It's fairly time consuming to head up to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma to try to track down where all the many relatives I have buried there are located. It helps tremendously that I have a list of locations from the Cemetery Index at SFGenealogy.com so have a list of where I need to go and which family members are buried near each other. I always make a plan ahead of time as to which sections I'm going to visit and who I'm going to look for. I had some time off last November, so I planned to spend a morning at Holy Cross.
For this visit, I planned to hit Sections J, K, and M which are more or less in the center of the cemetery. I parked my car near the Priests Plot and paid a quick visit to Uncle Eddie and waved at Joe DiMaggio's grave in Section I before trekking through Section J looking for some of my Mullane relatives.
This was the first trip I remembered to stick my phone into my search bag (which usually contains gardening gloves, my camera, a bottle of water, a clipboard with my search list, and a gardening shovel in case uncovering a headstone requires a bit more work than my hands can manage) and it proved handy. Section J is one of the older sections and the row numbering is somewhat perplexing. After some cross-checking on the phone that I was headed in the right direction, I was able to find the grave I was looking for -- that of my great grandmother's brother Phillip J. Mullane and his wife and three children. Phillip and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane had four children, but only one lived to adulthood. Edward, Nora/Norine, and Phillip Clayton are the only ones whose names appear on the headstone.
Next it was over to Section K to see if I could find Thomas Joseph Mullane and his mother Margaret Shanahan Mullane. Margaret was married to my great grandmother's youngest brother Edward. Edward is buried over in Section F with his parents and other family members, and based on what I've been able to find at SFGenealogy.com, it appears Thomas and Margaret are buried with some Shanahan relatives. Unfortunately, I was unable to get properly oriented in this section and wasn't able to locate the grave. It was particularly frustrating because my Theler great-great grandparents are also buried in Section K and I've located their grave previously and I couldn't find them either to help with my orientation. I'll need to head back to find them.
I walked up the hill next to see if I would luck out in Section M and find a headstone for my grandfather's sister Mollie Murray Johnson. I knew from a previous visit looking for her mother and sister in the section that there weren't a lot of headstones in this older part of the cemetery and that the ones that were there are much newer. With so many rows containing very few headstones it was a trick trying to find the right approximate location. I walked around the area I thought I should be looking for any headstone I could cross-reference on my phone and I couldn't find anything for Mollie.
Since it was a nice day and I had struck out on most of the folks I was looking for I decided I was close enough to walk up to the St. Rose of Lima section where several of my aunts are buried. After saying hello to Helen, Diane, and Betty (all conveniently within a few rows of each other), I headed down the hill to the San Lorezno section and visit my aunt Pat and got my first look at my cousin Mark's headstone. It was a little bit sad to walk through these sections as they all were people who impacted my life directly -- much more so than all of the other folks I had been looking for but had never met (or even knew about until recently!) I miss them all.
As I headed back to my car I realized I was going to have to cut across Section G to get there, so I made my way down to Section G2 to make a quick visit with Nana and Grandpa Murray. While this wasn't a particularly productive trip in locating ancestors, it was a nice way to spend a warm fall morning.
As I noted when following up on posts about the Mullane family, there was a lot of tragedy in the early part of the 20th Century for all members of the family. While conducting one of my regular searches of newspapers a while ago, I ran across another sad story about the Mullane family.
Myrtle Mullane, who was the only child of Patrick Henry Mullane and his wife Ellen Mary Sullivan, died at the age of nine during the Independence Day celebrations in 1916. When I found her death notice that indicated she died while the family was in El Verano in Sonoma County, I thought perhaps there had been some kind of accident while the family was on vacation. I would need to order her death certificate to know for certain how she died, but I discovered something more about Myrtle that may have contributed to her young death.
In October 1910, Myrtle was playing in the back yard of her parents' home when she found some matches and managed to light one and set her dress on fire. Ella Mullane rushed out of the house and batted the flames with her hands. Both Ella and Myrtle were badly burned. According to the article I found in the San Francisco Call, Myrtle was "a pathetic, moaning figure, swathed in bandages from head to foot." She was admitted to the Mission Emergency Hospital "where the surgeons will work desperately at the well nigh hopeless task of saving her life." She was "terribly burned on the face and chest" and was clearly not expected to survive. The Oakland Tribune coverage was brief, but more optimistic. Myrtle was sent home after spending just a day at the emergency hospital to be cared for by her mother who was also burned on her hands and arms, but was "well enough to attend to [Myrtle's] injuries." There was also a brief mention of the incident in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, which made it sound like both Myrtle and Ella were in dire condition.
