Edward Aloysius O'Connor — Is sober and industrious, conscientious and trustworthy.

Edward O'Connor 1918

Now that we know more about the parents of my maternal grandfather, Edward Aloysius O'Connor, let's get to know him better.  He was always a hard worker, out of necessity at first perhaps, but that instilled in him the desire to keep persevering to improve his position in life and personal growth.  He must have believed enlisting in the military would give him opportunities for a better future.  He enlisted in the United States Army on July 9, 1918, two weeks before his 21st birthday, at Fort Slocum in New York.  Just  17 days later, he was graded as a Sergeant. In January 1919, he was promoted to Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM), Headquarters Detachment of the 216th Engineers Battalion at Camp Kearny in San Diego, California.  The RSM is primarily responsible for maintaining standards and discipline and acts as a parental figure to their subordinates and also to junior officers, even though they te

World War I Service Abstract

chnically outrank the RSM.  Edward was honorably discharged by reason of demobilization on February 28, 1919, without having served overseas. It was noted on his discharge certificate that his character was "Excellent."

There is an abundance of documents kept by Edward throughout his life, especially correspondence and award certificates.  This meticulous record-keeping gives us an insight into the man he was, through his own eyes and words, as well as those of his superiors and colleagues. I, myself, probably keep more material records of events in my life than necessary, so maybe I have Grandpa O'Connor to thank, or blame, for that part of my psyche.

In 1929, Edward went to work as an Inspector of Customs for the Treasury Department, United States Customs Service, at the Port of Andrade, California. In February of 1931, E.R. Brown, Deputy Collector in Charge (Customs Service), was requested by his superior to "go into fullest detail in regard to the personnel under your jurisdiction and to give your analysis of the men under you to the end that this office may become better acquainted with personnel matters."  Below is what Mr. Brown submitted for Edward O'Connor, which also accounts for the 1919-1929 gap in his employment record:

Edward, in the middle,
at Calexico Customs Office

The following is a transcription of a letter Edward submitted when applying for a Customs Service position at the Calexico port of entry in July of 1938. He wrote of his experience up to that point which would make him eligible for such an upgrade.  The position he applied for is not specifically mentioned, just that it was one of twelve new positions in Grade CAF-7 at $2,600 per annum. 

"Education:  Graduated from public school in New York City in February 1911 and then attended Newtown High School until I was fourteen years of age when it became necessary to go to work.  Attended various evening schools in New York City, enrolling in courses in Commercial Law, French, Bookkeeping and Stenography.

Enlisted in the Engineer Corps, U.S. Army, July 9, 1918 and was honorably discharged with the rank of Regimental Sergeant-Major on February 28, 1919. 

Since my discharge from the Army, I have studied, through the mediums of correspondence schools, evening high schools (in San Diego), and reading, Auditing and Accounting, Spanish, Economics and Tariff History and Construction.

Prior to my entrance into the Customs Service, I had eighteen years experience in auditing, accounting, personnel management, office organization and procedure.  

I entered the Customs Service as an Inspector on June 9, 1929 and served at the ports of Andrade and San Ysidro.  I was appointed a Clerk at San Ysidro on January 16, 1937, and promoted to Deputy Collector at the port of Calexico July 1, 1937.

Since coming to Calexico, I have instituted a port school to serve as an adjunct to the Bureau School, and in connection with this have done much research work."

Edward in Rome, Italy, 1945

In the midst of World War II, on February 14, 1942, Edward enlisted in the Army as a Private, again answering the call to duty.  At that time, he was 44 years old, married to Lu, and a father of three.  Edward was sent to Officers Training School in Grinnell, Iowa, and then sent to Tonkawa, Oklahoma[i], to prepare the grounds for German Prisoners of War.  It may be that his experience from the WWI 216th Engineers Battalion was instrumental in securing this assignment for Edward.  Later he joined the Military Police, in his words, "because it's the only way I can get overseas."  And that he did.  As a First Lieutenant in the 2675th Regiment, Edward served in Casablanca, Sicily, and Rome under the Allied Military Government.[ii] At the end of World War II, he refused further service and was honorably discharged as a Captain in 1946.  

Lu & Edward, New Year's Eve 1945, outside
their Covington Road home in San Diego.

After Edward's military stint in World War II, he returned to the U.S. Customs Service as a Deputy Collector and remained there until his retirement at age 66, on November 5, 1963.  His retirement party organized by the Bureau of Customs office in San Diego, was held at the El Cortez Hotel, 7th and Ash Street, at 7:30 p.m. with a social hour preceding.  The price of the non-hosted dinner was $4.75 per person, not including the social hour.

