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Note: Emigrated to the U.S. (year?). Married an "emigrating Irish Girl, Mary McGuire", in St. Mary Church, DeKalb, IL, 1885. Purchased a farm in DeKalb County, IL. Hugh McMenamin & Mary McGuire by Mary McMenamin Hirsch Hugh McMenamin born August 25, 1856, County Tyrone, Ireland married Mary McGuire. Both were from the area of Castlederg. Edenreagh, spelled Ethenree on the marriage license probably due to their brogue, was a large land holding near the townland of Castlederg. The landlord leased parcels of its acreage to many tenants. It’s present (1990's) owners now call it Correy. Hugh's 1881 emigration was sponsored by his older brother Patrick, who had emigrated some ten years earlier and was working on farms around the Albany area of New York. Hugh may have traveled with Patrick and his young family to DeKalb County Illinois as they both came the same year. What made them pick that particular area is not known. The 1880 census does list a “Rosana McManaman”, age 74,widowed, living in Sycamore. Was she the wife of some distant Tyrone Mac? (She also was on the 1870 census roll.) Regardless, a trip from Albany to DeKalb, almost 900 miles, would either have been by train or wagon. Train travel in 1880 would have been powered by a steam engine whose top speed might have been 30 miles per hour, with stops for coal, water, loading and unloading passengers and goods along the way such a trip (did they travel round-the-clock?) could have taken three days. A trip by horse and wagon covering 30 miles a day would take over four weeks. Patrick’s family of a wife and 2 very small children would have had household essentials (kitchen utensils and bedding) that could have been packed into 3 or 4 large crates or barrels. Mary McGuire’s 1940 death notice mentions her 1881 emigration. But a faded page from an old notebook (prayer book?) had an entry “Mary McGuire... Edenreagh County Tyrone Ireland... November 24th, 1884” this may have been an earlier reference to her exact departure from the old sod. Which port she sailed from is not known but at that time a voyage from Liverpool could take 35 days to reach New York. Passengers were advised to bring a few loafs of hard baked bread and roasted or boiled fresh meat. Steerage facilities on those ships provided a sleeping berth that was basically a shelf six feet long by 18 inches wide with 22 inches between berths. Hugh and Mary married at St Mary's in DeKalb, January 29, 1885. Their first farm, as tenants, was in Cortland, called the "Bates" place. Their last farm outside of Sycamore was bought in 1902. It was a 184 acre dairy farm with some acreage cultivated for produce and cattle feed, and the Kishwaukee River intersecting it on the eastern side. For a time three properties were under tillage. Seven children were born, four boys, three girls. There was another child born after the first five. Hugh Jr., long thought to be number six had a doctor at his delivery so a birth record was filed. It noted that his birth was number seven for this mother. There was never any mention of this in the family Bible. Perhaps number six's birth could have benefited from a doctor's hand and that is why Hugh and Mary took on the expense for baby Hugh. None of the girls married. It was not because they were unattractive; rather mother Mary was a somewhat of a tyrant, expecting them to fulfill care taking roles. This prescript life possibly contributed to the tragic suicide of the youngest, Kate. At the age of 25 Kate jumped from the Brush Point Bridge into the Kishwaukee River. Some speak of a quashed desire to marry, others mentioned her disappointment with being denied use of the spending money she had earned by selling eggs, that she was directed to buy long underwear instead of a frivolous desire. Newspaper accounts mention her having been depressed for some time due to a slow recovery from a bout with influenza in 1918. Whatever it was she didn't return from milking the evening of October 31, 1919. It would take a day and a half before her body was found. There could be no doubt that she had taken her own life. Her death was never entered into the family Bible. "Drowning at own hand while insane" reads the death certificate. Most members of the immediate family would never speak of Kate again. Her photographs were destroyed, too. Her sister Margaret eventually made a living as a seamtress. Ellen, a slender brunette was quite the scholar making her class salutatory and essay. She taught school till in her 30s then worked at a number of office jobs. They were referred to as "the Girls" by their Sycamore relations or “Mag-n-El”, the epithet on their common tombstone. They were known to turn down any advances by young men. Farm boys, they felt, weren't good enough for them. World War I would provide an escape from the drudgery of farm life for son John, who in his mid-twenties enlisted in the Army. Even at that age John was being treated as a child by modern standards, being given money for occasional weekend social activities and clothing by his mother. There is a very old song from that era that has a line saying “How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree” but Paris and the aspect of his own money were enticing lures for him. Surely John had some misgivings about the romance of Europe while serving with the Coast Artillery Battalion 172 Battery B in France where his unit was involved with the movement and operation of huge cannons behind the lines. He would never