Myrtle clearly survived this horrific accident, but it does make me wonder if a result was enduring other health problems over the remaining years of her short life. None of the news articles are particularly long, and the way it was written in the Call was quite dramatic, so it's difficult to know just how badly injured Myrtle was, but it seems to have been fairly serious. Surviving those kinds of injuries is challenging today, so I can only imagine what it was like in 1910. It is not terribly surprising that she died about six years later.
Keeping the family history in order is challenging, so to assist in figuring
out who, what, where, and when things happened I've created a couple of
timelines. I put up a timeline for the Murrays a couple of weeks ago,
this one will cover the Mullanes. There is some overlap here, so I will
leave out the information posted in the Murrays timeline as it relates to the
descendants of Marshall Edward Murray and Mary Josephine Mullane.
I plan to do a similar timeline for the Colemans and O'Learys, but those will
be further down the road as I focus my 2016 research on that side of the
family.
MULLANE FAMILY TIMELINE:
About 1845: Mary Manning is born in Ireland
19 August 1847: Timothy John Mullane is born in Ireland.
About 1860-1862: Mary Manning immigrates to the United States (this is my
best guess to date. It’s possible she arrived earlier than 1860.)
1862: Mary Manning is working as a domestic in San Francisco.
About 1860-1863: Timothy John Mullane immigrates to the United States (this is my best guess to date. It’s possible he arrived earlier than
1860.)
1863: Timothy John (T.J.) Mullane is working as a clerk in San
Francisco.
8 October 1868: Timothy John Mullane becomes a naturalized US citizen
in the 4th District Court in San Francisco.
About 1868-1869: Timothy John Mullane and Mary Manning are married in
San Francisco. (This is my best guess to date as I've not yet found a
record for their marriage. I suspect they may have been married at
Mission Dolores due to the fact that both of their funerals were held there.)
1870: John Martin Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane and Mary Manning
Mullane in San Francisco.
21 March 1871: Mary Josephine Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane and
Mary Manning Mullane in San Francisco.
22 January 1872: Timothy Joseph Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane and
Mary Manning Mullane in San Francisco.
10 May 1874: Thomas Michael Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane and Mary
Manning Mullane in San Francisco.
3 September 1875: Phillip James Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane and
Mary Manning Mullane in San Francisco.
6 January 1877: Patrick Henry Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane and
Mary Manning Mullane in San Francisco.
July 1879: Edward George Washington Mullane is born to T. J. Mullane
and Mary Manning Mullane in San Francisco.
8 December 1888: Timothy John Mullane dies of tuberculosis in San
Francisco. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA.
5 February 1892: Mary Manning Mullane dies of tuberculosis in San
Francisco She is buried with her husband Timothy John Mullane at Holy
Cross Cemetery.
About 1899: Thomas Michael Mullane marries Jennie (last name unknown)
in San Francisco. (The 1900 US Census indicates Thomas and Jennie Mullane have been married for 1 year. I have not found a marriage record for them as of this writing.)
21 April 1900: Mary Josephine Mullane marries Denis Edward Hayes in
San Francisco. They appear as married up to the 1910 US Census when Denis
Edward Hayes disappears from the records. As of this writing I do not
know what happened to Denis Edward Hayes and believe he abandoned Mary. [For more on Mary Josephine Mullane, see the post Timelines: The Murrays.]
10 May 1900: Thomas Mullane is born to Thomas Michael Mullane and
Jennie (Unknown) Mullane. As of this writing, this is the only record I
have been able to find of Thomas Mullane, Jr. beyond his appearance in the 1900
US Census which was recorded in June, 1900.
29 October 1902: Phillip James Mullane marries Mary Agnes Greeley at
St. Brendan's Church in San Francisco.
10 September 1903: Edward Ignatius Mullane is born in San Francisco to
Phillip James Mullane and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane.
17 December 1903: Patrick Henry Mullane marries Ellen Mary Sullivan in
San Francisco.
6 June 1905: Maria Nora (Norine) Mullane is born in San Francisco to
Phillip James Mullane and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane.
28 August 1905: Maria Nora (Norine) Mullane dies of enteritis in San
Francisco. She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA.
14 June 1906: Timothy Joseph Mullane marries Hattie Mae Huber in
Oakland.
8 July 1906: Myrtle Marie Mullane is born in San Francisco to Patrick
Henry Mullane and Ellen Sullivan Mullane.
18 June 1907: Phillip Clayton Mullane is born in San Francisco to
Phillip James Mullane and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane.
About 1908: Edward George Washington Mullane marries Margaret
Shanahan, probably in San Francisco. I've yet to find a definitive
marriage record for them, but the 1910 US Census indicates they have been
married for 2 years.
9 February 1909: Edward John Mullane is born to Edward G.W. Mullane
and Margaret Shanahan Mullane in San Francisco.
19 March 1910: Thomas Michael Mullane dies of tuberculosis in San
Francisco.