San Diego Union, November 19, 1963

Afterthoughts:

1.  Edward O'Connor was certainly someone who seemed to live by the book, who obeyed the letter and spirit of the law. His military training, leadership characteristics, and attention to detail in matters of accounting and discipline through his professional, government, and military careers were all contributing factors to his demeanor and outlook on life.  But there was a hidden, humorous side of him as well. What is your memory of his wittiness? I remember that at least for one Christmas, he wrapped presents for all of the grandchildren but did not put names on them. Instead he wrote a code that only he seemed to understand on the back of the wrapped gift.  That way no one knew which gift was theirs until he said so. I think he enjoyed watching each of us trying to find our present. Did anyone ever decipher that code?  I don't remember the format, just that it was always a puzzle, to me at least.

2.  Grandma O'Connor wrote a chapter  on "Edward's Family" in her  book of life stories, "My Grandma Dotes: Anecdotes of 93 Years of the Life and times of Temperance Lulu Lord O'Connor." She had thought at times that it would be so interesting to trace his (Edward's) people—to find out the kind of man she married and lived with for 53 years.  The few times she asked him about his people, Edward was so curt, so cross, giving her so little information that she never asked again.  She never understood why he didn't want them to know her or for her to know them. I hope with the last few blog posts, that we all know more now than she had ever hoped to uncover. I know she would be amazed at how much information can now be found, because of the internet and better access to records, about people who were previously unknown to her, to us.

3.  According to Grandma O'Connor, Edward was very insistent that his name be properly spelled as "O'Connor."  The two letters and the apostrophe were very important.  That spelling signified that he was descended from the Kings of Ireland—any other spelling meant that you were of the lower classes of Ireland.  That, Edward insisted, he was NOT.  Grandma believed him, but confessed that she didn't actually know.  Perhaps, he at some point had researched the O'Connor name and some something similar to this: Variants of the name O'Connor include O'Conor, Connor, Conor and Conyers.  The O'Connors descended from Conchobbar who was King of Connacht in the 971.  The last two Kings of Connact, Turlough O'Connor, 1088-1198, and Roderick O'Connor, 1116-1198, were of this line.  There were six O'Connor septs the most important being the O'Connors of Connacht.  the O'Connor sept of Kerry had their territory north of Kerry, but were pushed to the Shannon estuary after the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1170.  The other septs were O'Connor of Corcomroe, Clare, O'Connor of Offaly and O'Connor of Keenaght, Ulster.[iii]

Edward Aloysius O'Connor
July 23, 1897 - July 8, 1973
Picture from @1963

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[i] Camp Tonkawa Prisoner of War Camp:  Between October and December 1942 more than 900 construction workers labored twenty-four hours a day to build Camp Tonkawa. The 160-acre site contained more than 180 wooden structures for 3,000 German P.O.W.s, as well as 500 U.S. Army guard troops, service personnel and civilian employees. Activated in January 1943, the post received its first P.O.W.s in August, German troops of the Afrika Corps captured in North Africa. The facility operated at or near capacity throughout its existence. Prisoners worked on area farms and ranches as well as at an alfalfa dryer plant in Tonkawa. In November 1943, a disturbance among the prisoners resulted in the death of one German soldier. Eight P.O.W.s escaped from the camp but all were recaptured. Camp Tonkawa closed in September 1945, and the P.O.W.s were returned to Europe. http://blogoklahoma.us/place.aspx?id=839

[ii] The Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (originally abbreviated AMGOT, later AMG) was the form of military rule administered by Allied forces (American and British) during and after World War II within European territories they occupied. Allies and Italians Under Occupation: Sicily and Southern Italy, 1943-1945, by Isobel Williams (2103).  This is a good book to read if you are interested in what the Allied Military Government's role was in Italy during WWII. 

[iii] http://www.irishsurnames.com/cgi-bin/namesearch.pl

Part 2—What Happened to Thomas, Jennie, and Anna Margaret?

