The second child of William George Duffy and Rebecca Smith Duffy was Emma Delores Duffy, known as Doll. Doll was born on April 28, 1875 in either Buena Vista or Millerstown, Pennsylvania — there are conflicting records.

The family moved frequently as her father’s work in the oil fields took him to various towns in Pennsylvania.  Doll was eight years old when her mother died. Her father remarried two years later. His second wife, Catherine Mahoney Duffy, became the stepmother of his four surviving children. The family moved to West Virginia.

On June 20, 1899, Doll married John J Kenney, Jr. in Sistersville, West Virginia.

Kenney was about a year older than Doll, born in Turtle Point, Pennsylvania in May 1874, the son of John Kenney and Mary Conlin. His father was an Irish immigrant and farmer; Kenney came from a large family. At the time of their marriage, he worked as a day laborer.

The Kenneys had four children:
William George Kenney 1901–1946
Edward D Kenney 1902–1911
James Raymond Kenney 1904–1964
Mary Kenney 1907–1962

The marriage was probably experiencing trouble by 1910, when the federal census shows that Doll and the children were living with her widowed stepmother and brother William and his wife. I don’t have a clear idea of what became of John J Kenney after 1907. In that year, the couple was in Knox County, Indiana, where their daughter, Mary, was born.

In 1911, their son Edward died of tetanus, following a compound fracture of his right arm. The death certificate was signed by Doll’s brother William.

By 1918, if not before, she had moved to Taft, California with her remaining children. She worked at the Sparber Hotel as a cook, and by the age of 18 if not before, William George Kenney was working in the oil fields there. His brother James soon worked there, too.

The Sparber Hotel was owned by Harry Sparber, who was also the proprietor of the Maiden Lane Jewelry Company. A February 3, 1912 article in the Bakersfield Californian lauded its opening (Sparber advertised his jewelry store within its pages), saying, “Another big stride in local hotel accommodations has been made in Taft, in the opening of the Sparber house, which occurred yesterday.” It points out that Mr. Sparber “spared no expense in the furnishing of the fourteen rooms. All have outside entrances which let in plenty of light to show off the excellence of the interiors….Hot and cold water and telephone service are also to be had…”

These photos of Taft and nearby fields in 1910 give an idea of  the local landscape. Photos of the town (see the last one; I hope to post others) look to most of us like a set for a western. Oil was discovered there in 1899, and over the next few decades, the place boomed. By 1920, 6,000 men were working in its oil fields. Its economy is still largely based in oil production.

Taft has an interesting history —according to a Wikipedia article that seems to have some merit — originally known as “Siding Number Two,” when the Southern Pacific arrived, the town requested the name “Moro.” But to avoid confusion with Morro Bay, it was named “Moron” before that word was used as it is now. The meaning changed, by the way, the year Taft was incorporated: 1910. (Named after President William Howard Taft.)

Taft also experienced several devastating fires. The south side of the town was almost completely burned in a fire in 1910; another destroyed the Taft Hospital and six other buildings in 1914. Doll’s family could have been there anytime after 1910, but I suspect they weren’t there until closer to 1917.

I have not located Doll and family in the 1920 census, although a 1920 California voter registration record shows her as living in Taft and working as a cook in that year. By 1922, she had moved to Long Beach, California, and was listed as a housewife, probably being supported by her sons.

By 1924, she was in Whittier. William was working for the Julian Petroleum Company. The family next moved to Los Angeles. As the years went on and William’s career changed, she lived with his family in Los Angeles or with her son James in Long Beach. By 1942, she was living in San Gabriel, California, with her daughter Mary.

I have heard from those who knew her that Doll was especially proud of her son William, and that his death in 1946 was a crushing blow.

For all the tragedies she faced, though, she was known as a lively person. She loved California, sent crates of citrus fruit to relatives (at a time when it was not so readily available in other parts of the country), and encouraged one of her nieces, Gertrude Emma Moriarty — whose middle name was given to her in honor of this aunt — to come to live with her there. Gertrude was on her way to do so in 1920 when she stopped to visit another aunt, Gertrude Moriarty Warnock, in Augusta, Kansas, where she stayed after meeting the man who became her husband.

The photo below is of two of the Duffy sisters. Elizabeth Duffy Moriarty is on the left, Doll Duffy Kenney is on the right.

In 1960, Doll and Mary were traveling in the south, visiting the children of Doll’s sister Elizabeth Duffy Moriarty. She stayed in Louisiana at the home of her nephew Francis “Bud” Moriarty and then traveled to Odessa, Texas to visit her niece Cass Moriarty. She died in Odessa, Texas shortly after arriving there, on August 18, 1960.

