Returning to Holy Cross Cemetery -- October 2014

One of the things I have been doing with some regularity is making trips to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma to try and locate the many many MANY family members that have been buried there over the 150 or so years of the cemetery's existence.  Thanks to the San Francisco Colma Cemetery Index over at SFGenealogy.com, I can easily look up where and when family members were buried between 1887-2005 (the index actually goes up to 2012, but only records that are older than 10 years old are searchable.)  It's a great and useful resource, and I've recorded the names, dates, and locations for many of the family members so I can have a list handy when I go trekking around looking for gravesites.

Since Holy Cross is a large cemetery with about 40 separate sections and to date I've identified relatives in about 20 of them, I try to group my searches to two or three sections that are in reasonable proximity of each other.  Some trips are more successful than others as the row and grave numbering is seldom clearly marked and I can't always find where I'm supposed to be.  There are also the occasions when I DO find the right spot only to find there isn't a headstone to identify the plot, so the location is my "best guess".  On my most recent trip in November I did remember to grab my phone so I could use the database to help confirm my location which was helpful. 

I've learned from my trips and other inquiries that certain locations are mass graves either for the poor (Section A) or for those who were removed from Mount Calvary Cemetery when it was finally closed around 1940 (part of Section H.)  The older sections of the cemetery are a lot trickier than the newer ones as there are a lot of missing headstones (if there were ever headstones in the first place.)  Section M, where my great great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray is buried with her daughter Nellie is one such section.  When I visited in 2012 looking for Bridget, there was no headstone at where I believe she was buried.

Arthur Patrick & Kathleen Ford,
my grandmother Elizabeth
Coleman's first cousin and
his wife

I have, however, had some successes.  On a trip in October 2014, I found the markers for Nana's first cousin Arthur Patrick Ford and his wife Kathleen.  They're buried in Section G2 just a few rows away from Nana and Grandpa Murray.

Mullane family plot where my
great-great grandparents T.J.
Mullane and Mary Manning
Mullane are buried with
their descendants.

On the same trip I was also able to locate the grave of my great-great grandfather Timothy John Mullane in Section F.  T.J. Mullane is buried with quite a few other members of the Mullane family including his wife Mary, sons Thomas Michael, John Martin, and Edward W. Mullane.  Also in the Mullane plot are Margaret E. Mullane, the infant daughter of Edward W., her brothers Raymond and Edward J. Mullane, and Edward J. Mullane's wife Frances Dorothy Donahue Mullane.  Not all of the Mullanes are listed on the headstone, and from the design I'm guessing it was put in later than the original purchase of the plot. 
 
My last stop on this visit was to the mass grave for the Mount Calvary Cemetery internments.  My great-great grandfather John Murray and his daughter Lizzie Frances Murray were moved there from their original burial place.  There is a nice marker there for the over 39,000 people who were relocated when the cemetery was finally closed in 1940. 

My next post will detail a very successful and productive visit in February, 2015.

Well, What Happened to Mollie?

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been able to get as much done this year as I'm up against a couple of blocks that require access to records that aren't available on-line. I had, however, finally found death notices for three of my great grandfather Marshall Murray's siblings that I have been trying to find for the better part of the last two and a half years. Several records helped me confirm that Marshall's older sister Mollie (Mary) had married and was named Mollie Johnson when she died in 1917. I sent off for her death certificate as well as those of her two brothers, Joseph and John Henry, to see what more I could learn.

Mollie's death certificate arrived a few days ago and I was stunned to see her cause of death. When I saw the date of 1917, I thought she had possibly been one of the many victims of the flu pandemic of 1917-18. That was not the case. Mollie was hit by a Key Route train and died from a fractured skull! That meant that all three of my Murray great grandaunts died tragically. Lizzie Murray was the first to die of typhoid at age 3 in 1875, Nellie (Ella) Murray Nelson died in childbirth in 1909, now Mollie was hit by a train in 1917!

Clipping from San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, February 26, 1917
newspapers.com

I figured a train fatality would be newsworthy, so I went to check out the available on line newspaper sites to see what I could turn up. The Oakland Tribune isn't available on line for the year 1917, but the San Francisco Chronicle is and I was able to find a small note at the bottom of page 1. When I get my next off-line opportunity, I'll have to add checking out the Oakland Tribune microfilm to see if there is more to the story than what was printed in the Chronicle.

The thing I found most interesting is the note that "the dead woman appeared to be about 45 years old." Mollie was 46 when she died, but when she married Charles Johnson Mollie subtracted 14 years from her age. Her death notice and death certificate show her as 37 years old, or 9 years younger than she actually was. So either she looked her age or the doctors estimated her age before she was identified.

