The Irishman Who Lost His Toes in Wichita… and so Regained his Family Home in Kilrush!

Michael Francis (Uncle Frank) Slattery  (1863-1922)

My 2^nd Great Uncle Frank Slattery was born in the “market” town of Kilrush in County Clare, Ireland and died there in 1922. But in between lies quite a story!

He was the sixth of nine children born to Thomas Slattery and Margaret Mulvihill, whose first child, also named Michael Francis Slattery, had died as an infant and another son, Thomas, died as an infant in 1866. His other siblings were Denis Rupert, Mary Louise, John James (my great grandfather), Anne, Margaret and another Thomas.  Of the seven who lived to adulthood, only four married – Denis, Mary Louise, John and Margaret – and of those, three of their spouses died between 2 and 13 years of their marriage, leaving young families.

Though Kilrush had been one of the hardest hit towns in Ireland during the Great Famine (about 1847-1851) – with an unspeakable history of disease, death, and mass evictions  — by the time the Slattery children were born the town was coming to life again. Frank’s father Thomas (my Great Great Grandfather) was apparently a prosperous butcher who raised his own prize cattle. 

Bonnie Doon

Bonnie Doon house, Kilrush, Clare, Ireland (family photo)

In the mid-1860s Thomas acquired one of the grandest homes in downtown Kilrush with a fair amount of surrounding property. He had probably already been a tenant farmer on the land, and the family may have originally lived in the Lodge House (no longer there). The original owner of the Georgian-style home, James Paterson – a man who had been instrumental in creating the growth of Kilrush in the early 1800s — had been a Scot and named the home ‘Bonnie Doon.’   The Slattery family likely moved in when Frank was young, so he probably grew up there. His father won many prizes for the cattle he raised there, and there was a large fruit orchard. I have not yet found Thomas’ original land documents for the property, so it is not entirely clear what his arrangement was – and whether their ownership was defaulted at some point.  It seems that all of the children received a good education at local Catholic schools and some of the girls at convents elsewhere.

A Great Sadness

Clipping from unknown Clare newspaper in March 1881; from  Louise McNamara’s box of memories

Frank’s mother Margaret Mulvihill Slattery died after an illness of a few days at age 52 in March of 1881 when he was 17 …

and his older brother Denis’ young wife Susan died of tuberculosis two years later at age 25, a few years after giving birth to their only child, Mary Josephine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Life in Kansas

An event that impacted Frank’s life occurred in the summer of 1883 when  Frank’s older sister Mary Louise married J.J. McNamara, a local Clare man who had left Ireland years before as a 16-year-old and had become a successful dry goods merchant in Newton, Kansas. He must have met Mary Louise on a previous trip home and came back just long enough to marry her and bring her back to Newton.

Not long after, her sister Anne and brother Frank joined her there. When J.J.’s business

1898 photo of the Wichita dry goods store (on Rt) that had been Munson & McNamara, then just McNamara; taken after it was sold to George Innes.

expanded in 1887 to become a leading dry goods store in Wichita, Frank followed the McNamaras there, and Anne eventually went on to Tacoma, Washington, where she was a nurse.

The Railroad… and the accident that changed his life

The first Missouri Pacific Depot in Wichita, 1905 photograph.  Frank Slattery was working as the night clerk at the time and is possibly one of the men in this photo. (from Wichita Photo Archives)

Frank always had the dream of saving his money and going back to Kilrush and Bonnie Doon – he never married and lived frugally as a roomer the whole 20 years he was in Wichita – with occasional stays with his sister’s family.

He got a job as a yard clerk at the Santa Fe Railroad and in 1891 the 28-year-old Frank had an incident that would change his entire future.

Wichita Eagle, 7 April 1891, page 6

His foot was crushed when a switch engine jammed the cart he was standing on against a telegraph pole, which  ultimately caused him to lose several toes

Soon after, he left the Santa Fe Railroad, was hired as the night watchman at the competing Missouri Pacific Railroad, and proceeded to sue the Santa Fe RR for damages.

$4,000 For His Toes!

The railroad appealed his initial win, but after five years the Kansas Superior Court awarded him a $4,000 judgment! ($4,000 in 1896 is worth about $118,000 in 2017 dollars; he was age 33).  It made the news in papers throughout the state.

 

 

In the meantime, back at Bonnie Doon, Frank’s father Thomas had died in 1893  at about age 65, and it appears that no Slatterys lived on the property for a number of years after that. It may have been rented out occasionally, vacant for awhile, taxes may have been due, and apparently the house was in need of  repair. I am interested in learning more about this period but will leave that to a later story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 1897… Twin Tragedies in Kilrush and Wichita

Article Excerpt from The Wichita Eagle, July 9, 1897, page 2

July 1897 was a crushingly devastating month for our Slatterys, both in Wichita and Kilrush. On July 6^th, Mary Louise’s 47-year-old husband J.J. McNamara died unexpectedly

Margaret “Missy”Grogan Slattery

from appendicitis …

 

 

 

 

…and on the 17^th in Kilrush, my Great Grandmother, 35-year-old Missy Grogan, the wife of John James Slattery, died of “accute gastrointestinal catarrh,” both leaving young families behind.

