Mary F Duffy, whose middle name I don’t know, but would almost lay money on being Frances, was the fourth child born to Francis W (Frank) Duffy and Margaret J Duffy.

She was born on September 27, 1883, in Pennsylvania. She was probably born in Fairview, in Butler County, where her family lived for a few years while her father worked in the oilfields. The family moved to Allentown, New York by 1886 and then Lockport, New York by 1892.  In the 1900 census, she was sixteen, working as a printer and living at home, in a family of eight. (Another child, her brother John Duffy, apparently died in childhood before that year.) From a later census we know that she completed eighth grade.

In 1904, she married Harold Alexander Baker, then a professional violinist. The records I have found so far make the date of their marriage a little unclear. One page of the 1905 New York State census shows her living at home with her parents and sister Elizabeth, at 42 Parkview Street in Buffalo, New York, single, and under her maiden name. The next page of that census lists her parents, her brother Basil, and their son-in-law Harold Baker, but not the daughters. I am assuming an error in the census, because the New York State Marriage Index lists the date of their marriage as November 8, 1904, in Niagara Falls, New York.

Harold Baker was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 5, 1887, the youngest of the four children of Samuel Baker and Susan Holden Baker.  Although his mother was a native of Canada, his father was born in Rhode Island. Samuel Baker was a U.S. citizen, born of an English father and Irish mother. Samuel brought his family to the U.S. in 1892 and settled in Buffalo, where he worked as a traveling salesman. Harold’s older brother, Norman, became an undertaker, the only sibling not to pursue a musical career. Harold and his two sisters appeared in notices in the Buffalo newspapers for performances at benefits and other events. As mentioned, Harold was a violinist; his sister Ada a pianist, and his sister Leola sang.

Mary and Harold’s first child, Mary L (Marion) Baker was born in 1906. Their second of three daughters, Virginia Baker, was born in 1912.

Harold was able to support his growing family as a musician, continuing to list it as his occupation in the 1915 New York State Census. Things must have started to change soon after that, however. On his 1917 draft registration for World War I, he is working as foreman in the Pratt and Letchworth Company. The family lived at 15 Parkview in Buffalo. Harold is described on the form as having gray eyes, black hair, and being of medium height and stout build,

Pratt and Letchworth was an iron and steel works company, established in 1850 and undoubtedly a vital business in wartime. By the time he filled out the draft card, Harold and Mary had a third daughter on the way — Elizabeth (Betty) was born in late 1917.

The children of Mary and Harold were:

Mary L. (Marion) Baker (abt 1906 –  [1983?])

Virginia A Baker  (1911- 1996)

Elizabeth Baker (1917-[before 1930])

The 1920 census found the Baker family living with Mary’s parents at 42 Parkview. In addition to Frank and Margaret Duffy and the five Bakers, the household included the Duffys’ seven year-old grandson, Francis Piper, and their son Basil.

Another important change can be noted in this census: Harold is working as a photographer in a photo store. Photography would become his new profession, and he worked as a newspaper photographer for the Buffalo Courier and the Buffalo Enquirer for the rest of his life.

Harold also received mention in the Courier when he won a golf tournament among newspapermen, and on a few other occasions.

I believe their daughter Elizabeth died sometime between 1925 and 1930. She does not appear with the family in the 1930 census, and would have only been 13 years old at that point.

In that census, Mary’s father and her nephew Francis Piper (son of her deceased sister, Margaret) were living with the Bakers on Sheffield Street in Buffalo, with Harold listed as the head of the household, The Baker’s recently married daughter, Marion Van Dorn, lived with them, although her husband is not shown as part of the household.

The 1930s were a time of loss for Mary. Her mother died in 1930, her father in 1936, and her husband on January 4, 1937.

The last record I currently have for Mary is the 1940 census, when she was 56. She still lived in the house at 42 Parkview Avenue in Buffalo, which was also the home of the family of her daughter Marion. Marion and Joseph Van Dorn and their four young daughters must have kept things lively there.

---

Sources for this entry include

New York, State Census, 1905.  New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: E.D. 04; City: Buffalo Ward 05; County: Erie; Page: 74 accessed on Ancestry.com on 28 Mar 2020.

