Roots and wings

Charles Lyons (1851 - 1918)

Charles Lyons was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on December 25, 1851. He was Matthew Lyons' older brother, and my Great great uncle.  He prospered as a businessman in Charlottetown, ultimately being elected as Mayor in 1912.

    Charles Lyons, Mayor, Charlottetown, 1912 -1914.  This portrait is currently hanging in City Hall, Charlottetown, PEI.  Thought to have been painted by Robert Harris.

  Newspaper ad, Charlottetown Guardian, 1911.

He began his working career at a ship builder, then started C. Lyons & Co, a coal business in 1882. The business was quite successful for a long time - even for many years after his death in 1918. According to probate records, he amassed a sizable fortune over his life - worth well over $1 million in today's money. When he died, among other investments, he owned a tugboat company, several merchant ships used to export produce and import coal, a large sailing vessel for trade - Victory Chimes - and a beautiful home.  This home is listed in the Canadian Register of Historic Places.  It is currently a bed and breakfast - the Shipwright Inn. I stayed there on my recent trip to PEI

  Shipwright Inn, 2006.  Former home of Charles Lyons.  Victory Chimes, 1918.

His financial success was a remarkable accomplishment having come from such humble beginnings - son of an immigrant shoemaker. But it was his personal success that is even brighter. He was quite involved in local politics and community affairs. When he was elected mayor of Charlottetown in 1912, he won by a resounding margin because his popularity crossed over all religious and political groups.

  Election results, February 15,1912.

From his obituaries:

...He was indeed one of the sterling business men of this community, and under his painstaking care, not only did his own business develop and expand, until it became one of the leading businesses in this city, but at the same time he gave largely of his time to all matters that made for the advancement of Charlottetown and the welfare of its citizens.

...Owing to his unusual ability and keen grasp of affairs and his excellence as a platform speaker, Mr Lyons was more than once waited upon and urged by the conservative party to offer as their candidate for the House of Commons.

...In him, the poor had always a true friend, whose sympathy continually flowered into deeds of kindness and practical assistance. Wherever he knew of the existence of cold, hunger or want among our people, Mr Lyons never hesitated and hundreds of loads of coal and provisions found their way into the homes of the destitute.

Dennis Lyons Descendants (rev Oct 10, 2006)

To help you navigate the Lyons family stories, here is the lineage chart, showing the direct descendants of Dennis Lyons, Mary Kay's great grandfather on her maternal side.   

Descendants of Dennis Lyons.

Matthew Lyons

Matthew Lyons was born on October 5, 1862 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI).  Matthew is Mary Kay's maternal grandfather.  Matthew was the youngest son of Dennis Lyons and Margaret Costello.  He left PEI for Quincy, Massachusetts (near Boston) in 1878, after his mother died.  He was only 16. 

Matthew's departure was part of a mass exodus from PEI between 1870 to 1885.  This exodus - particularly of young people, the island's future - was so big, that some say its effect is still being felt in PEI today.   The ship building industry which had flourished with the whaling industry had come to a screeching halt in 1875.  The farms couldn't be split up any smaller.   There were no other industries.   

It was a very tough time and most of Matthew's family was part of this exodus.  Two of Matthew's siblings - Joseph and Mary - left for Boston in 1870.  Two others left with Matthew in 1878.  Only one sister and one brother - Charles - stayed behind in PEI.  Charles was successful as a coal dealer, ultimately growing prosperous and highly respected in the community.  He was the Mayor of Charlottetown from 1912 - 1914.   

By the time Matthew arrived in Quincy, his sister, Mary Lyons had married John Vogel, the son of a successful granite dealer - Adam S Vogel and Sons.  Matthew lived with John and Mary Vogel until he married.  Matthew got a job in the granite industry as an apprentice stonecutter and ultimately became a stonecutter - a highly skilled job which paid pretty well.  Unfortunately, it was also risky - many died from long term dust inhalation. 

     Granite cutting plant, Quincy, c. 1900.  Matthew worked in a place like this.