Mary Louise immediately sold her beloved husband’s successful dry goods store to an entrepreneur named George Innes, who grew it further into a major Wichita department store. She seems to have been an astute businesswoman and invested in properties in downtown Wichita, at the same time schooling her brother Frank on property ownership.

But their brother John James was having a difficult time making a living and taking care of his family alone in Kilrush, so he (controversially among family members) ‘farmed out’ his six children (ages 2 years to 14)  to relatives, a convent, and an orphanage – the story of a later blog post – and, at 39 years old, sailed to America in 1899, settling in Wichita where he lived at the same rooming house as his brother Frank. He got a job as a clerk in the shipping department of the Santa Fe Railroad, where he worked until he retired in the late 1920s.

1900 — “One of the Best Investments in the City”

Article excerpt: The Wichita Eagle, Feb 24, 1900

Frank spent his “toe money” on a number of real estate investments in downtown Wichita, including this handsome store building at 418 East Douglas.  The article goes on to say that he had purchased the building “for purely investment purposes and thought he had secured a splendid investment. He and his sister, Mrs. McNamara, are acquiring considerable business property in the city and have great faith in the future of Wichita…”

 

 

 

 

Life as a Nightwatchman was never dull!

Headline from article in Wichita Beacon, Sept 18, 1903

 

Wichita Eagle, Feb 5, 1904

1906 Citizenship… and new family members

On September 19, 1906, twenty years after filing his first “Declaration of Intention” papers back in Newton, Frank finally became a U.S. citizen.  And in 1905 and 1906, the oldest two children of his brother John James had arrived to join their father in Wichita — first, 19-year-old Mabel, who moved in with her Aunt Mary Louise, then my grandfather, 21-year-old Jack, joining his father in a Wichita rooming house.  If Frank had ever seen his niece and nephew before, it would only have been as new-born babies.  But now Frank was making his own plans for the future.

1907 Going Home!

headline from article in Wichita Daily Eagle, June 23, 1907

It’s not clear to me just what happened to the Kilrush property from the time their father Thomas died in 1893 until Frank returned, but it seems likely a lot of restoration was needed, and perhaps finances were in arrears. It appears there were renters some of the years, and it was vacant at other times. In any case, no family members lived there.

But in the summer of 1907, Frank left Wichita to reclaim and restore the family home. He had saved up his money and invested in Wichita commercial property, some of which was still held when he died. And now– after 20 years working the night shift at the railroad and living in a rented room — he could leave triumphantly and live his dream of being the master of his own estate – spending time with his dogs and tending the orchards at Bonnie Doon. He was just 44 years old.

The Wichita Eagle article is quite colorful and, I think, interesting to our family members–though the journalist got a little carried away with the romantic sad story of the “Colleen Bawn,” and I’m transcribing it here in full:

“Mr. M.F. Slattery will leave Monday for Ireland to live the remaining years of his life in the ancestral home on the banks of the Shannon.

For twenty years Mr. Slattery has lived under the stars and stripes, and eighteen of these years have been spent with the Missouri Pacific railroad in this city.

One purpose has been continually in his mind, and that was to return to his native home, some day, with enough money to reestablish himself in the halls of the Slatteries, an old house in Kilrush, in the County of Clare, which overlooks the majestic Shannon, on the banks of which, forty miles above, the last battle was fought for Irish liberty and the house of Stuart.

That broad part of the river is associated with one of the most pathetic tales in Irish literature–the story of the Colleen Bawn, by Gerald Griffin.  On the south side was the seat of the Creagans, the family whence sprang the collegian who brought sorrow to the rope maker of far-famed Garry Owen. This rope-maker’s only daughter–the fair Elly O’Connor–was persuaded by Hardress Creagan to elope with him. They were married by a rascal who impersonated a priest. The Creagans were of a higher caste than the rope maker’s daughter, and tiring of the pretty girl, Hardress Creagan conspired with his servant, one Dan Scanlon–written in the novel Danny Mann–a miserable hunchback, to murder her. And in that broad bend of the Shannon, or rather in a marshy tributary, he drowned her. Dave Leahy’s grandfather was one of the jurors that sent him to the gallows.

The story of the wanderings of Elly O’Connor and the search that was made for her by heartbroken old father, from the time of her elopement until the body was found, constitutes the chief interest of the novel; for it constitutes a picture of Irish life and national wit, and pathos that creeps into the very core of one’s soul.

Danny Mann, the murderer, was the first person to give expression to a phrase that has become, more or less, common wherever the English language is spoken–“A man that was born to be hanged will never be drowned.” He was one day in the boat of Denis Mulvihill, the grandfather of Mr. Slattery, when he fell over board. He was rescued and resuscitated with difficulty, and it was then he delivered the expression that was terribly prophetic in his own case.