New York, State Census, 1905. New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: E.D. 04; City: Buffalo Ward 05; County: Erie; Page: 75

New York State, Marriage Index, 1881-1967. New York State Department of Health; Albany, NY, USA; New York State Marriage Index. 19-4 page 261. accessed on Ancestry.com on 28 Mar 2020

“Hairbreadth Harry’s Tip!,” The Buffalo Enquirer. Buffalo, New York, October 10, 1924. Page 8. Accessed on Newspapers.com 28 March 2020.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
Margaret J Duffy (b 1850)+Francis (Frank) W Duffy (b 1855)
|
Mary F Duffy (b 1883)

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

John Duffy was the second son and third child born to Francis (Frank) Duffy and Margaret J Duffy. He died as a child.

John appeared in 1892 New York State census. He is 11 years old in that record, which places his birth after the 1880 census. The 1890 U.S. Census was almost entirely destroyed by fire, so this is the first census record available for him. It was taken in Lockport, New York.

The next census was the 1900 U.S. Census. In that census, Margaret Duffy answered that she had given birth to seven children, of whom six were still living.

All of her children except John can be found in the 1900 U.S. Census, indicating that he is the child who died before 1900.  From this we can infer that he died sometime between 1892 and 1900.

---

Source of screenshots:

Duffy Family in 1892 New York State Census, seen on Ancestry.com on 14 Feb 2019.

search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1892nycensus&h=185780
9&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt

Margaret J Duffy in 1900 US Federal Census, seen on Ancestry.com on 14 Feb 2019.

Year: 1900; Census Place: Lockport Ward 6, Niagara, New York; Roll: T623_1129; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 64; FHL microfilm: 1241129.

search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1900usfedcen&h=497321
59&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
Margaret J Duffy (b 1850)+Francis (Frank) W Duffy (b 1855)
|
John Duffy (b abt 1881)

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

Elizabeth J. (Bessie) Duffy was the third child and oldest daughter of Francis W Duffy and Margaret Duffy. She was born on July 14, 1879 in Fairview, Butler County, Pennsylvania, at a time when her parents had probably followed her uncle W.G. Duffy from Lockport, New York to Pennsylvania’s oilfields. Her family moved to Allentown, New York when she was a young child, then back to Lockport, New York by 1892, where they lived at 474 Hawley Street. By the time of the 1900 U.S. Census, she was working as a clerk.

On November 27, 1905, she married Edward Marvin Cummings (b 1877) in Aurora, Erie County, New York. Edward was the son of a bookkeeper. He graduated from the Buffalo School of Pharmacy on May 4, 1900 and obtained his pharmacist license. For a time he worked for Hosmer Pharmacy in Buffalo. In 1905, with another pharmacist, George H Sprague, he purchased the pharmacy of a deceased pharmacist and established the Sprague & Cummings Pharmacy on East Main Street in East Aurora,

Elizabeth has no employment listed in any census after her marriage.

The couple had no children and lived their lives together near the pharmacy.  Edward died on October 11, 1963. Elizabeth lived almost exactly seven years after his death. She died on October 10, 1970.  They are buried next to each other in the Oakwood Cemetery of East Aurora.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
Margaret J Duffy (b 1850)+Francis (Frank) W Duffy (b 1855)
|
Elizabeth (Bessie) Duffy (b 1876)

---

Sources for this post include:

American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, Volume 47, American Druggist Publishing Company, 1905, p 21. Found online 14 February 2018 at https://books.google.com/books?id=7NEAAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA21&ots=kQepTIyblI&dq=Edward%20M%20Cumming%20pharmacist%20East%20Aurora%20New%20York&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q=Edward%20M%20Cumming%20pharmacist%20East%20Aurora%20New%20York&f=false

 

 

 

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

 

George Francis Duffy was the eldest child of Frank W Duffy and Margaret J Duffy. He was born in Lockport, New York on February 22, 1876.  He was about four years old when the family moved to Fairview, Pennsylvania, where he appears in the 1880 U.S. Census.  He moved with the family back to the state of New York by 1886, and to Lockport by 1892, where the family appears in the 1892 state census.