return to the farm. He worked in a small Joliet steel concern for a while and then for a DeKalb tire maker. He met Gladys Young, daughter of the town sheriff. Their marriage was attended only by her sister and his brother Hugh. John would be the first McMenamin to marry a non-Catholic. The absence of both of their extended families at the ceremony indicates it made a difference. Again this may be another anecdote showing the influence that the tyrant Mary McGuire held over her family. It was said that Mary often inquired as to a person’s religion before admitting them to her home. John and Gladys moved to Chicago and lived on its west side less than two miles from his bother James. Both James and John became cab drivers; driving hacks during the very exciting Chicago roaring twenties gangster period. Second to the youngest son, Hugh, bought and worked the Sycamore farm of his father. He must have been both a hard worker and a capable businessman because he didn’t lose the property during the depression. His son, Hugh, was the first descendent of the Hugh and Mary to receive a higher education, becoming a doctor. The Sycamore farm is now totally out of McMenamin ownership; part of it is now a housing subdivision. A grammar school sits on what was the most northwest corner of the property, land donated to the local school board by Hugh, Jr. Michael, the youngest, was perhaps the wildest. In the battle of the pool hall versus the school book, the cue stick won. That may be where his lifelong taste for gambling was born. It took many years to “settle down”. Barely in his 20s, he lived for a short time with his older brother James in Chicago. How long this young bachelor fared in the city is unknown but he did return to Sycamore. Two early pictures of Mike reveal the dapper dresser he would become; till late in life he would favor three-piece suits and hats. Mike didn’t marry until the age of 33 in 1936. He owned the White Village Restaurant for a few years but eventually became a car salesman, first Chevrolets then Pontiacs. Finally, something that made Mike stand out from his DeKalb relatives, he was a Democrat! Hugh, Sr., could neither read nor write nor did his Irish born siblings so little if any communication went on between him and the family that stayed in Ireland and the brother who lived in New York state. It might be that an 1888 visit by a bachelor brother James to all his now American brothers before returning to Ireland was the last close contact that generation had with Ireland. A 1935 newspaper account of Mary and Hugh’s 50th wedding anniversary noted that congratulatory cards were received from relatives in Albany and Schenectady NY. So some contact was kept with the Michael branch of the family probably through the children. A contract legalizing the sale of the property from Hugh, Sr., to Hugh Jr only bore his "X" mark. The spelling of his name on the 1885 marriage license appears as McNamanan, the church has McManaman, one wonders how his offspring came to the present day spelling. It is said that Hugh, Sr., had the ability to give a piece of land's acreage and crop yield merely by looking at it. Unfortunately first hand accounts, for good or for bad, that might make Hugh an ancestor that one would tell their children about don’t exist. One wonders what he and Mary might have done for enjoyment. He seems to have landed in DeKalb County and worked for years, never traveling more than twenty miles in the span of the 55 years he lived there. At the time he started farming he would have turned the earth by using a team of horses and a plow. One supposes when he wasn’t trailing a plow he was probably sharpening the plow blade or chopping wood for the stove or milking the cows or mending the fences or farm buildings. A farmer’s day certainly matched his wife’s in what would be a series of endless and repetitive chores. Perhaps Hugh and the family did engage in what were common recreations at the time; a summer fair that might have featured horse races, maybe a basket supper at a rural school house or an occasional livestock auction. A barn raising would be a social event. Did they shop from the early Sears and Roebuck catalog? Was that the source on the wonderful stereoscopic viewer that entertained their grandchildren and great nephews? Would Hugh ever have loafed around a general store’s pot bellied stove swapping stories of the day with other farmers or did he simply doze off in his own rocker on rainy or snowy afternoons and stay the stoic he remains to this day? His oldest grandchild, my father, never related any stories but surely knew Hugh to some degree. As a teenager Jim spent several months in the summers of the 1920’s working on the Sycamore farm. Another grandchild, Mary McMenamin Kane, recalls him allowing her not to eat her potatoes if she didn't want to - so he was an indulgent grandpa. A swing accident that gave young Mary a very nasty rope burn put an end to the Chicago grandchildren’s Sycamore summer vacations. Hugh wore a mustache and had sandy colored hair. Grandson Dr. Hugh remembers seeing Grandma Mary reading the local newspaper, so she acquired the skill along the way. Dr. Hugh also remembers going to their golden wedding celebration in 1935. Hugh, Sr., died the next year. Mary passed away four years later, in the early morning hours of the day her first granddaughter Mary was getting married. They are buried in Mt Carmel Cemetery along with their three daughters.
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