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Patrick, (as I was told by my older cousin Anthony Quinn) came from either County Cork or County Mayo in Ireland and was born March, 1845 arriving in America about the time of the Civil War. However, on the 1880 Census in New York City he is listed as being 27 thereby putting his birth about 1853.(FHL Film 1254885 T9-0885, Page 252-A) Patrick had diabetis that went untreated until he lost most of the toes on each foot.
Mary Jane McCormick was born in Boston, Massachuttes. Her father was born in Ireland and her mother born in America (perhaps in Massachuttes.) The family story is that she ran away from home at 16 and lived with a Quaker Family who let her practice her Catholic Religion. Mary Jane met Patrick, got pregnant and had Michael Christopher Quinn in Dec. 1880 in N.Y.C. I'm assuming that because she was so young at the time of Michael's birth and because they lived in a cold water flat in New York City, times were tough so they didn't marry for 10 years until January 9, 1890 in Delaware, Pennsylvania.
Mary Jane's father was Thomas and her mother's name we do not know but her last name might be MacAnerney. She was related to the lawyers connected to the Sacco-Vanzetti case in Boston that was instrumental in getting the 14th ammendment passed.
When the Singer Mfg. Company opened in Elizabeth, N.J. other relatives working there encouraged Patrick and Mary Jane to move from New York City.
They bought two attached houses and made one into a Boarding House. Their clients were mainly men who worked on the railroad and actors. Patrick, Mary Jane, Michael and later Michael's wife Catherine "Kate" (nee Hurley) and their children lived there. After a bout of Influenza in 1913, Catherine's brother Timothy Hurley and his wife died leaving 5 orphaned children. Catherine took them in and raised them till they all got married. It was a full house.
Catherine Hurly Quinn had 14 babies and only 4 lived. They were: Leo, Mary, Catherine and Joseph Quinn.
Michael, Patrick and Mary Janes,s son, was sent to Boston after he finished high school to work with Mary Janes' uncles who were prominent lawyers. Michael was born with a cleft pallette and was known by the family to have the first successful operation in this medical area. Michael didn't hit it off with his uncles and they got mad and called him a "hair-lipped bastard" and told him to go back to New Jersey. From then on it was down hill for him and he became an alcoholic and hardly ever kept a job. In later years Michael and Catherine moved their family to another house in Elizabeth but he became abusive and his daughters Mary and Catherine Quinn encouraged their mother to move to Brooklyn, N.Y. and live with them. Catherine missed her husband and would always ask relatives about him and how he was doing.
Michael and Catherine's oldest son Leo, was his grandparents favorite child. He had blonde curly hair and blue eyes. Their oldest daughter Mary was born with almost black hair and her sister Catherine with dark brown hair. Catherine in later years had adult onset diabetes and lost two babies. Joseph (my father) was the baby of the family. He felt that he was destined to be like his father Michael. He drank and in later years became an alcoholic then a diabetic and died of a massive heart attack in February of 1970 in Suffolk County, New York at the young age of 53.
Most of the decendents of Leo Quinn and his wife Catherine Connolly are still living in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, N.Y.
There is one decendant of Mary Quinn and her husband Charles Keifer living in Nassau County on Long Island, N.Y.
There are no living relatives of Catherine Quinn and Walter Kane.
Joseph Quinn married Teresa Jansen on June 17, 1939. They had 3 daughters. All are living and have married. The oldest lives in London, ON, the middle lives in Eumundi, Australia and the youngest lives in Tampa, Fl. Teresa is 91 and lives in Fl.
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