Second and Third Field Trips

As summer rolled in, I found myself spending less time digging into the family history than I did during the winter and spring.  I have done some poking around here and there, but haven't turned up a whole lot of new information that has any definitiveness to it.  But that doesn't mean I haven't kept poking around at things either and some of the research I've needed to do required access to records not accessible on line, which definitely slows down the process.

However, I did get a chance to make a couple of field trips during the month of July.  The first was a fortunate happenstance when my cousin invited the family over for her daughter's second birthday.  Since this is the cousin who lives a block from where our great great grandparents lived from 1877-1890, I made a special point to bring my camera and planned to take a quick stroll down the street.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put the battery back in my camera after I had taken it out to charge it!  Thankfully, my mother had her iPhone with her, so I was able to borrow it when we took a stroll down the street.

Numbers 2 & 4 Harris Place,
the approximate location
of  John & Bridget Murray's home from 1877 -1890

The house my great great grandparents lived in is no longer there, but I was able to take a picture of the houses that are on the site now.  John and Bridget Murray and their family lived at 6 Harry Place, so I took pictures of the flats that are at 2 & 4 Harris Place and 8 & 10 Harris Place.

1815 Union Street - location of John Murray's last place of employment

John Murray worked at the Occidental Laundry for most of his life in San Francisco, but the only address I had for the laundry was "Filbert between Gough and Octavia", so I wasn't able to take a picture of that (the block is mostly residential now, with a couple mom & pop type storefronts.)  I did have an address for the last location that John worked and it was also within a short walking distance on Union Street, so I strolled up there to take a look at what is there now.  The building looks to have been remodeled considerably since 1890, but the storefront looks like it might be from the original building. The original building probably looked something like the yellow one to the right in the picture.

My next field trip came at the end of July when Mom and I trekked up to Holy Cross cemetery to see if we could find Marshall and Mary Murray, my great grandparents.  Mom was also going to show me where some of the relatives on her side were buried that I couldn't find on my previous trip.

My Theler great great grandparents

On my initial trip to Holy Cross in April, I had located the approximate location for my great great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray and her daughter Nellie and, based on the notes from my mother, they were buried in the same section as my Theler great great grandparents.  Mom and I headed up there first, and Mom realized that she had mismarked her map. The Thelers weren't in Section M, but in Section K which is down the hill.  That explains why I couldn't find them on my first trip!

Joseph & Maggie Kenny, my great grandparents

After finding the Thelers, Mom and I headed over to Section V to try and find Marshall and Mary.  As I mentioned before, the numbering makes no sense (on the rare occaisions when we could actually find numbers on the headstones) and after traipsing back and forth over the whole section, we couldn't locate their grave.  We decided we'd ask at the office for some more information, but before we went back down to the office, we went over to Section U to find my Kenny great grandparents.  We located them fairly quickly and hopped in the car to go back to the office, only to discover that a funeral procession was pulling in.  We decided to skip the office for now and plan for another trip.

142 Bosworth St. where my
Coleman great grandparents lived

14 Marsily St. where my Coleman
great grandparents lived when my
grandmother was born in 1914

Once we left Holy Cross, Mom and I drove up to San Francisco to find the house Nana grew up in on Bosworth Street.  We found it quickly and when we got out of the car to walk around the neighborhood a little bit, I noticed that the house was on the corner of Bosworth and Marsily St.  The Colemans lived on Marsily Street before they moved to New Jersey, so Mom and I walked up the street and took a look at that house also.  It looked to be fairly original to what the house probably looked like in the early 1900s when my Coleman ancestors lived there.

While we were walking around the neighborhood, my mother told me a story I'd never heard before.  Apparently my father's oldest brother fell out of the first floor window and severely broke his leg when he was about 2 years old.  When we got home, my father elaborated on the story some what -- the owner of the grocery store saw that my uncle was about to fall and ran across to try to catch him.  If I'd known that part of the story, I would have taken a picture of the small grocery store that is still across the street!