 

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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William George Duffy (1846) and Rebecca Smith (1856)
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Emma Delores (Doll) Duffy (1875)

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Photos of Taft in 1910 from the Library of Congress:

https://lccn.loc.gov/2007660443

https://lccn.loc.gov/2007660444

https://lccn.loc.gov/2007660445

https://lccn.loc.gov/2007660592

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Sources include:

“Taft’s Worst Fire,” Fire and Investment News, volume 13-14, June 11, 1914, page 17 (Los Angeles, 1914), Accessed June 16, 2016 at Google Books http://tinyurl.com/huh5e5b

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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.

According to Sister Carmelita’s family tree, the firstborn son of William George Duffy and Rebecca Smith Duffy was born in Buena Vista, Pennsylvania in March of 1874 and died at birth. I have not yet found documentation for this child, but she may have heard of this child from her mother, or perhaps while doing research, she found birth, baptismal, or burial records.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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William George Duffy (1846) and Rebecca Smith (1856)
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George Patrick Duffy (1874)

 

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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.

Mary Gertrude Westerman was born on June 13, 1877 in Millerstown, Butler County, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest child and only daughter of Elizabeth Duffy Westerman and Frederick Jacob Westerman.

She was born the year her father and one of her brothers died. Her widowed mother moved back to Lockport, New York by 1880, if not before. The family lived with her recently widowed grandmother, Elizabeth Dillon Duffy. Mary’s only other brother, Willie Westerman, died when she was seven years old.

Mary’s mother remarried in 1888, to Charles Scheffer, and Mary also took his last name. She lived with the hotelkeeper and her mother at 277 Glenwood, as did her grandmother.

On May 31, 1896, she married an iron worker, George Nelson Blackley.  She was eighteen, he was twenty. George had lost his father and a sister in 1880, so they had that in common. He was the son of George Blackley and Ellen Wood Blackey. When his father died, George’s mother was without support for their family.  In March 1881, at the age of five, George  was admitted to the Niagara County Poor House, as were his brothers Charles, Robert, and then sent on to the “Home for the Friendless.” Set up by the president of highly successful liniment oil company in Lockport, the home initially served to support the widows and children of Civil War soldiers. I am not sure what became of Ellen Blackley; John, her oldest son, did not seem to end up in the Home for the Friendless.

George’s mother’s family, the Woods, had been neighbors of the Duffys for many years. It is possible that George met Mary through this association, or in school.

Mary and George had four children:

Mary E Blackley 1897–1956
Carl William Blackley 1899–1986
George Frederick Blackley 1902–1984
Olivia (Ollie) Salome Blackley 1906–1970

By 1918, George was working as a drill hand for Richmond Manufacturing. After Mary’s stepfather died in 1901, her mother, Elizabeth Duffy, moved in with the family, and lived with them until her death in 1922. Mary’s aunt, Mary Duffy Hogan, also moved in after her husband died in 1911, and lived with them until her death in 1920.

After Elizabeth’s death, the Blackley’s moved to nearby Niagara Falls, New York. Over the years, George worked in a variety of jobs. When he first moved to Niagara Falls, he worked as a furnace man, then by 1930 he was a laborer for a battery manufacturing company. He held this position for some time. In the last few years of his life, he worked as a janitor for a city department.

George died on August 25, 1945 at the age of 70.

Mary continued to live in Niagara Falls. She died on October 18, 1963, at the age of 86.

I have always been amazed by this couple, whose early lives were so filled with hardship and loss, whose chances of survival must at times have seemed unlikely. And yet they did survive, cared for others, and lived to see many grandchildren.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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Elizabeth Duffy (b 1844) + Frederick Jacob Westerman (1844)
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Mary Gertrude Westerman (b 1873)

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Photograph from Library of Congress  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994016378/PP/

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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.

Henry Lewis Westerman was born on December 10, 1874 in Millerstown, Butler County, Pennsylvania, according to a genealogist of the Westerman family.  He was the second child of Elizabeth Duffy Westerman and Frederick Jacob Westerman.

Henry and his father died in the same year, 1877. Henry was about two years old. I do not know where he is buried.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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Elizabeth Duffy (b 1844) + Frederick Jacob Westerman (1844)
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Henry Lewis Westerman (b 1874)

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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 Wallace Westerman, known in the family as “Willie,” was born on February 25, 1873 in Bear Creek, Butler County, Pennsylvania, according to a genealogist of the Westerman family.  He was the first born of Elizabeth Duffy Westerman and Frederick Jacob Westerman.