My great-grandmother, Jane Boland, was born in Ireland between 1864 (death certificate) and 1866 (1900 Federal Census) to parents John Boland and Mary Cavanaugh/Cavanagh. It is not known if she had any siblings or where in Ireland she may have been born. While searching for possible locations for the Boland name in Ireland, I found two websites which note 1) In 1890, the sole Boland family in all of Ireland resided in the county of Clare[i] and 2) that there are estimated to be two founding ancestors with genetic homelands as Mayo/Sligo and Clare/Tipperary borderlands.[ii] So it seems that Boland is not a very common name in Ireland, as it does not even make the Top 100 Most Common Irish Surnames list.[iii]

Jane immigrated from Ireland to the United States sometime between 1884 to 1887, and since she stayed in the New York area for the rest of her life, she probably went through the Castle Garden Immigration Center[iv] in Manhattan, New York. The 1900 U.S. Federal Census, the only one Jennie appears in, reports her as immigrating in 1884. If this is true, she would have been 20-22 years old, certainly old enough to travel from Ireland to the United States by herself. However, I have not found an entry for a Jane Boland on any ship manifest coming into America during the year 1884. I did find two entries for a Jane Boland in May and September of 1887 each entry on the same ship, City of Rome, out of Liverpool, England, and Queensland, Ireland (now known as Cobh). On both of the 1887 manifests, Jane Boland's age is listed as 21 and her occupation is listed as a servant[v]. Did she try to enter the United States in May only to be turned away as a pauper, vagrant, criminal or diseased person, or she simply wished to return to Ireland.  Another option is that perhaps they are two separate Jane Bolands coming over at different times.  The latter seems unlikely since we know that the last name Boland was not that common in Ireland, and they are the same age with the same occupation.  So, at this point, I am willing to be content with my estimate of Jane's immigration timeframe as sometime between 1884 and 1887, which I think is accurate enough for now. I will hopefully fill in the blanks later as I continue to search for more information to validate what year Jane arrived in the United States.

Aerial view illustration of the tip of Manhattan in New York City, featuring Castle Garden (round fortress type building in center bottom) in Battery Park and docks on the rivers. Brooklyn Bridge under construction is shown in an exaggerated scale.  Circa 1880

The following description of what an Irish immigrant girl like Jane might encounter upon arrival in America has been paraphrased from "The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930" by Margaret Lynch-Brennan:  "The Catholic Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary provided a service...to help Irish immigrant girls to obtain service jobs. The mission began operation in New York in 1884 ...and the mission aimed to protect Irish immigrant girls landing in New York City from the untrustworthy and sometimes evil people in the port area who preyed on their innocence.  The mission protected Irish girls by having a priest available at Castle Garden (the point of entry to New York from 1855 through 1890) to counsel them, by setting up a safe lodging house in which they could stay until they obtained a job or were otherwise safely seen to, and by setting up a chapel for their use.  ...no fees were charged to any girls for staying in the Home of Irish Immigrant Girls established by the mission, no matter the length of their stay.  Regardless of whether the advantage that room and board represented has been overrated, Irish girls flocked to domestic service because there were plenty of job openings throughout this period as the demand for servants continually exceeded the supply. They secured service employment through the assistance of the Catholic Church, the Irish community, use of employment agencies called intelligence office, relatives, word of mouth, and perusal of newspaper advertisements.” 

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) ·  9 Dec 1885, Wed ·  Page 3

No information has been found yet that documents Jane's life from the time of her arrival to her marriage to Thomas O'Connor, which I know of because it is listed in the 1900 Federal Census.  It is sometime during this period that once in America, she seems to become known by the name Jennie, not Jane.

At some point, Jennie met Thomas O'Connor, they married in 1896 and had their first child, Edward, in 1897.  As covered in the previous post, Jennie's information on the 1900 Federal Census shows her as the wife of Thomas O'Connor and mother of two-year-old Edward O'Connor, residing in a rental house/tenement at 252 Wyckoff Street in Brooklyn, age 34, born January 1866 in Ireland, married four years, immigrated in 1884, had already been in the U.S. for 16 years, both parents were born in Ireland, and she could read, write and speak English. And while the census doesn't list it, Jennie is at that time about four months pregnant with her daughter, Anna Margaret, who was born on November 17, 1900, in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

While in the midst of building her American dream family and probably looking toward better times ahead, less than four short years later, Jennie dies.  She was survived by her husband of eight years, Thomas age 41, son Edward age 7, and daughter Anna age 3.

In September of 1903, Jennie started seeing a doctor in Brooklyn and possibly was then diagnosed with breast cancer. Just ten months later, she passed away on July 26, 1904. Her cause of death is listed as "Carcinoma of the Breast and by Metastasis to the Spinal Cord."  Her death certificate as issued by the State of New York gives us revealing information about Jennie's life, like her parents' names and birthplaces, and that she was not employed. Her address is reported as 248 Wyckoff Street, not 252 Wyckoff Street.  Perhaps when Anna was born they were able to move to a larger tenement unit just a few buildings from their previous home.  Jennie is listed as being both in the U.S. and a resident to New York City for 20 years. Yet in the "Special Information" section at the bottom of the certificate, Jersey City, N.J., is listed as her former or usual residence and six years as the length of time she resided at the place of death (presumably the Wyckoff Street tenement in Brooklyn). This indicates to me that when her son Edward was born in 1897, Thomas and Jennie must have been living in New Jersey not New York. I had suspected that early on, so now I really must dig deeper into New Jersey records!

