wordgirlspeaks

When I was a kid, an announcement that my dad’s brothers or sisters had come to visit sent us kids straight into cockroach mode, scurrying from the light of their curious eyes and head-patting hands. I have no idea why we were shy like that as kids, especially with our own relatives. There were seven of us – four girls and three boys – and we lived in a world and a house that was its own kind of crazy. I suppose anyone who dared disrupt the delicate balance of our 1970s childhood universe justly deserved the small, unfriendly sets of eyes suspiciously peering at them from under the dining room table.

By the time I was in my mid-20s, I had three kids of my own, and my interest in learning about my family history was really beginning to grow. Suddenly my aunts and uncles, especially my dad’s older brother, Jack, seemed less like alien invaders and more like wonderful resources to help me learn more about my family’s past.

Uncle Jack was fifteen years older than my dad, a WWII Navy veteran who had seen action at some of the key locations in the Pacific including Midway. In the mid-90s, Jack, recently widowed, had started visiting my dad more. Always interested in family history himself, he had begun to share many of his discoveries with my dad, and when I expressed an eager interest in all of it, with me as well.

I have several hand-written papers Uncle Jack made for me on various visits documenting different facets of O’Neill family history. Included among these are a few hand-drawn illustrations mapping the location of my great-grandfather’s former home, situated on a prime piece of beach-front real estate within spitting distance of what would later become the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Jack discovered that his grandfather, Thomas Lawrence O’Neil, a popular train conductor on the Southern Pacific route for over 45 years, purchased the property in 1887 for the grand sum of $5. Today the house still stands. No longer in the O’Neill family, it has been converted into six separate apartments.

Thomas Lawrence O'Neil in full conductor uniform.

Drawing of the Location of O'Neil House in Santa Cruz.

A View of Front Street in Santa Cruz in 1892.

It’s hard to focus on the past when at the present you’re knee-deep in sticky fingers, pillow forts and Nerf guns, so while I treasured Uncle Jack’s visits and the wonderful information he was giving me, I didn’t have a lot of free time back then to do much with it. I delighted in the stories and information and carefully added it to the box of genealogy treasures I ‘d been collecting for years. It wasn’t until more recently, the past five years or so, that I have really had the time and freedom (now that my boys have grown up) to look deeper and follow the clues into my family’s past.

As a kid, I loved reading Nancy’s Drew books and pretending I was the ingenious she-sleuth myself, deciphering clues and unraveling mysteries. Nothing, however, compares with the feeling of hunting down real-life clues to your family’s past and putting two and two together to discover new compelling details about who these people really were. It’s like watching a faded black and white photo suddenly come to life in glorious HD. Finding new information makes me feel closer to these people – people I never really knew and yet, oddly, do now. At times I get this sense that they are looking down on me and feeling that same connection I do.

Originally, my main focus in tracing my family history had been the O’Neils because, well, that was my last name. And in the days before the Internet, that was all the information I initially had. But now that my research has taken me down many roads of the past and to many places, I have realized that I am not just an O’Neil – I am a Calderwood, and a Fox and a LeBeau and all of my ancestors last names as well. It’s interesting when you think that each of us has four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and sixteen great-great grandparents. I like to think of them all as my grandparents really – you have the final four, the elite eight and the sweet sixteen. Lately, when I set out to do family research, I will usually just randomly choose one of the family lines to follow to see where it takes me.

So far, I have made some interesting discoveries in several of the family lines – many of which I hope to document in future posts – but as I started to think about sharing my findings, I felt it was only right to begin back where I started all those years ago with Uncle Jack and the O’Neills, so here is a bit more of what I learned. The information that follows comes to me from various sources, the main ones being an old family document titled, “The O’Neills” which seems to have been based on an interview with my great-grandfather, Thomas Lawrence O’Neil, and another document handwritten by my grandfather, Francis Aloysius O’Neil to one of my cousins.

The O’Neills

My great-grandfather, Martin Hubert O’Neill came over to America from Galway, Ireland in the 1850s. With him he brought his wife, Mary Clare Bain and their eight children – seven sons: Hubert, John, Patrick, Martin, William, Owen and Thomas and a daughter, Mary Clare. The family settled in Philadelphia and lived there for over a decade. This picture of Martin Hubert O’Neill, my great, great grandfather is a recent piece of treasure that came to me courtesy of a new-found O’Neill cousin of mine. His great-grandfather was Thomas Lawrence’s older brother Patrick.

The family document “The O’Neills” mentions that the only daughter, Mary Clare, died at the age of ten. It also states that at the start of the Civil War all of the O’Neill boys, except for my great-grandfather, Thomas. who was too young, enlisted on the side of the Union. According to the same document, “All the six sons returned safely home from war, although William’s health had been greatly impaired by the hardships he had endured, and he died soon after retuning home.” The document goes on to detail Martin O’Neill’s exploits during the Civil War while serving aboard the Ironclad ship, “The Cincinnati” including an account of the sinking of said ship at the Battle of Vicksburg.

In researching real-life documentation to support these claims, I have found listings for all of the O’Neill sons’ names in Civil War records on Fold3. The problem is that the names are pretty common so there are often multiple listings. The best Civil War record I found was for Martin. It is for his widow’s pension. It provides some wonderful personal information in letters from Martin’s wife, Mary, as well as two of his nephews – Martin and Hugh O’Neill. It proves that he was on the famous Ironclad Ship – “The Cincinnati” which was sunk at the Battle of Vicksburg by Confederate troops.

Harper's Weekly from June 20, 1863 Documenting the Sinking of the Cincinnati

Another fact that can be verified is that William did indeed die in 1862 at the age of 19 and is buried in Philadelphia. It adds up that his injuries from the war are what contributed to his death at such a young age. I was able to find a death notice for William and one for Mary Clare as well, who sadly died just three months before William in May of 1862 at the age of ten.

Death Notices for William O’Neill and only daughter Mary Clare O’Neill in Philadelphia

Whenever I think about my great-grandfather, Thomas Lawrence O’Neil, it’s hard not to picture him as that serious-faced, official-looking man spiffily dressed in his train conductor uniform. Well, apparently he was not always so serious nor so formal. Many of the old newspaper articles I found, referenced him as the “popular conductor” often referring to him as “Tommy O’Neil.” One gets the idea that he was quite the character.

1913 Train Ad

1884 California Train Ride

It seems the O’Neills had a full and vibrant life in California. One can imagine the untouched beauty of the coastal areas during this time. In 1922, Thomas O’Neil passed away at the age of 71 and he was remembered fondly as a pioneer of the area. The article detailing his life and passing is below. He is buried at Old Holy Cross Cemetery in Santa Cruz, along with his wife, Louisa Catherine and their son, Albert.

Here is the Findagrave link: Thomas Lawrence O’Neil – Findagrave.com