The Story of George Thomas Connors (Jnr.) / Memories ... March 23

This is the story of my paternal Uncle, George Thomas Connors (Junior)  (1914 - 1990).

Our common ancestors are:  George Thomas Connors and Grace Olive Brown.

I'm publishing this post on the anniversary of my uncle's passing.

 In Remembrance

(also for my 'Family Anniversaries' page)

Today is the anniversary of the passing of my paternal uncle, George Thomas Connors Jnr.

(The photo above that appeared on the Ancestry.com site is not a photo of my Uncle George.  I've had to review this post and change photos below as I had previously made a mistake in identifying the man above as George - it is in fact his younger brother.)

This is George Thomas Jnr.
(Photo shared by my cousin Keith Connors)

 

• George was the fourth child and third-born son of my paternal grandparents, George Connors and Grace Brown.  He was born in 1914 in Lismore, New South Wales when his father was 34 years old and his mother was 29.

• George was one of ten children born to George (Snr.) and Grace, although only eight of those children reached their adult years.  

This photo of George and his older brothers was likely taken around the mid 1920s
L-R:  Thomas Richard Connors, George Thomas Connors, Colin Vincent Connors
(Photo shared by my cousin Keith Connors)

• George Jnr. spent the first ten years of his life living in New South Wales, but then around 1924 the family was living in southern Queensland, and that is where George spent the remaining years of his life.

• His father was working on / managing various dairy farms around southern Queensland between the mid 1920s and early 1930s (for the influential Collins family who owned the Mundoolun, Tamrookum, Rathdownie and Nindooinba stations), and the Connors family moved quite a bit during that time.  Eventually George Snr, his wife Grace, and most of the family left the area and moved to Gympie, but George Jnr. and his older brother Colin stayed.

• The brothers worked as farm hands in the area around the town of Beaudesert.  The 1936 Australian Electoral Roll has both of them listed as living and working in the Beaudesert area in the Moreton District.

• George Jnr., aged 22, was working on the large pastoral station Mundoolun, and apparently remained working there for a number of years. 

• The 1941 Australian Electoral Roll has George Jnr. listed as working as a farm hand at Mundoolun, although he now had a wife, and his older brother Colin appears to have moved on.

• George Jnr. met a young lady at a Canungra Dance during the time he was droving cattle at Tamrookum Station  and a lifelong love story began.  George Jnr. married Ivy Joyce (known as Joyce) Ball in 1941, at the age of 27, and they remained married for 49 years until George Jnr. passed away.

• By 1949, George Jnr and his wife Joyce had taken over Joyce's father's farm and moved onto the dairy farm in the Boyland area, north east of Beaudesert.  George Jnr. and Joyce bought that farm and worked it together for many, many years.

George Connors Jnr. and his wife Joyce 
Photo likely taken in the 1950s
(Photo shared by my cousin Keith Connors)

• While George Jnr. and Joyce did not have children of their own, they certainly welcomed the children of their brothers and sisters to their home whenever possible.  I do have vague memories of visiting them when I was quite young, but details do not come to mind unfortunately.

• George Jnr. passed away in March of 1990, aged 75. 

Photo courtesy of The Beaudesert Times, Oct 29 2019

• His wife, my aunty Joyce, amazingly lived on until a few months passed her 104th birthday!!!!

Memories shared by other family members:

From my cousin Carmel:

"My Mum’s brother, the lovely, gentle George and his wife Joyce lived on a dairy farm outside of Beaudesert and on many occasions they would host visits from various members of the family.

They were fun times especially for us “townies”. George, who played the accordion, was also a member of a local band. Country dances in small community halls meant great times long into the night.

I remember at Granny’s and at our house that George would also play many a tune accompanied by Uncle Bunny on the banjo. Looking back there was so much joyous mayhem. The house was full of singing, dancing, laughter."

From my cousin Ann:

"This is a little story of John and myself, we are cousins, and when we were children we would go for a holiday to my Uncle George and Auntie Joyce's farm which was just out of Beaudesert. We had many wonderful times there.  

There was this time when Johnny and I were going for a walk around the paddocks when we looked up towards the cow bales and we could see our Aunty Joyce standing up on the cow bales. She was calling out to us. John and I looked at each other and said "What is she saying?" John said, "I think she said there is a black fellow watching you", and I said "No, I think she said there is a black snake watching us". Well, with that we both took off, running as fast as we could. 