Jennie's Death Certificate

After Jennie's passing, life must have been difficult for the O'Connor family, especially little Anna and Edward.  With no known immediate family in their area to depend on, who would have taken care of Edward and Anna those first few years while Thomas continued working in order to support his family? Maybe someone in their Irish community circle of friends helped out.  But nothing is known for sure simply because there are no written records until the 1910 Federal Census, the only one that Anna is ever listed on. Thomas is now married to his second wife, Helen, and as a family, including 12-year-old Edward, they are living in another tenement house on Smith Street in the Evergreen/Ridgewood area of the Queens borough in New York City. At this point, Anna may be attending the same New York City public school as her brother Edward, if she was healthy enough. Tragically, little Anna Margaret passed away a few months short of her 11th birthday on September 19, 1911, from Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis[vi] and Asthenia[vii]. Anna's death certificate gives some indication that she may not have been a healthy child at all.  Had Anna been weak and sickly for awhile?  According to her death certificate, she had only been treated by a doctor for these diseases just ten days before her death. Anna was buried a few days later in The Calvary Cemetery just as her mother, Jennie, was seven years earlier.

Anna's Death Certificate

Afterthoughts:
 
1)  How did the O'Connor family function after Jennie's death in 1904?  The Irish community and Catholic Church had programs in place to help out widows and their orphaned children, but I have not found anything that addresses helping a widower with children.  One alternative was to give your child up to various institutions, asylums, and orphanages.  From about 1854–1929, some 100,000 homeless children from New York City were "placed out" to families in upstate New York and the midwestern states. They are frequently referred to as the orphan train children.  How close did Edward and Anna get to that fate? 
 
2. What was a typical school day like during the early 1900s?  3,000 children were crowded into one typical school. 40 or more students in a class. Supplies were in short order. Free space to play was non-existent. Children of different intellect, culture, and backgrounds were taught civics, patriotism, and the 3 R’s. There was one language you were expected to learn- English. And if Anna was not healthy, she could have been excluded from attending school?

Children suspected of contagious disease are examined carefully and when their presence may endanger others they are excluded. Every day the Health Board sends to every school a printed list of all houses where contagious disease exists. The principal must compare the addresses with his register and exclude residents of the specified houses.  https://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2017/11/07/photos-of-new-york-city-school-life-children-in-1902/.

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[i] https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2019/irish-surnames/map/

[ii] https://www.irishorigenes.com/boland

[iii] https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/top-100-irish-surnames-last-names-family-names-ranked/

[iv] In the first half of the 19th century, most immigrants arriving in New York City landed at docks on the east side of the tip of Manhattan, around South Street. On August 1, 1855, Castle Clinton / Castle Garden became the Emigrant Landing Depot, functioning as the New York State immigrant processing center (the nation's first such entity). It was operated by the state until April 18, 1890, when the U.S. Government assumed control of immigration processing, soon moving the center to the larger, more isolated Ellis Island facility on January 2, 1892.  After many unnecessary deaths, and scandals over immigration workers cheating and stealing from immigrants, the immigration center was moved to Ellis Island. Most of Castle Clinton's immigrant passenger records were destroyed in a fire that consumed the first structures on Ellis Island on June 15, 1897, but it is generally accepted that over 8 million immigrants (and perhaps as many as 12 million) were processed during its operation. Called Kesselgarten by Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, a Kesselgarten became a generic term for any situation that was noisy, confusing, or chaotic, or where a "babel" of languages was spoken (a reference to the multitude of languages heard spoken by immigrants from many countries at the site). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Clinton

[v] In the First Gilded Age (1870-1914), the term servant was widely used to describe people employed to serve others and perform domestic duties, doing what we would now consider domestic service (Blakemore 2017)https://bt.barnard.edu/nycgildedages/5thave-work/servants/

[vi]  Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis definition: A term in modern usage which is used for inflammation of the membranes on the surface of the brain, involving high fever, severe headache, and stiff muscles in the neck or back. It can be caused by bacterial, viral, or fungal infections. (Glossary of Medical Terms Used in the 18th and 19th Centuries)

[vii] Asthenia definition:  Also known as Debility, an abnormal bodily weakness or feebleness; decay of strength. This was a term descriptive of a patient's condition and of no help in making a diagnosis. (Glossary of Medical Terms Used in the 18th and 19th Centuries)

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