At some point around 1900, he moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he worked in steel manufacturing. He met an Irish immigrant, Ellen Tully, who had arrived in the U.S. in 1893. They married in 1903. Ellen was also known as Nellie or Mollie.

The Duffys moved into a home at 59 Orchard Street in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where they would reside for the rest of their lives. They had four children:

Margaret Elizabeth Duffy (1903 – 1967)
Francis M Duffy (1906 – 1961)
Mary L Duffy (1908 – ?)
Eleanor P Duffy (1911 – 1958)

In 1930, a nephew, Joseph Donelon, lived with the family. He had immigrated from the Irish Free State. He was probably related through Ellen’s family.

George worked as molder and core maker for the Moore Brothers Foundry at 27 Bond Street in Elizabeth, a company founded in 1891. In the 1940 census, he listed his employer as the railroad. The occupation is listed as “boatman.” This was a little confusing to me until I found the railroad’s name in the 1947 Elizabeth directory — he was still working for the Central Railroad (CRR) of New Jersey  in 1947. As I learned from the New Jersey Transportation Chronology on this site, the CRR operated ferry boats between New Jersey and New York.

George died on April 15, 1948 and is buried in St Gertrude’s Catholic Cemetery in Colonia, New Jersey.   Nellie died on July 27, 1949.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
Margaret J Duffy (b 1850)+Francis (Frank) W Duffy (b 1855)
|
George Francis Duffy (b 1876)

---

Sources for this post include:

“United States Census, 1880,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MWXD-CJS : 15 July 2017), George F Duffy in entry for Francis W Duffy, 1880; citing enumeration district ED 40, sheet 227A, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d), roll 1109; FHL microfilm 1,255,109. Accessed 12 Feb 2019

“New Jersey State Census, 1905,” database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KMHK-7HY : 12 March 2018), George Duffy, , Union, New Jersey, United States; citing p. 19, line 33, Department of State, Trenton; FHL microfilm 1,688,625. Accessed 12 Feb 2019

“United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZJ6-H4S : 13 March 2018), George Francis Duffy, 1917-1918; citing Elizabeth City no 3, New Jersey, United States, NARA microfilm publication M1509 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,712,099. Accessed 12 Feb 2019

“United States Census, 1920,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4YG-N34 : accessed 13 February 2019), George L Duffy, Elizabeth City Ward 11, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing ED 102, sheet 11B, line 84, family 215, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 1070; FHL microfilm 1,821,070. Accessed 12 Feb 2019

“United States Census, 1930,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4NM-FZF : accessed 13 February 2019), George F Duffy, Elizabeth, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 69, sheet 4B, line 65, family 101, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1387; FHL microfilm 2,341,122. Accessed 12 Feb 2019

“United States Census, 1940,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K4YR-B9X : 15 March 2018), George F Duffy, Ward 11, Elizabeth, Elizabeth City, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 23-97, sheet 2B, line 44, family 162, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 – 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2400.

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

The final member of the William George Duffy family is a bit of a mystery. We do not yet know exactly who his mother was, or exactly how he came into the family. He was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania on January 12, 1892.

This is after the death of W.G. Duffy’s first wife, Rebecca Smith (d 1883), so he cannot be her child. W.G. Duffy remarried in 1885, but Catherine Mahoney, W.G. Duffy’s second wife, always said on census records that she had not given birth to any children. W.G. Duffy did always list him as his son. In census records, he listed his mother’s birth state as New York.

W.G. Duffy is listed as Jack’s father on Jack’s death certificate. But his mother is not named on that document.

Death certificates are notorious for having misinformation and missing information on them — after all, the individual they are about can’t correct them. It is easy to begin speculating, but impossible to really know without documentation that I’ve yet to find —and which may not exist.

He was clearly a member of the family, though, however he came into it. Jack was ten years younger than his next oldest sibling, Ruby, and was seventeen when his father died  in 1909. In 1910, he was in the household that included W.G. Duffy’s widow Catherine; Jack’s oldest half-brother, W.G. Duffy Jr and his wife Ella; and Jack’s half-sister Doll and her three children. He was working as a laborer at odd-jobs.