The next thing, Johnny's hat flew off his head, he ran back to get it, but I didn't wait for him. I kept running as I didn't want him to get ahead of me. When we got up to the cow bales, our Auntie was still waiting for us. She said "I asked you two to bring the cows home with you". There was some cows grazing in the paddocks near us. We were only about 10 years old at the time. We laughed and laughed."

Memories ... March 15

In Remembrance

(For my 'Family Anniversaries' page)

Today is the anniversary of the passing of my maternal Great Grandfather, Owen McCane (Muckian).

I've told Owen's story before, with as many facts that I was able to discover from records and information from extended family.  If you're interested, you can read more about Owen by following this link:  

The Story of Owen McCane (Muckian)

Owen McCane - all photos taken in the early 1920s

Up until three years ago I had never sighted a photo of  my great grandfather.  I then had the fortuitous  experience of receiving an email from a distant relative who thought I might like to have copies of some old family photos.

Finally I had the privilege of seeing the face of this person I'd been researching for around 10 years.  It's a heartwarming experience, putting a face to a name that had not been known to you until you are halfway through your own lifetime!

All three photos I now have of Owen show, what I think, is a gentle countenance.  He was, I believe, a man who worked hard all his life to support his family and greatly valued his family life. 

A few facts to remember about Owen on this important day of remembrance:

• He was born in Ireland and his family name was Muckian.

• He was born in the townland of Ballintemple (Baile an Teampuill), in the Parish of Killevy / Killeavy, in the county of Armagh.

• Muckian was the surname recorded on his birth record

• He was the middle child of five siblings.

• Upon leaving his family and home in Ireland, he still stayed in contact and remained close to his youngest sister Anne (known as Nancy).

Owen's sister Anne (Nancy) Barry nee Muckian
remained in Ireland

• Owen's surname was recorded as McCane upon his emigration to Australia, and his descendants were all registered upon birth with the surname of McCane.

• He worked as a miner and a railway construction worker in the first few years after arriving in Queensland, Australia

• Owen married an immigrant English girl, in Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia, when he was 32 years old.

Owen's wife, Margaret McCane nee Farrell

• They went on to have seven children, although their boy Edward William died when he was a young boy.

Owen's family

• After his marriage, Owen took on employment as a 'fireman' working at the Burdekin River Pumping Station, helping to keep the steam engines that powered the pumping machinery working.

• He worked at the Pumping Station for around 20 years, and he and his family lived for many years in a cottage close by, on the banks of the Burdekin River.

• Owen and his family moved from Charters Towers to property near Molongle Creek, in the Gumlu area, establishing a family farm known as 'El Rita' where he grew sugar cane, pineapples and bananas.

• Owen had the family house from Charters Towers railed to the site.

• Owen paid for his grand nieces' passage to Australia (daughters of his younger sister Anne / Nancy) in the early 1920s, and they both stayed on the family farm for a while before they both married.

Owen's sister Anne Barry nee Muckian, her husband Patrick Barry and family
Owen's nieces Rose (back row left) and Bridget (back row right) came and stayed on Owen's farm

• Owen worked the family farm for over 15 years and his sons Jack and Jim stayed and worked the farm as well.

• Owen passed away at the age of 70, in 1930.

• The remains of the ancestral family farm back in Ireland can still be seen today, as well as the church where the family members were baptised.

I am resolved to get there one day and walk around the area my great grandfather left over 130 years ago!  There are still many distant relatives living close by and I would love to hear their stories and learn even more about this side of my family.

The Story of Tobias Burke

This is the story of my maternal great grand uncle, Tobias Burke (1843 - 1917), the brother of my great grandmother Bridget Burke. 

Our Common Ancestors are:  James Burke and Catherine Crotty. 

I've included Tobias in my 'Lonely First Names Club as Tobias is not a name that occurs very often in my family tree.  As a matter of fact, my great grand uncle is the one and only family member on my extensive family tree with that name.

Apparently the name Tobias is of Greek origin and means "God is Good".  Tobias is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Tobiah.  

I have yet to uncover why my great grand uncle, born in Ireland, was given this name.  I'm assuming it was a family name back in the generations that came before him (1700s), but it's extremely difficult finding records from that time in Irish history to confirm this assumption.

The name does not appear in any of the generations of the Burke line that followed him, at least none that I'm aware of or have found in my research.

Interestingly though, his name does match the way of life that Tobias followed when he became an adult.

Up until the end of last year, I had very little knowledge about the life of Tobias.  I had collected a few records and pieces of information from other family members and their family trees.  