Matthew married Catherine Flanagan (Kitty) in 1886 and had four children - Margaret Lillian (Nana), Charles, Paul and Edward.  Even with 4 young children, Matthew was very active in community affairs and a leader.  For several years he was a ward for the Democratice Committee.  He was a member of the Quincy Board of Health.  And, according to his obituary, "he was a prominent member of St Francis Court, Massachusetts Order of Forresters".  Matthew died in 1900 at the very young age of 38 - after an illness of several months - due to heart trouble. 

Kitty raised the four children on her own, never re-marrying.  I'm not sure how she did it, but we do know that her children were all working at very young ages and she had some extended family around her at that time. 

Interestingly, in the 1910 Federal census, Kitty's family lived next door to the William Cashman family - reminding me of a friendship that lasted 4 generations

Some side notes about Quincy:  Quincy granite was famous throughout the nation and stonecutting was the city's principal economic activity.  Quincy was also the birthplace to 2 US Presidents but more importantly the birthplace of Howard Johnson's and Dunkin Donuts.  Poppy, who grew up in Weymouth, the town next to Quincy, told me that he learned to swim when his buddies threw him into a granite quarry pool.  Maybe that was why he left the area....

Nana and Poppy - September 29, 1913

HEFFERNAN –  LYONS.  Former E Weymouth man, now a resident of Florida, weds well-known young woman of Quincy.

  Wedding announcement, 1913.

Lillian Lyons (Nana) and Dave Heffernan (Poppy) met while he was attending law school at Northeastern in Boston.  At that time, he was also working Cunard Lines and happened to sail to Miami which he loved.  He moved there immediately.   When he finished his law studies two years later, he wrote his marriage proposal in a letter, returned to Boston, and returned to Miami with the former Lillian Lyons.

   M. Lillian Lyons, 1913. Engagement photo (age  26) 

This was quite a move. In 1913, Miami was so young - the total population was only 1,500. Nana told me one time that her family thought that alligators roamed the streets of Miami. Between their two families, there were 12 siblings. Nana and Poppy were the only ones to leave the Boston area.

They prospered and grew along with Miami. They also worked hard to help build their community. In addition to Poppy’s career in law, both Nana and Poppy were very active in the civic and religious growth of Southern Florida – they were founding members of the Knights of Columbus, the Elks St Vincent de Paul Society (President of the Chapter for over 20 years), Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce and Catholic Daughters of America, to name a few.

Poppy started out as an attorney practicing law. He was the first Catholic to enter legal practice on the east coast south of St Augustine. In 1925, he was appointed Judge of the Dade County Police Court. (According to family legend, he was on the "red light" beat.) He was appointed Judge of the Civil Court of Record from 1937 until his retirement in 1959.

His first appointment to the court in 1925 was controversial because Poppy was Catholic. It took active support and involvement of John Martin, then governor of Florida, for Poppy’s appointment to be approved. In a letter to Poppy on his retirement, former Governor Martin said it was one of the best decisions he had ever made and he was quite proud for it.

Starting a family brought sorrow as well as joy.  They gave birth to 8 children, only 3 survived.  The 5 died near birth, victims of the Rh factor - generally, incompatible blood types between mother and fetus.  They were called "blue babies". Mary Kay recently told me the story of the last child's death.  Mary Kay must have been about 10.  She and Poppy were leaving the hospital after visiting Nana.  Poppy just sat at the steering wheel and sobbed while Mary Kay looked on, helpless. The cause of this condition and a cure was finally discovered in 1940.  This condition is now very rare.

  , The Heffernans, 1924 and 1942.

They raised three children - Mary Kay Renshaw, Father David Heffernan and Paul Heffernan.   Mary Kay describes her childhood as that of "a spoiled, Irish daughter".   Mary Kay assumes that they were somewhat insulated from the Great Depression because Poppy's job was secure.  Mom remembers that they shared their good fortune with others in the form of service, donations and many people over for dinner often.

In September, 1963, Nana and Poppy celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary the way they did many other things – surrounded by family and friends, with great joy and enthusiasm.

     September 29, 1963.

When Nana died in 1971, they had been married for 58 years. Not bad for childhood sweethearts turned pioneers.

Family history...what's up with that?

I'm going to Prince Edward Island next week to continue Lyons family research.  I've wanted to make this trip for 8 years since I first started the Lyons family history obsession research.  This is a little of that story.