The body of Elly O’Connor was buried in the cemetery of Kilrush and is very near that of the grandfather of Mr. Slattery.  Many boats ply down the Shannon towards the Heads of Ballybunion, bent on commerce, salmon fishing and pleasure, and, although about a century has gone since the tragedy, hats are reverently raised when the spot where Elly was murdered is passed.   For years a maiden, with a blue coat, was seen nightly wailing and sorrowing, or at least the large imagination of the Irish saw her there.

Mr. Slattery goes back to the old home with a handsome bunch of money, made here by loyal, steady work and wise and judicious investments in Wichita property–enough to enable him to rejuvenate and restore the old family seat and its appointments, and to live the balance of his days in that happy ease and independence which was natural to his ancestors and to Irish temperament generally.  He will continue his American citizenship, but will do all he can with his wider American experience and extended capacity to help the cause of the happy sad race to which he belongs.  His twenty years in America were crowned by the best success achieved under a republic–the making of a handsome fortune and a good name and reputation.

He is a brother of Mrs. Mary L. McNamara, widow of Mr. John J. McNamara, one of the former great businessmen of Wichita.

Life back at Bonnie Doon

Frank Slattery (far left) and brother Thomas (probably top), Denis (probably front), and Mary Louise (right) and family members; est. 1909-1910, Bonnie Doon.

Mary Louise and her daughters didn’t wait long to visit the newly restored Bonnie Doon, spending a number of months there in 1909/10 and again in 1919 — and maybe more

c 1919

 

times in between. Fortunately, they took a number of photographs of their visits, which is my only historic photographic record of Bonnie Doon.  Mary Louise Lockhart (granddaughter of Mary Louise Slattery McNamara) sent these photos to my brother Mike when he was researching the family back in 1983, and I am forever grateful to her!  (The Kilrush and District Historical Society has posted an album of all these old Bonnie Doon photos on their Facebook page: Kerry Slattery’s Bonnie Doon Album)

In the 1911 Kilrush Census, Frank lived at Bonnie Doon with his 17-year-old niece Mai Slattery and a servant woman.  According to the Census, the house has 12 rooms; 5 windows in front; 9 outbuildings = 2 stables, 1 coach house, 2 cow houses, 1 calf house, 1 piggery, 1 shed, 1 store.  It doesn’t mention the chapel on the grounds or the old well.

Of the remaining Slattery siblings still in Kilrush — widower Denis was a gentleman farmer in nearby Ballykett, where he lived with his 29-old daughter Josephine; younger brother Thomas was a butcher and lived down the street; and sister Margaret was married to “draper” John Culligan and they and their children lived on Toler Street, a few blocks away.  Brother John James’ remaining Kilrush children gradually emigrated to Wichita (Lulu in 1911, Eva in 1913, Kitty in 1920 and Mai –not until Frank’s death in 1922)

 

 

Mary Louise was well documented in the Wichita Society pages, and she sometimes passed Frank’s letters on to the paper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1922 Sadness in Kilrush and Wichita

The Wichita Beacon, May 31, 1922

On February 9, 62-year-old Mary Louise Slattery McNamara passed away of static pneumonia in Wichita, followed three months later in Kilrush by her younger brother, 58-year-old Frank, of an enlarged prostate and heart failure.  When their brother John James Slattery heard Frank was sick, he quickly boarded a ship to visit him in Kilrush, but Frank was gone before he arrived.  John stayed for several months at Bonnie Doon and brought his daughter Mai back with him when he returned to Wichita.

It seems that Frank was universally liked among his family members.  He never married and his obituary states that he was “a great lover of dogs and while he lived in Wichita he was noted for the many fine animals he always kept.”  He still owned the business property at 418 East Douglas in Wichita, home of the Western Pacific Tea Company.

Unfortunately, something apparently occurred during that visit that caused John James to stop communicating with his remaining siblings — a subject for a later post. 

Frank’s Legacy

Frank’s love for Bonnie Doon and his determination to reclaim and restore it allowed it to continue to be occupied by family members for almost 100 years after he came back to Kilrush, until the death of Kathleen Dooley Culligan and its sale in 2002.  The current owners are now working on restoring it to its former splendor.

Culligan family at Bonnie Doon – date not known

Michael and Mary Culligan’s daughters with their grandmother Kathleen Culligan

1950 – My Grandfather Jack Slattery’s only visit to Kilrush after he emigrated in 1907.

 

Michele Culligan and children.

c 1983 brothers Tom and Michael Slattery and their wives Bette and Natalie visited Bonnie Doon and the Culligans.

c 1983 Mike and Patti Slattery with Kathleen Culligan

2016 John Horsley and Mary Sullivan Horsley (great grandson of Mary Louise Slattery)

 

2015 Kerry Slattery & Ben DiGregorio

2016 Ruth Slattery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A few notes:  ages in this blog are correct as best I can verify at this time, mostly based on the original baptism records  — and often they do not correspond to the ages our family members gave in census, immigration and other records.  Subject for a whole other post!!

My info in this post relies on parish and civil records, census and immigration records, news articles retrieved from http://www.newspapers.com, Wichita Photo Archives, as well as family photos and memories. I’m happy to share my copies or full articles to any family members.  Would love to hear family comments and notes about any other information, photos or stories!  — Kerry