By 1917, when he registered for the draft, he was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was working as a machinist, employed by Tim Cushing. This was probably oil-related: the 1920 Tulsa Directory lists Tim Cushing as the vice president of the Oil City Tool Company. Jack was described on the draft card as being single, and of medium height and build, with black hair and blue eyes.

On July 20, 1919, he married Stella Jones in Tulsa. Stella was born in West Virginia on October 5, 1897, the daughter of Charles H Jones and Maesdoria (also listed as Masodonia, Massalona, or Dora in various records) Knotts Jones. Not long after Stella’s birth, her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father worked as a miller. In 1910, they were in Wichita, where he worked as an engineer at a packing company. It is unclear exactly how or when Stella came to Oklahoma, but in the 1920 census, Jack’s Tulsa household includes not only his new wife but also her divorced sister, Fay Jones North.

It seems likely that they were in Tulsa during the Tulsa race massacre, although I do not know if any were active participants. The only doubt raised about their presence n the city then has to do their son’s birth record.

Their son John Robert Duffy was born on August 20, 1923. Although the 1930 census lists his birthplace as West Virginia, all other records indicate Tulsa, Oklahoma.

By the 1930 census, Jack was working as a gas tester in the oil industry. They owned the home they lived in, and in addition to their young son, the household now included both Fay and Jack’s widowed mother-in-law. Stella was working as a PBX operator in the petroleum industry.

In about 1935, the couple divorced. Stella moved to Houston, Texas with their son. In 1940, Stella and John Robert were living with Fay and her new husband, JJ “Red” Delahide. She continued to work as a PBX operator. She lived in Missouri City, Texas, but died in Houston on November 6, 1978 at the age of 81. She was then in the Golden Age Manor, and died of cardiac arrest, with additional conditions of a fractured pelvis and organic brain disease.  She is buried in Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery.

Jack remarried at some point between 1935 and 1939.  His second wife, Cora Wassom, was born in Wagoner, Oklahoma on March 31, 1903. She was the daughter of Allen Wassom and Georgia Smith. She had been married twice previously, to Ira Bolch, whom she divorced sometime before 1929, and then William F Campbell in 1931. By 1935, she was divorced from William and working in a restaurant in Tulsa.

Jack and Cora were living in Bakersfield, California by some point in the late 1930s. In the 1940 census, he worked as a laborer for the water company; this work may have also been in connection with the U.S. Air Corp field in Taft. Cora’s daughter from her first marriage, Margie Bolch, lived with them. Jack listed his residence in 1935 as Breckenridge, Michigan. It is not clear what he may have been doing there, but given that this was during the Great Depression, he may have gone wherever he could find work.

By 1942, the couple lived in Taft, California. Jack’s draft registration card of that year lists them as living in a housing project; he was working for the Water Department for the U.S. Air Corp, Gardener Field, Taft, California.

Two ads in the Bakersfield Californian reveal that by the 1950s, Jack was the owner and operator of Duffy’s Driving School.

Jack died on February 12, 1962, in Bakersfield, at the age of seventy.  He is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery there.

Cora remarried at some point after 1970 — by 1978 she was married to Levi Machamer, a widower in his seventies who was living in Bakersfield.

I suspect the marriage did not last; she died in Baxter Springs, Kansas in 1980. She was a member of a church there at the time of her death. Her siblings lived in the area, and it seems likely that she came to the area for that reason. Levi is not mentioned in the obituary, although he survived her.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
William George Duffy (1846) + unknown mother [perhaps adopted?]
|
John “Jack” Daniel Duffy (1892)

---

Sources for this post include:

“More Entries for Fair Parade,” The Bakersfield Californian, August 6, 1953, Page 26.

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

Rebecca Marie Duffy — known as Ruby — was named for her mother. She was born on November 16, 1882, probably in Coleville, Pennsylvania, although one record lists it as Coolville. She was the sixth child and third (and youngest) daughter of William George Duffy and Rebecca Smith Duffy. She was just over a year old when her mother died of typhoid fever, and about three when her father married Catherine Mahoney.

I haven’t yet been able to find Ruby in the 1900 census. She was 18 then, and perhaps living away from home.

On June 20, 1907, she married James Bovard McKain in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Washington County, Ohio. He was a widower who worked as an oil well fisherman. On their marriage license, her residence is listed as Marietta, Ohio, and his as Parkersburg, West Virginia.