15 April 1911: John Martin Mullane dies of tuberculosis in San
Francisco. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery with his parents.
13 July 1911: Thomas Joseph Mullane is born to Edward G.W. Mullane and
Margaret Shanahan Mullane in San Francisco.
1912: Jennie (Unknown) Mullane is working as a janitor (janitrix) in
San Francisco. As of this writing, this is the last record I have been
able to find about her.
11 October 1912: Leonard F Mullane is born in San Francisco to Phillip
James Mullane and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane.
6 March 1913: Raymond W Mullane is born to Edward G.W. Mullane and
Margaret Shanahan Mullane in San Francisco.
11 January 1915: Thomas Joseph Mullane dies in San Francisco. He
is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA in the Shanahan family plot.
9 March 1916: Margaret E Mullane is born to Edward G.W. Mullane and
Margaret Shanahan Mullane in San Francisco.
20 June 1916: Margaret E Mullane dies in San Francisco. She is
buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in the Mullane family plot.
4 July 1916: Myrtle Marie Mullane dies in El Verano, California. She
is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA.
16 January 1917: Edward George Washington Mullane dies of tuberculosis
in San Francisco. He is buried with his parents and daughter in the
Mullane family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery.
25 Februrary 1917: Edward Ignatius Mullane dies in San
Francisco. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery with his sister Maria Nora
(Norine) Mullane.
27 March 1917: Phillip Clayton Mullane dies in San Francisco. He
is buried with his siblings Edward and Nora at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma,
CA.
20 September 1931: Raymond W Mullane dies of tuberculosis in San
Francisco. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in the Mullane family plot
with his father and sister.
6 January 1933: Margaret Shanahan Mullane dies in San Francisco.
She is buried with her son Thomas in the Shanahan family plot at Holy Cross
Cemetery in Colma, CA.
16 June 1935: Timothy Joseph Mullane dies of tuberculosis in San
Francisco. He is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery (now Olivet Memorial
Park) in Colma, CA.
3 June 1937: Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane dies of pancreatic cancer in
San Francisco. She is buried with her children at Holy Cross Cemetery.
Before April 1940: Leonard F Mullane marries Gladys Nichol, presumably in San
Francisco. (They appear as married in the 1940 US Census. I have yet to find a marriage record for them.)
12 July 1940: Mary Mullane Murray dies from heart disease in
San Francisco. She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA.
18 December 1941: Phillip James Mullane dies in San Francisco.
He is buried with his wife and children at Holy Cross Cemetery.
1941-1946: Leonard F. Mullane and Gladys Nichol Mullane have two
children that are still living and will therefore not be specifically named.
11 November 1943: Hattie Huber Mullane dies in San Francisco.
27 May 1944: Jerald Mullane is born in Marin County, California to
Leonard F Mullane and Gladys Nichol Mullane. He dies one day later.
21 January 1945: Patrick Henry Mullane dies of pneumonia in San
Francisco. He is buried with is daughter Myrtle at Holy Cross Cemetery in
Colma, CA.
About 1946: Edward John Mullane marries Frances Dorothy Donohue in San
Francisco. (This is a best guess based on the birth of their children. I've yet to find a marriage record for them.)
Between 1947-1951: Leonard F. Mullane and Gladys Nichol Mullane
divorce. (This is a best guess based on the birth of their children and Leonard's subsequent re-marriage below. I have not found a divorce record.)
Between 1948-1949: Edward John Mullane and Frances Donohue Mullane
have 2 children who are still living and will therefore not be specifically
named.
8 September 1951: Leonard F. Mullane marries Helen Anita Becker (nee
Balletto) in San Francisco.
26 November 1961: Leonard F. Mullane dies in San Francisco. He
is buried at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, CA.
30 May 1979: Helen Balletto Mullane dies in San Mateo County,
CA. She is buried at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, CA.
14 November 1980: Frances Donohue Mullane dies in San Francisco, CA.
She is buried in the Mullane family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA.
6 April 1997: Edward John Mullane dies in Redwood City, CA. He
is buried in the Mullane family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA.
This was the first trip I remembered to stick my phone into my search bag (which usually contains gardening gloves, my camera, a bottle of water, a clipboard with my search list, and a gardening shovel in case uncovering a headstone requires a bit more work than my hands can manage) and it proved handy. Section J is one of the older sections and the row numbering is somewhat perplexing. After some cross-checking on the phone that I was headed in the right direction, I was able to find the grave I was looking for -- that of my great grandmother's brother Phillip J. Mullane and his wife and three children. Phillip and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane had four children, but only one lived to adulthood. Edward, Nora/Norine, and Phillip Clayton are the only ones whose names appear on the headstone.