I did a quick look at Google Maps to identify the intersection of the accident and cross checked it against the address I had for Mollie when she died. It looks like she was killed crossing the street on her way home as the intersection of Lowell Street and Stanford Avenue in Oakland is just a few hundred feet from where Mollie and Charles lived at 986 Stanford Avenue (assuming, of course, that house numbering hasn't changed in the intervening century.)

I'm still waiting on the death certificates for Joseph and John Henry.  Hopefully they're not quite as dramatic!

A Couple of Mysteries Solved

Shortly after Christmas, the wonderful folks at SFGenealogy.com updated their Colma Cemetery Index with an index of the removal cards from Calvary Cemetery. Back in the late 1890s, the city of San Francisco stopped burials within the city limits, and so people began being buried at cemeteries in Colma. There was a protracted battle over what to do with the remains left in the various cemeteries in San Francisco, but eventually most were moved to Colma, and those buried at Calvary Cemetery mostly wound up at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery.

Since I knew my great great grandfather John Murray had died before burials had stopped in San Francisco, I thought I’d see if he turned up in the Calvary records. I had found a death notice for a John Murray in November 1890 that I was fairly certain was my great great grandfather, so I plugged in his name and the date I’d found. He popped up immediately, and the attached image indicated that he had been reburied at Holy Cross in June, 1940. That meant he’s not the unnamed Murray I found buried with my great great grandmother Bridget who was buried in 1912. In addition to the date he was reburied at Holy Cross, the record indicated that there was a second family member buried with him. Well that is certainly interesting!

Who was this second person buried with my great great grandfather? The removal record indicated that the original plot at Calvary had been purchased in November, 1875. Using that date, I searched on anyone with the last name of Murray and up popped a record for Lizzie F. Murray. When I looked at the image attached to the record I got a big smile on my face – the record indicated she was the “child of John & Bridget.” Well, that means I’ve found the right John Murray, and now I’d found the missing child. I really hadn’t expected to find out what happened to the unknown sibling of my great grandfather that was indicated in the 1900 census. According to the removal record, Lizzie was three years old when she died in November, 1875. That would have her born about 1872 and, as I suspected, fall between Mollie (Mary) and my great grandfather Marshall.

An added bonus to these newly added records is that Holy Cross allowed the SFGenealogy team to upload the images from the original Calvary registers. Armed with the names and dates for John and Lizzie Murray, I looked for them in the Calvary registers. According to the register Lizzie died from typhoid fever on November 22, 1875 at the age of 3 years and 3 months old. The Holy Cross records indicate she was buried on November 22, so I’m not sure which it is – did Calvary enter the date of burial under “died on” or did the transfer record just assume the “died on” date was the burial date? Still, in the worst case, I’m within a few days of the correct date.

I did the same look up for John Murray, and it indicated he was 50 years old, born in Ireland and died on November 20, 1890 which matched up with the death notice I found in the San Francisco Call. I can’t quite decipher his cause of death as yet, but I suspect it’s cirrhosis of the liver (the first word starts with a “c” and is followed by “of liver”.) Another interesting note for his record indicated to which parish he belonged. Naturally, whoever entered the information just entered “S.B.” which is less than helpful, and I had to go to the San Francisco City Directory for 1890 to see which church it might be. I’m fairly certain that “S.B.” stands for “St. Bridget/Brigid” (the 1890 directory has it listed as St. Bridget’s, but current references call it St. Brigid’s) as that parish was the closest to where John and Bridget Murray lived in 1890.

Lizzie and John were removed to Section H in 1940, but I wasn’t able to find them in the Holy Cross records. Fortunately, the folks at SFGenealogy were able to help me out when I asked why I was having difficulty. Section H is where the mass grave for removals from Calvary is located and thus not everyone buried there was listed in the Holy Cross records.

Now that I know where my great great grandfather is buried and identified the unknown sibling for my great grandfather, I have one puzzle still to work out. Who is the unknown Murray buried with my great great grandmother? The Holy Cross records list a burial date of March 16, 1912. Could this be one of my great grandfather’s siblings? If so, why isn’t the first name listed? I know it’s not his younger brother Joseph since he shows up in the 1920 census, so if it is a sibling it’s either Mollie (Mary) or John Henry. Another possibility is that it’s a child, thus no name, in which case it could be the unknown child of Mary and Marshall Murray. If that’s the case, however, Mary and Marshall would have likely been married by 1911, and the Mary J. Mullane I’ve found (and am fairly certain is the right Mary Mullane) is still married to Dennis Edward Hayes in 1910, so what the heck happened there?!

I’m going to have to cull through the 1905-1929 California Death Index images to see if I can find a death record that corresponds to the date of burial I’ve found at Holy Cross. Hopefully that will help find the missing relative. I'll also have to spend some more time with the Calvary records to see if there's anyone else listed there.