By the 1910 federal census, they were living in the Walton District of Roane County, West Virginia. James continued to work in the oil fields as a tool fisherman.

It seems very likely that they are the McKains listed in the 1912 Parkersburg City Directory, although his wife’s name is shown as Catherine. He was married to Rebecca at that time; Catherine was his mother’s name. It is a little unclear, but Ruby — who was raised nearly all her life by a stepmother who was also named Catherine — may have taken this name for a time after her father’s death. They were living at 1306 Wells Circle in Parkersburg.

His 1918 draft card for World War I shows that same address. In the 1920 census, James worked as the manager of a tool company. In the 1921 city directory, he is listed as the president of his own company, JB McKain Fishing Tool Company.

In the Parkersburg city directory of 1926, he is a welder.  It seems likely that this was the year they separated and perhaps divorced, because he is listed alone in the Roswell, New Mexico city directory. We know that James married his third wife — who was a West Virginia native, and returned there after his death — before 1930. His obituary said the couple moved to New Mexico in 1923, but this is possibly in error. James died there in 1947.

Ruby stayed in West Virginia. Family members have said that she was devastated by the divorce. She never remarried. With the possible exception of her stepmother (I have not be able to locate Catherine Mahoney Duffy in records after 1920), all of her Duffy relatives would have been elsewhere by 1926: Doll was in California, Elizabeth in Kansas, Wade in New Mexico, Jim in Oklahoma, and Jack in California. She and James McKain had no children together.

In the 1930 census, she was boarding with a couple in Parkersburg, and working as a secretary for the headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America. In the 1940 census, she answered that she was living in Butler County, Kansas in 1935. She may have moved in with or lived near her sister Elizabeth Duffy Moriarty for a time. In 1935, though, Elizabeth’s husband, Francis Moriarty, died, and a year later, the death of her daughter Gertrude’s husband, Herman Fischer, left Gertrude an impoverished widow with five young children. This worst time of the Depression may not have been one that allowed Elizabeth to also care for Ruby.

The 1940 census found Ruby living in the Jackson County Infirmary, where she is listed as institutionalized. I am still looking into the exact nature of her circumstances there. The Jackson County Infirmary was an almshouse, or poor house. In 1910, it housed about 21 individuals. It is sometimes referred to as the Jackson County Poor Farm. Poor farms often were farms worked by the inmates of the institution. At the time she was there, it seems to have been a place for the care of the infirm and elderly. She was 57 at the time of the census.

Ruby died on August 12, 1949 at the R. & R.H. Douglass Eastern Star Home in Millwood, West Virginia. A 2006 newspaper article on the Eastern Star Home in the Charleston Daily Mail mentions that “Sally D. Kneeream donated the property to Eastern Star in 1934 with the stipulation that the organization must use the land to house orphans and widows.” The Order of the Eastern Star is a Freemason organization. The home was a two-story house that sat on over 300 acres.

Her cause of death is listed as a coronary occlusion, and it is noted that she had severe arthritis. Some family members mentioned that they vaguely remembered hearing that  Ruby suffered from Parkinson’s Disease. This was not listed anywhere on her death certificate, but again, this was completed (with several errors) by someone on the board of directors of the home, not a family member. She may have been nearly unknown to him.

Ruby is buried in Mt Olivet Cemetery in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
William George Duffy (1846) + Rebecca Smith (1856)
|
Rebecca Marie (Ruby) Duffy (1882)

---

Sources for this post include

Paupers in almhouses, 1910 — United States. Bureau of the Census, Joseph Adna Hill, Lewis Meriam, Emanuel Alexandrovich Goldenweiser; found on Google Books 11/9/2016

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

William George Duffy, Jr — known as Wade Duffy — was born on September 22, 1881 in Chicora, Butler County, Pennsylvania, which was then named Millerstown. (For more on the town name change, see the post about his sister, Elizabeth Mary Duffy.) He was the fifth child and second surviving son of William George Duffy and Rebecca Smith Duffy. He was two years old when his mother died of typhoid fever, and about four when his father married Catherine Mahoney.