Like his siblings, Willie was born into the rough and tumble world of the Pennsylvania oil boom. They moved fairly often. His family lived near several of his mother’s siblings, so he had Duffy aunts and uncles nearby. He probably knew them better than his father, who died when Willie was five years old.

For reasons not yet known, when his mother returned to Lockport with his only surviving sibling, his sister Mary, Willie stayed in Fairview, Pennsylvania, where he was cared for by Mary Duffy Hogan and her husband James Hogan. In the 1880 census, he is part of their household.

Eventually he came back to Lockport. Sadly, Willie died there on January 19, 1885. He was just shy of his twelfth birthday.

He is buried in St Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery in Lockport, New York. His name is also on the family monument there.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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Elizabeth Duffy (b 1844) + Frederick Jacob Westerman (1844)
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William Wallace Westerman (b 1873)

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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.

Of the three children of  Mary Duffy Hogan and James Hogan who were noted in Mary’s  1900 census response, Susan is the only one whose name I am sure of. At the time of the 1865 NY State Census, she was 14 months old. Census records are notoriously inaccurate for age, but this would place her birth in April, 1864. Based on other records, I believe she died before she reached the age of five.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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Mary Duffy (b 1841) + James Hogan (b 1838)
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Susan Hogan (b 1864)

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Image above: 1865 New York State Census, Lockport, New York, Second ED, taken June 3, 1865.

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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.

Susan “Susie” Duffy, undoubtedly named for her mother, was born in Lockport, New York in February, 1877. She was the youngest child of John Duffy and Susannah Holland Duffy.

In about 1898, she married Herbert S DeLand, about whom I have little information. In that year’s City Directory, he was working in a green house. I have not yet located any other records about him.

In the 1900 census, Susie was living as a boarder with another family. She was listed as married, but her husband was not present in the household. She had her six-month-old son, Herbert De Land, living with her.

Apparently the DeLands divorced. On April 25, 1902, Susie married Edmund Quinn in Welland, Ontario, Canada. Edmund was a teamster, the son of Irish immigrants. The couple settled in Lockport, and her son was known thereafter as James Herbert Quinn. Edmund was a bartender in a saloon in 1910, and by 1920 became a fireman for the Lockport Gas Company.

In about 1927, they relocated to nearby Niagara Falls, New York.

In 1930, Edmund was working as a laborer in a machine shop. In 1940, at the age of 67, he was a laborer working for the city street repair department. He died in 1944 at the age of 69. He is buried in St Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery in Lockport.

Later in life Susan listed her name in directories as Susana, so that may have been her given name.

I am not certain, but the Herbert Quinn buried in St. Patrick’s in 1919 may be her son.

I also don’t have definite information about her death at this point, but I believe she died in about 1952.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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John Duffy (b 1838) + Susanna Holland (b 1838)
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Susan Duffy (b 1877) + Herbert S DeLand
+ Edmund H Quinn (b 1875)

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Image citation from Library of Congress collections:

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Sources include:

Find A Grave Index,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV2H-71MS : accessed 12 June 2016), Edmund H Quinn, ; Burial, Lockport, Niagara, New York, United States of America, Saint Patricks Cemetery; citing record ID 59244682, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

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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 G Duffy was the youngest son of John Duffy and Susannah Holland Duffy.  HIs middle name was probably George, and he was probably named after his father’s brother, William George Duffy. He was born on June 12, 1883 in Lockport, New York.

From his teen years, William worked at an iron foundry as a roller or a rougher. He lived at home with his parents until their deaths. He then stayed on with his sister Mary and her sons at the family home. In about 1899, he moved to Muskegon, Michigan, where he lived with his brother James P. Duffy and James’s wife Nellie.Muskegon, like Lockport, had a number of foundries and steel mills in operation at the time.

James and Nellie divorced in 1901, and James and William moved to separate boarding houses. James remarried in 1903.

Around that time, William moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to work as a rougher at the Fort Wayne Iron and Steel Company. He remained in Fort Wayne the rest of his life. He never married. Census records show that he boarded with a series of families over the years.

William was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach in 1948. He died of it a year later, on April 29. 1949, at the age of 75.

He is buried in Catholic Cemetery in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You can see a photo of his gravesite here.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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John Duffy (b 1838) + Susanna Holland (b 1838)
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Willliam G Duffy (b 1873)

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Images from Library of Congress:

Historic American Engineering Record, Creator. Wabash & Erie Canal, Lock No. 2, 8 miles east of Fort Wayne, adjacent to U.S. Route 24, New Haven, Allen County, IN. Documentation Compiled After, 1968. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/in0341. (Accessed June 12, 2016.)

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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.