Facts / Records I had found up until the end of last year included:

Tobias Burke was born in 1843.  He was the third-born son of James Burke and Catherine Crotty (my 2x great grandparents).  When Tobias was born, James was 32 and Catherine was 29 years old.  

Tobias was baptised on the 18th of April in the Carrick-on-Suir Parish, in County Waterford.  He was born in the area known as 'Three Bridges' between the town of Carrick-on-Suir and the townland Tibberagany (also spelt as Tybroughney).

He grew up in this area, along with his older sister (my great grandmother), two older brothers and three younger brothers.  

When Tobias was 21, in 1865, his older brother William left home, bound for Australia and he never returned.  By this time all of Tobias's siblings would have been considering the options for their future as the small tenant farm they had grown up on would no longer have been able to support them in their adulthood.

It appears that Tobias left home sometime around 1870 to begin a religious vocation and receive the Sacrament of the Holy Orders.  At least, this was the story that had been handed down orally over the generations. 

Then .......

At the start of this year, I got lucky and stumbled upon a source of information I'd previously under-utilised - the 'Directories & member lists' filter on the Ancestry.com search page for an individual.  I noticed there were hundreds of entries for a Tobias Burke, and I started clicking on a few randomly, looking for matches in dates and places.  

This led me to the City and Regional Directories of Ireland, in particular Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the year 1871.  

It was there I found the name Tobias Burke in the index of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.

This Tobias was listed on page 1202, and the entry states he was a "curate" near the town of Carrick-on-Suir in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore.  The year, the area, the name all pointed to the possibility that this was my Tobias Burke, and that the family story had been founded in reality.  I followed this trail and found out quite a bit about the adult life of Tobias.

All of a sudden, my Ancestry.com page on Tobias Burke exploded, and was filled with details I had never expected to uncover!

In the 1870s, which was the time period relating to the first entry in Thom's Directory for my Tobias, a Roman Catholic "curate" in Ireland was a newly ordained priest who had been assigned to a parish, but was subordinate to the parish priest.   The parish priest was the one who had canonical responsibility for the parish and was installed by the Bishop of the diocese.  The curate was appointed by the Parish Priest and would have acted as his support / assistant in all aspects of parish duties.

I found a short passage in a text called 'The Rise and Fall of Stations in Ireland',  that provided a small insight into the life of a curate:

Stations

The story opens with the local parish priest announcing from the altar before the end of mass on Sunday that he will hold Stations Monday through Friday at the houses of five of his more substantial and respectable parishioners, whom he then proceeds specifically to name. On the appointed day, the parish priest and his curate arrive early in the morning, by which time the near neighbours have gathered. The priests then hear the confessions of the assembled penitents, men and women, while their clerk sets up the portable altar for the celebration of mass. When the confessions are heard, one of the priests celebrates mass, and the people receive communion. After mass, the priests and their clerk take their breakfast with their host, his family, and some of the more respectable of the neighbours, who have also been invited. After breakfast, the priests examine and catechize the children, and hear the confessions of those they had not been able to attend to in the morning. The parish priest then proceeds to collect his dues and any arrears that may have accumulated from the head of each household present. This period of religious instruction, additional confessions, and collection of dues continues until dinner time. At three o'clock, the clergy, the host, his family, and a number of specially invited local notables, clerical and lay, sit down to dinner, and for three or four hours there is considérable eating, drinking, and merry-making, which takes the form of spirited conversation, storytelling, and singing, usually fuelled by generous libations of whiskey punch. The routine was repeated at each house during the week, and the Stations usually continued from some six to eight weeks, depending on the extent and population of the parish. They were, moreover, normally held twice a year, just before Christmas and after Easter. Finally, it should be noted that Stations were essentially a rural phenomenon because in the cities and larger towns they were not held in private houses but in the parish churches and chapels. Such then is the barebones of the custom of Stations that evolved into a national system between 1750 and 1850.

"The Rise and Fall of Stations in Ireland, 1750 - 1850" pp.19-32 in 'Chocs et ruptures en histoire religieuse' by Michael Lagree.

Turning back a few pages in this 1871 edition of Thom's Directory, I found an exact location for Tobias, along with the name of the Parish Priest and the nearest town.  

He was curate at Ballyneale Parish, near Carrick-on-Suir, under Parish Priest, John Dee.  Tobias would have been 28 years old at this time.   From this time onward, Tobias spent his religious life in the Diocese of Waterford & Lismore.

I was able to follow the movements of Tobias around the Diocese of Waterford & Lismore by looking through more of Thom's Directory.  

I found him in the Parish of Ballylooby, near the town of Clogheen, in the following year,1872.