By 1900, when he was 19, Wade was an oil well worker, living with his parents near Sistersville, West Virginia. The only other sibling still at home was his much younger half-brother John D. (Jack) Duffy.

In 1904, Wade married Ella Dyer, who would later be known as Nellie. She was two years younger than Wade. They may have continued to live with his father’s family.

In 1909, Wade’s father died suddenly on a business trip to Pennsylvania. Whether or not they were already a part of the household, in the census of 1910, the year after his father’s death, Wade and Nellie were living in the family home. In addition to his stepmother, the household also included his sister Emma (Doll), recently separated from her husband, and her four children. At first glance, it appears the only wage earner was Wade, who was a laborer working odd jobs. But on a later page, the census-taker adds Jack, noting that the “family failed” to mention him. Jack was working as an oil pumper.

By 1916, Wade and Nellie had moved to Oil City, Pennsylvania. When he filled out his draft card in 1918, he was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, working as an oil tool dresser for Carl K. Dresser. Nellie was living in Weston, West Virginia. By 1919, she had joined him in Tulsa; the city directory for that year lists him as a clerk for HC Jacobs. I have not found them in the 1920 US Census, perhaps because they were moving to New Mexico.

There were about 326,000 people living in the entire state of New Mexico in 1920, which had become a state in 1912. Wade and Nellie settled first in Albuquerque, where their only child, Betty Jo, was born in 1921.

A story in the December 3, 1925 issue of the Albuquerque Journal describes Wade as one of two New Mexico men who interested California investors in developing a well in Dalies.

https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/embed_clipping/?id=7127099&w=394&h=394Found on Newspapers.com

There are several stories in New Mexico newspapers about this endeavor.

The Duffys stayed in Albuquerque for a time. In the 1927 and 1928 city directories, Wade is listed as an “oil operator.” They lived at 901 N 5th St.

Before 1930, they had moved to Gallup, New Mexico, where Wade continued to work in the oil business but also took on several roles in local politics and offices. During the 1930s, he held the office of sheriff.

In this article, Sheriff Duffy seeks an escapee from the asylum who had been sent there after murdering another man:

https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/embed_clipping/?id=7127688&w=394&h=394Found on Newspapers.com

This article from the April 3, 1931 issue of the Gallup Independent tells of the safe return of Wade and Jack Garrett after taking prisoners to the state penitentiary:

https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/embed_clipping/?id=7043533&w=294&h=294Found on Newspapers.com

A 1932 article notes that he was the superintendent for the Williams Company, which had struck oil at its Hospah well, 80 miles north of Gallup.

So far, I’ve only been able to find Nellie in the 1940 census. This may be because Wade was traveling a lot then. Betty Jo was studying nursing in Denver at about that time. During World War II, he worked at the Fort Wingate Ordnance Depot, seven miles east of Gallup.

Wade also served as the chairman of the Republican County Committee for McKinley County. He was quoted in the Independent from time to time. “We must try to keep politics out of the schools,” was one comment he made when asked if his party was promoting anyone for school board. After spending time visiting his daughter’s family in 1953 in Washington state, he remarked, “If I were young, I wouldn’t spend a week [in Gallup]. I’d be up in the Northwest. Things are really booming.” This didn’t sit too well with the Gallup-boosting Independent.

Nellie took on the management of the Sweetbriar Shop in Gallup, part of a chain of  clothing stores. The Gallup store opened in 1946. A 1951 article in the Independent noted that she was one of the first women to serve on a federal jury in New Mexico, a position which took her away from home to Albuquerque for five weeks.

https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/embed_clipping/?id=7127645&w=294&h=294Found on Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/embed_clipping/?id=7127612&w=294&h=294Found on Newspapers.com

Wade continued to work in the oil business in New Mexico throughout his life.  According to the Independent, on January 10, 1957, he was shoveling snow at his home at 110 1/2 E Hill Street in Gallup when he suffered a heart attack. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife and daughter, four grandchildren, and his siblings James, Jack, and Doll.

Nellie lived until 1964. They are buried side-by-side in Sunset Memorial Park in Gallup.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
William George Duffy (1846) + Rebecca Smith (1856)
|
William George (Wade) Duffy (1881)

 

---

Sources for this post include:

Census records of 1900, 1910, 1930 and 1940.

http://www.newspapers.com

Click to access 18_p0151_p0158.pdf

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.