In September 1997, I saw one of those eye-catching, impossible-to-believe ads in the Sunday paper: Ireland for a week for an amount that sounded too low to cover food let alone airfare and hotels. I soon discovered the reason for the low price – very few tourists go to Ireland in November. Not only is it a slow vacation time in general, but Ireland is cold and rainy in November. The only variant to that weather norm is that it could get "very" cold and "very" rainy. But I knew the exact right person for a traveling companion – Mary Kay. She’s never let a little weather bother her.

Up to that point, Ireland hadn’t been on my radar screen as a travel destination. But suddenly it seemed like a perfect trip to take with Mary Kay. Her parents - Nana, Margaret Lillian Lyons and Poppy, David J. Heffernan - were both Irish.  Even though there were only five weeks ‘till our departure, I decided to use the trip as an opportunity to research the roots of Mary Kay's Irish families.

To say that Mary Kay is not nostalgic is a great understatement. Her philosophy for life is grounded quite firmly in the here and now. Yesterday? Old news. Her response to the genealogy research project was a quick, "Whatever for?" She accepted it as something that would amuse me.

Needless to say, she had no clues for me to start my search. So first I turned to my collection of family scrapbooks, which yielded nothing of immediate value – no birth dates, no mention of great grandparent names, not even the names of the siblings in the families just one generation up. It seemed the entire family had evolved some anti-nostalgia gene. The struggle was disappointing. I was running out of time.

I got my big break in the newspaper wedding announcement about Nana and Poppy's 1913 wedding. I had read the article many times in my life but on this particular reading, I found a clue. The final line – the mention of the bride’s  (Nana, nee Margaret Lillian Lyons) deceased father, Matthew Lyons – included the fact that he had been a member of a fraternal organization. I called the national headquarters to see if they had and record of members from 1900, the year I estimated his death. No. But the helpful fellow mentioned that one of the major benefits of fraternal organizations at that time was the ability to buy life insurance. "Perhaps your great grandfather bought a life insurance policy that paid a death benefit," he suggested. He gave me the phone number for the appropriate department to research life insurance claims. I hit the mother lode! A death benefit had been paid in 1899, and this one record was a genealogical Christmas tree – it had names, birth dates, death dates, and addresses. I was off…

In the next three weeks, I dedicated many hours to the researching the Lyons.  I leveraged the information from the insurance benefit payment and ended up tracing Mary Kay's family back to the first generation of immigrants who traveled to Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia from Ireland in 1835 and 1845. (Matthew's father, Dennis Lyons, and mother, Margaret Costello Lyons) Unfortunately, I ran out of time and couldn’t "jump the pond" and trace the immigrants to their place of origin in Ireland. No problem. I had read about the National Genealogical Society in Dublin. They helped people with just this sort of thing. So I would visit them while we were in Dublin.

I had kept Mary Kay informed about the breakthroughs while doing the research. It was fun to sense her interest build over the course of a few weeks. She became engaged and even started looking forward to finding "the town" her family was from. We naively let ourselves get carried away with the enthusiasm.

Mary Kay and I arrived in Ireland as people undergoing a transformation. Throughout our lives we had dutifully reported that we were Irish when asked about our ancestry. While growing up, people would peg me as Irish because of my red hair. Mary Kay's favorite college football team always has been Notre Dame – yes, the Fighting Irish. There was some vague sense of affinity but there had never been a real connection. But by the time we arrived in Ireland, we felt truly connected. We belonged to all of Ireland. We were no longer tourists. We were Irish.

This enhanced our experience in many ways. We went to an Irish dinner and show at Bunratty Castle – something I would normally have avoided because it was too "touristy". In fact it was 40 percent corny but 60 percent great fun. Tears filled our eyes when some Dennis O’Day sound-alike started singing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." I was so excited driving through County Clare that I almost got into an accident for all my gawking. I wanted to take in every sight, sound and smell that my ancestors may have lived. We were much more attentive to even the smallest of details. We talked to every cab driver in Dublin. "What do you call traffic lights in Dublin?" my mother asked. "A damn nuisance!" the driver shot back. It reminded us of our own sense of humor – we laughed hysterically and felt another tug of connection.