Tobias was the curate under Parish Priest Stephen Lonergan, but he was not the only curate this time. That likely indicates that this particular parish must have had a busier life than the previous one. 

It appears Tobias spent  another two years in this parish.  During this time Tobias's mother, Catherine Burke nee Crotty, had died, and his youngest brother James had left home, bound for the United States.  His younger brother John had married, and had started his married life close to Pilltown, in County Kilkenny.

By 1875 Tobias was the curate in the neighbouring Parish of Clogheen, under Parish Priest Patrick Meany.

In the following year, 1876, he can be found in the Parish of Rathcormack and Clonee, near Carrick-on-Suir once more.  

He was still there in 1877,

and 1878.

The Parish Priest was Timothy Dowley, and again there was another curate, John Power, working in the parish alongside Tobias.

In 1879, I found Tobias had moved to the parish of Passage (also known as East Passage).  He was to remain in this Parish for 15 years, from 1879 to 1894. 

During the years 1879 to 1881, he was working with a Parish Priest named Edmund O'Donnell, which is another interesting piece of information, as I am descended not just from the Burke family, but also from the O'Donnell family.  I'm not sure yet if there is a connection with this priest named Edmund, but I'm assuming it's highly likely.

The parish priest Edmund O'Donnell appears to have moved on, or perhaps had died, in 1882, as I found that Tobias was then working under the Parish Priest, John Crotty, and remained working under him from 1882 to 1887, in that same parish.  

Interestingly, Crotty was Tobias's mother's maiden name, which could mean the parish priest was a relative of Tobias.  I am of course also descended from a family named Crotty, so there's a chance I might be related to that parish priest as well. 

From 1888 to at least 1894, Tobias was then working under Parish Priest Maurice Flynn.  During this time, his older brother William, who had emigrated to Australia, had died, as well as his younger brother Maurice, who had stayed on the family farm n County Kilkenny.

In 1896 things changed significantly for Tobias when he became a parish priest himself, in the Parish of Kilgobinet.

Tobias had acted as a curate for 25 years, which seems a rather lengthy period of time to act in a subordinate role.  Of course, given the times, the Diocesan Bishop likely had a very, very long list of priests in waiting as choices for parish priest positions that became available during Tobias's long period as a curate.  

By the time Tobias was appointed Parish Priest by the Bishop, he was 53 years old. 

 

As previously stated, Tobias was the parish priest in the Parish of Kilgobinet, near the town of Dungarvan.  He was there for about four years, and perhaps not surprisingly, he had chosen a man named Michael Burke as his curate.  A relative?  Highly likely!  

Tobias then moved on from the Parish of Kilgobinet.  Information gleaned from the book titled  'Waterford & Lismore - A Compendious History of the United Dioceses'  (published in 1937 and written by Patrick Power) states that the Reverend Tobias Burke became the parish priest of the Parish of Aglish, upon the death of the Reverend Matthew Walsh in 1899.

At the time Tobias was 57 years old, and that is where he remained until his death at the end of 1917.

Tobias Burke died on the 27th of October 1917, at the age of 74, in the townland of Curraghmoreen, County Waterford.  All of his siblings had passed away before him.  His two younger brothers, John and James, had passed away in 1902 and 1904 respectively.

In the March the 9th 1918 edition of the  Dungarvan Observer, a statutory notice to creditors appeared which mentions the Reverend Tobias Burke, who had died on October 27th, 1917.  The notice mentions a Tobias Burke, a John Burke (both farmers) and a Rev. William Ormond, as the executors of the will. 

 

This other Tobias Burke was likely a relative of my Tobias Burke.  I have no idea how he fits into my family tree though.  Fingers crossed that I stumble upon the answer to that question in the near future.

The John Burke, also mentioned as an executor to the will, is likely to have been another relative of Tobias, but I don't know for sure.

The Reverend William Ormond is described as hailing from Kinsalebeg, Youghal in County Waterford.  I wonder what that connection might have been? 

There was also quite an interesting item in the Dungarvan Observer dated March 16 1918.  

In his will, Tobias left charitable bequests to selected religious - the Abbot of Mount Melleray and Rev. William Ormond - so that they might offer prayers during Masses for his soul, the souls of his family members who had passed, and the souls in purgatory.  He also left a small amount to the Convent of the Sisters of Charity in Dublin, to support their work for the poor.   

Special Note to any family members:  If you have information to share, can I graciously ask that you do so.  Please use the comments box below or email me.  It may prove to be invaluable to the story and provide future generations with something to truly treasure.