 

James Francis Duffy was the fourth child and first surviving son born to William George Duffy and Rebecca Smith Duffy. He was born on  November 19, 1878 in Chicora, Butler County, Pennsylvania, which was then known as Millerstown. By the time he was a year old, the family had moved to another town in Butler County, Fairview. He was five years old when his mother died.

Like his father, James worked in the oil fields. Sometime before late 1899 James was living in Sistersville, West Virginia, not far from the Ohio border, and working as a pumper. On February 12, 1900, he married Julia “Jennie” Reese in Washington County, Ohio. Jennie was 19, and had been living in Grandview, Washington County, Ohio. The couple settled in West Virginia, living in St Marys, and soon after, Sistersville.

The couple had three children:

Zena Beryl Duffy 1900–1994
Mary S. Duffy 1902–1903
Helen Gould Duffy 1904–1989

Their daughter Mary died of whooping cough nine days after her first birthday.

On May 23, 1906, Jennie died of the same disease which had taken James’s mother, typhoid fever.

James remarried. On November 9, 1907, he married Ruth Pattin (some records show the spelling as Patten) in Washington County, Ohio. He was 28, she was 36. Ruth was divorced from George Kesterson, a lawyer, with whom she had four children. The children of that marriage — George Jr, Mae, Gladys, and Lee, ranging in age from 9 to 14 — and the two surviving children of James first marriage, Beryl (7)  and Helen (3) — made up the Duffy household.

The 1910 census found the family in Bartlesville, Oklahoma James was working as an engineer at an oil pumping station. His 1918 draft registration (for World War I) card lists his employer as the Empire Pipeline Company, and his profession as “oil gauger.” The family was then living in Noble, Oklahoma.

In 1920, they were living in Covington, Oklahoma. Only one of his stepchildren, Lee, was still at home; Lee also worked in the oilfield. Helen was still in high school, and Beryl was working as a teacher in a public school.

I have not found the 1930 census record for James, but other records show that the couple moved to Bakersfield, California by 1933. It’s hard to know exactly what prompted the move. Ruth’s son George was married and living in Tulure, California by then.  James’s sister, Emma (Doll) Duffy Kenney, had lived in Kern and Los Angeles Counties from about 1917.

This was also at the time of the Great Depression. Kern County had seen a great influx of migrants from the midwest Dust Bowl areas during these years, but James was not a farmer and probably came for work in the oilfields. By 1934 he was a refinery worker in Bakersfield. The census of 1940 shows that at the age of 62, he was working as a watchman for a private company, possibly for the refinery. His 1942 WWII draft card shows him as working for the Mohawk Refinery and living in Bakersfield, California.

Ruth died on September 24, 1950 of congestive heart failure. The couple was living in what was then “rural” El Monte in Los Angeles County, California. According to her death certificate, they had lived there for two years. Ruth is buried in Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.

James remained on voter registration records in California through the late 1950s. He returned to Bakersfield soon after Ruth’s death, and is listed there as late as the 1958 directory.

James may have then gone to live with his daughter Zena Beryl Duffy, who had married Charles Emery Stout in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Charles died in 1958, which is the last year I’m able to find records for James in California.

James died in Shawnee, Oklahoma on July 27, 1964. He was 85 years old. He is buried in the Fairview Cemetery there, near the graves of his daughter Beryl and her husband Charles.

---

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
|
William George Duffy (1846) + Rebecca Smith (1856)
|
James Francis Duffy (1878)

---

Sources for this post include:

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-S5QW-7C?i=167&wc=Q6SP-NMZ%3A122395301%2C123062301%3Fcc%3D1614804&cc=1614804

http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view2.aspx?FilmNumber=850568&ImageNumber=155

http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=5071255&Type=Death

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X895-MH5

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=63603843

---

Contents of this site, except where noted, are ©2016-2019 by Jan Burke. While I hope you find this site useful in your family history research, please do not copy material you find here onto your Ancestry trees, etc. without permission.

Information presented here is based on my interpretation of the sources I’ve found. As new sources are found or inaccuracies discovered, the site will be updated.

Always happy to hear from cousins.