The most surprising emotional moment came when I was standing in Kilmainham Jail – the site of the British executions of the Irish rebel leaders of the 1916 Easter Uprising. Those executions triggered a civil war in Ireland that led to the separation of Ireland into North and South six years later. I knew about the "troubles" in Ireland since its ugly resurgence in the ‘70s. But I had never been able to piece the information together. As a result of reading about Ireland for this trip, the tour guide’s commentary and standing there, it all came together. I got it. And I found another connection. I remembered that in Nana and Poppy's scrapbooks – where I had started my genealogy search and found "nothing" – my grandparents had pasted clippings of articles about Ireland’s long struggle for freedom. Even in the sunny light and prosperous life in southern Florida, Mary Kay's parents were still connected. After all, they were Irish.

Now more than ever, I wanted to make the final "jump". I headed to the National Genealogical Society to do some research. I was so excited at the prospect of finding more connections that I wasn’t bothered a bit by the downpour as I walked.

That visit turned into one of my worst travel experiences. Ever. I ended up talking to a man who should not be working with the public, let alone in a library built primarily for tourists. He basically "lectured"  me that there was no way I was going to find my family. He intimated that I was completely unprepared and was wasting his time. On top of that, closing time was in 45 minutes so there was no reason to start a project then. I’m not a person who’s easily dumbfounded. Yet I was standing there, with my mouth open, unable to petition my case on even the smallest scale, and holding back tears. I couldn’t believe this bureaucratic nincompoop was blowing me off. It was his job to help me!

The entire visit took less than 10 minutes. I left the library crestfallen. I did start crying. I think more at the crashing disappointment after such a long, wonderful, heady buildup. I walked in the rain, mapping out my revenge. Then I started trying to figure out how I could find the information I needed to close the loop. Then I started thinking about where I could go for the hour or so that had just been freed up. I found great comfort at Fred Hanna's, a wonderful bookstore where I bought several books on Ireland.

When I got back to the hotel, I told Mary Kay the story – over a glass of Irish whisky, of course. I polished it with my best Irish story-telling skills. The whole incident eventually became quite funny, amusing both of us to no end, setting the stage for another wonderful evening on the town in Dublin.

As it turns out, my mother and I are very resilient. After all, we’re Irish.

PS. Mary Kay's maiden name is "Lyons". We discovered a tiny town in County Cork named "Castlelyons" and made a side trip to see it. To our delight and amazement, we discovered that Castlelyons was the town of our family’s origin.

Blarney or not, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

The players - you gotta have a scorecard

I'll post more details as we go along.  In the meantime, here's a scorecard.

Downer's side of the family:

Renshaw.  Downer's father, Claude Arthur Renshaw, and his family were from Iowa.  The first Renshaw families emigrated to Iowa from Maryland around 1850.  This branch of the Renshaw family arrived in Maryland from England in the mid 1600's.  This is a very well documented, researched line.   There's an active group of the "Renshaw cousins" who are researching it, still.  They have even done DNA testing to confirm some of the lines.   Now that's some serious research.

Parkinson.  Downer's mother, Zoe Parkinson, grew up in Weede, Montana.  Her parents were pioneer settlers, having moved to Montana from Illinois around 1900.  Zoe's mother was Florence Downer Chambers.   The Downer family (as in "Downer's Grove, Illinois") is very well documented.  The first Downer emigrated to Connecticut from England around 1630.  It is this line that qualifies all of us to belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) .  We have an ancestor who fought in the American Revolution.  Zoe did the research and joined the DAR in 1955.  I'll be posting some of her research later. 

Mary Kay's side of the family:

Heffernan.  Mary Kay's father, David James Heffernan, was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts to William T Heffernan and Jeanette Sanderson.  William emigrated to Boston from Ireland in 1862.  Jeanette was born in Scotland.  Her family moved to Boston circa 1855.

Lyons.  Mary Kay's mother, Margaret Lyons, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts  to Matthew Lyons and Catherine Flanagan (aka Kitty).  Matthew moved to Quincy from Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada in 1878, when he was 18.    Matthew's father, Dennis Lyons, emigrated from Ireland to PEI around 1840.  His mother, Margaret Costello, was born in Newfoundland.