skirt to avoid the worst of the muck, she’d plod along. Some days she would have had to make several trips to the well. This was her lot for many years as home would not have running water in her lifetime. With each pail of water she’d pray that it would be clean and not make her family sick.
In 1857, Queen Victoria named Ottawa as the capital of Canada, but it would still be 10 years before Canada became a country until July 1, 1867.
The McGrath family grew along with the city and the new country. In the years following John’s birth, more and more sons arrived to fill up the household. Their sports teams were assembled, one player at a time. William who was born in June 1956 was the namesake of his paternal grandfather. With the arrival of third son Michael shortly before Christmas of 1858, and then James in early 1861, Catherine’s workload mounted. In 1863 baby Thomas arrived for a very short stay on earth. He lived but a month and his loss was the first recorded family tragedy. Baptised on the day he was born, his fate was sealed before he’d begun to live. Edward Patrick, our Ned, was born a year later, as the middle child in what would grow to include 11 children. He was baptised at Notre Dame Cathedral about a week after his birth. This was the same church where his parents had married and it was their parish while they lived in Lowertown.
Meanwhile, the senior leaders of the nation-in-waiting were holding meetings first in Quebec and later in Charlottetown to plan the unification of the former British Colonies.
Joseph Eugene joined the family three days before Ned’s second birthday. The celebration of Confederation on July 1, 1867, coincided roughly with Joe’s first birthday.
The rough and tumble McGrath boys were a mighty force, on the baseball and lacrosse fields, and as part of a family that held nothing more sacred than their family connection. Where you found one, you found the others. Their Irish heritage was their proudest treasure and no succeeding generation was allowed to forget where they came from.
Finally a girl! The birth of the first daughter, christened Mary Ellen but always called Mary, in December of 1868, was greeted with great jubilation. Now they had a cheerleader for whatever sport the McGrath team was playing at the moment. Three years later Dennis Patrick arrived. Mary Catherine “Kate,” made her appearance in 1874 and the final baby of the family, Francis Joseph, was born in 1877. They certainly had a houseful but never did the entire family live as one unit. As the children arrived over 22 years, Catherine’s oldest sons were gainfully employed by the time Francis arrived. None moved out of the family home before they married. Sadly, by that same time, they had also lost Joe and Dennis in 1873. But the McGraths had looked adversity and death in the face many times and each loss in many ways, fortified them to face the future.
In between the births of Mary and Dennis was a terrible, widespread fire that started near Pakenham and eventually over a few days, fanned by wind, would devastate a large area of what is now the city of Ottawa. Somehow the McGrath home was selected to be a rest stop for firefighters. They were provided with food and drinks from the front porch. Six year old Ned loved every minute, being quite unaware of the danger posed by the rapidly encroaching flames. Perhaps this was the start of his love of crowd attention. The seeds of politics might have been sown right then.
During the first 12 years of their marriage, Michael and Catherine had multiple addresses. In 1861 they were living on Baird St., now the site of the Lester B. Pearson building on Sussex Drive. When Ned was born in 1864 their home was on Nunnery St, now called Bruyere St. It was mere blocks from Baird but a little closer to the centre of town and a little farther from the Rideau River.
On was a warm summer evening in late July of 1864 the buzz of conversation on every doorstep in the lowertown neighbourhood was a sign that the local telecommunication system on Nunnery St. was working to capacity. It seemed that the whole street was enjoying the spell of great weather, sitting outside chatting for a bit before retiring. Family news traveled fast around there and rumours travelled even faster. Letters from Ireland were shared with all the neighbours, often because few of the locals were able to read. Once someone had heard a story it didn’t take long to get around. The population of the area was almost completely Roman Catholic and either Irish or French.
Their four older boys were finally asleep and Catherine glanced warily at two-week old Ned nestled in her left arm as she nursed him. She and Michael sat and talked over a cup of tea. Catherine couldn’t take her eyes off the sleeping infant, taking careful note that he was breathing easily and had no fever. They had lost baby Thomas at the age that Ned was now, just last year. The latest rumour on the street was that the city was soon going to level their familiar neighbourhood to make way for some grand projects. They had already moved from Baird Street which would soon be levelled. It didn’t sound like the changes were going to be much of an advantage for the McGraths and their neighbours. Being inhabitants of the poorest neighbourhood in Ottawa, they would be hard pressed to find another place to live. They talked about where they might move to and when they should go.
With a growing sense of urgency, Michael suggested they should move to Uppertown, just beyond the current western city limits, before they were forced to move somewhere they didn’t like. He knew a couple of men who had made the move with their own families and it seemed like a good choice. The land was higher and far from the river that tended to flood every Spring when the ice broke up. Their previous location had once been pretty much swampland so Spring brought plenty of challenges from the mud, even when the Rideau River didn’t overflow its banks.
Michael had been working long hours at as many jobs as he could manage, leaving the responsibility for the boys and their tiny home entirely to Catherine. Having survived the Great Famine in Ireland and the difficult crossing of the Atlantic amidst illness, death and melancholy, they both knew what life could be like when everything you knew had to be left behind, Now they steeled themselves for having to leave familiar surroundings and uproot the lives of their children. Because of Michael's hard work and Catherine’s careful budgeting, they had saved a little money in preparation for a situation such as they now faced.
It was the next year that Michael uprooted the family from their well-known neighbourhood and community of friends and settled his brood in Mount Sherwood, nearer to Booth Street than Bronson. This was a difficult move but the McGraths became pioneers in a community that they would never leave. The street, a rather grand description of the location, had no name and was not within the city limits. A well would be shared in common with their neighbours, but this was no different than what they would leave behind.
Here is an account, written many years later by Ned. He was only a year old when his father moved the family to Uppertown.
There were a few moves as Michael built two homes on Lebreton Street. Some of their moves were temporary as Michael proceeded with building their home at 146 Lebreton Street. Michael always lived with Ned, no matter the address. The family lived for over 10 years at 132 Lebreton St. In 1877 the city sold building lots and Michael acquired one almost next door to #132 and built his family their ‘forever home’.
The losses of their sons mounted, each one tearing out another piece of her heart. Sadly Catherine passed away in November of 1881. She was only 44 years old. Ned was 17. The family was still deeply grieving the loss of their beloved mother when Francis became ill and died of diphtheria in January of 1882. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s a trite phrase that’s easier to say than to live. By his 21st birthday, Ned knew more than any teenager should ever have had to learn about loss and carrying on. In the family with 13 members, only 9 set foot in the house. Four of the McGrath sons had died before their 8th birthdays. The loss of Catherine left Michael with eight children, aged 4 to 26. Only a few weeks later that number was reduced to seven with the passing of young Francis. His sons were all working and contributed to the household income. Mary and Kate were still in school.
The remaining siblings lived to adulthood, although William was only 30 when he died of kidney disease in 1886, and Michael just 35 when he died just after moving to California in 1893. He had just recovered from typhoid fever when he left Ottawa for California. He died 21 months after arriving to work with his brother John, by then a husband and father of a large family himself, and very successful carpenter.
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