 

Jame P Duffy was born on April 28, 1870 in Lockport, New York.  He was the son of John Duffy and Susannah Holland Duffy. His middle initial probably stands for Patrick, after his grandfather, but I’m still trying to document that. He was an iron and steel worker almost all his life.

On January 25, 1891 he married Nellie Smith, the daughter of John and Sarah Smith, in Lockport, New York. The couple moved to Muskegon, Michigan. James’s brother William joined their household by 1900. Both brothers were working as roughers in an iron  foundry. A rougher “sets up, adjusts, and regulates the rolls and guides on a continuous roughing train of a bar mill.”

 

On August 10, 1901, the Nellie and James were granted a divorce on the grounds of “extreme cruelty.” Without seeing the court records, it is hard to know exactly what was alleged or who was cruel to whom — it could apply to anything from verbal to emotional to physical abuse. Nell remarried on August 25, 1901. She married a grocery store employee, James Roach, and later became a “saleslady” at the grocery store herself. There were no children by either of her marriages.

James was married again on July 3, 1903, in Muskegon, to Eleanor “Ella” J. Monson [sometimes spelled Munson in documents]. Ella was born in Michigan and was about 14 years younger than James. [A Canadian birth record for their son Richard states this marriage date as being 1901, but the actual Michigan certificate is dated 1903.]

James and Ella had eleven children:

Ralph Duffy 1903–1918
John J Duffy 1905–1986
Margaret Duffy 1907–1917
Richard F Duffy 1910–[after 1930]
Helen M Duffy 1914–[after 1930]
Alice Elizabeth Duffy 1916–1991
Francis Duffy 1917–[before 1930]
Robert M Duffy 1918–1994
Elizabeth (Betty)  Irene Duffy 1919–1997
Marion Ellen Duffy 1920-1921
Thomas Russell Duffy 1923–2006

Ralph Duffy was born in Michigan, but John and Margaret were born in Cleveland, Ohio, so the family must have been there from at least 1905-early 1907. We know from Canadian census answers that they emigrated to Welland, Ontario, Canada, in 1907. James, and later at least one of his sons, worked for the Canadian Steel Foundry there.

In late 1920 or early 1921, the family moved to Toronto. James was working as a rougher at a steel plant. The years 1917-1921 were difficult years for the couple.  Their teenaged son Ralph died in August, 1917 while working at the Welland steel plant, as a result of electrocution. Just four months earlier, in April of that same year, ten-year-old Margaret had died of typhoid fever. Marion, born in Welland in April, 1920, died in February, 1921 in Toronto of bronchial pneumonia.

By 1923, the family had moved back to the United States — their youngest child, Thomas, was born in Woodlawn, New York, just outside of Buffalo.  By 1925 the family had settled in Hamburg, New York, another town near Buffalo.  Buffalo was home to a thriving steel industry at the time.

In 1940, James and Ella were still in Hamburg. Their sons John, Robert, and Thomas lived with them. James, at 70, was retired.  All three boys were single. Robert, the only employed member of the household, worked at a steel plant. Thomas was in school.

James died on August 7, 1945 just as World War II was coming to a close. He was 75 years old. I have not yet learned Ella’s date of death.

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Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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John Duffy (b 1838) + Susanna Holland (b 1838)
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James P Duffy (b 1871) + Nellie Smith (b 1875)
+ Ella Monson (b 1883)

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Photo credits from the Library of Congress:

Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co. R.R. Station & steamer dock, Muskegon. [CBetween and 1920, 1900] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/det1994022833/PP. (Accessed June 12, 2016.)

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Sources Include:

“Ontario Births, 1869-1911,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV9H-T58G : accessed 11 June 2016), Richard Duffy, 09 Nov 1910; citing Birth, Welland, Welland, , Canada, citing Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 2,413,402.

“Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J66C-CPG : accessed 11 June 2016), Ellen Monson in entry for Ralph J. Duffy, 10 Aug 1918; citing Crowland Twp, Welland, Ontario, yr 1918 cn 41336, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 1,86

“Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JDZ2-96Y : accessed 11 June 2016), Ellen Munson in entry for Marion Ellen Duffy, 28 Feb 1921; citing Toronto, York, Ontario, yr 1921 cn 2102, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 1,863,413.

“United States Census, 1940,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KQLF-YG3 : accessed 11 June 2016), James Duffy, Hamburg Town, Erie, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 15-88, sheet 3A, family 50, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 2528.

“California Death Index, 1940-1997,” database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VGPK-NBY : accessed 11 June 2016), Duffy in entry for Alice Elizabeth Christie, 19 Oct 1991; Department of Public Health Services, Sacramento.

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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.