Email hellos
Email messages from folks who couldn’t make the meeting were read. It is a great way to stay in touch even if you can’t attend.
Jim Brown (grandson of Elizabeth Cleary Head) told a great true story from his childhood. As a small boy Jim, his eight brothers and sisters, and their parents lived on a farm near Ludlow, Illinois. One day in the early 1930s, a black touring car pulled into their farmyard. Jim said he has a vivid memory of the big headlights on the front of the car and a lady wearing a fur coat sitting inside.
Jim’s uncles were in the farmyard and recognized their cousin Dan when he stepped out of the car. Jim thinks there were probably several others in the car as well. It was Ma Barker and her “gang” (sons). Dan was married to Ma’s daughter, Alice. Ma was probably in the area, as Jim put it, “holed up”. The Browns sold them some eggs.
A note on Ma Barker: For more than twenty years, Ma Barker and the gang terrorized the Midwest, robbing banks and killing dozens of people. The FBI caught up with her in 1935.
Price Cemetery, Bloomington IL. Pat Jennes (descendant of Mary Cleary Penn) and Mary Stack told of an adventure trip they went on recently to find the old Price Cemetery where Pat’s grt-grt-grt grandfather John Penn is buried. The landmarks had all changed since Pat had been there. What was once a small family cemetery on the Price farm in SE Bloomington is now landlocked by buildings. The Price family bought land in what is now SE Bloomington around 1820. Eventually Price sons bought land adjacent and their ownership spread out towards Bentown. When John Penn and sons came around 1850, they purchased land near Bentown and were neighbors of the Price’s. In 1860 census, siblings Michael, Thomas and Mary Cleary were living near the Penn’s and the boys were working as hired hands. Mary would marry a grandson of John Penn. John Penn died in 1863.
Michael and Sarah Cleary’s first land. Around 1867 brothers Michael, Thomas, Martin and Patrick Cleary all purchased land within a square mile of each other east of El Paso IL. (Brother John lived south of El Paso.) Michael, Thomas and Martin lived next door to each other. (see map # 10, 11, 12) while Patrick was ½ m. east (#7) . Before 1890 Michael sold his land and purchased land (#4) just north on Rt 24. That house is still standing. But what happened to his first farm??
Anne Cleary Lyons (Thomas Cleary/Michael J. Cleary I/Michael J. Cleary II) wrote Mary Stack several years ago with the following information. Michael/Sarah Cleary sold their first farm to John/Mary Fulton who lived there with their children including daughter Delia. Delia (Dee) would become the mother of Bishop Fulton Sheen.
A second Fulton home was built across the road to house the growing Fulton clan. In later years, John/Mary Fulton moved to El Paso to a home a few blocks south of St. Mary’s Church. Dee married Newt Sheen who owned a hardware store in El Paso. Dee and Newt lived above the store when their baby Peter John was born. In hot weather Dee took the baby to her parent’s home which was cooler. As the baby got older he said that he wanted to be called Fulton, not Peter.
Michael’s first home is no longer standing. In its place is an era 1950s ranch home.
The land was later owned by the Kearney family. Anne Lyons said she was in the original Cleary/Fulton/Kearney home many times as a child growing up. She remembers it had no heat on the second floor.
Wills
Joan Cleary led a discussion of wills left by the immigrant sons: Michael, Thomas and Patrick. It was noted how well each provided for the wives as well as their sons and daughters. Just a generation before in Ireland their own father would have had nothing to leave to his wife and children. (By early 1800s in Ireland 75% of the land was owned by landlords. Michael Cleary, our immigrants father, must have had no small plot of land as evidenced by the baptism records of his children. Those records show the family on the move as his children are baptized in different townlands in Co. Tipperary. A townland is an area similar to our McLean County.)
Margaret Cleary Kennedy Line
Contact has been made with us thru our website from another descendant of Margaret Cleary Kennedy. The grandson of Edward G. Kennedy contacted Mary Stack. (Margaret Cleary Kennedy/James W. Kennedy/Edward G. Kennedy)
His name is Edward and he grew up in Peoria but did not know much about his Cleary/Kennedy ancestry. He does have memories of cleaning out the Kennedy Funeral Home in the 1960s before it was sold. His grandfather’s brother had run it. About his grandfather Edward, “I remember visiting him regularly as a child. Before the 1929 stock market crash he was quite well to do, worked as a speculator and stock broker, then lost everything and the family went from a privileged life to hard times in a hurry”.
Patty Heller Kelley (descendant of Bridget Murphy Blair)
Patty told of a cousin who is working as a columnist.
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Brad Spencer, son of Larry and Phyllis Pyne Spencer, grandson of Harlan and Helen Beier Spencer, great grandson of Edward and Zora Pitzer Spencer, great great grandson, of Mary Ann (Anna) and Stephen Spencer and great, great, great grandson of Bridget Murphy and Moses Blair worked for 12 years as the Sports Editor and columnist of the Wednesday Journal, published in Oakbrook and River Forest, Illinois. Brad left the paper this year on April 10. He and his wife have four children.
His Uncle Terry Spencer is the present owner and manager of the Spencer Oil Station in Cooksville, Illinois. This station has been in the family for many years, first owned by Vivian and Iona Moberly Spencer and passed on to their sons
Right after the meeting, Patty submitted the life story of Bridget Murphy Blair and photos which is available on this website under “New Submissions”.
Roots Cleary/Murphy/Blair/Evans website. The website created and maintained by Mary Stack for the Roots group is $149 annually. Mary said that in the past year the site had been visited 1,330 times. Many submissions from Roots relatives have also been received and put on the site in the past year. Phil Mikalik had already sent in a check for $20 to help with the funding. The group voted to continue the website. Many at the meeting contributed money towards the fee. If you use the website and would also like to donate towards its funding, please send a check to Roseann Cleary Clifford, 2008 Sunview Dr., Champaign IL 61821. Don’t forget to contribute photos/stories/etc. to the website.
Dick Sleevar (descendant of Bridget Murphy Blair) unexpectedly provided both a door prize and a boobie prize for the meeting. The door prize won by Jack Cleary was one quart bag of frozen Blue Catfish fillets caught by Dick at Powerton Lake, Pekin, IL. The boobie prize was a photo of Dick and and his catch! Dick also provided the group with great fish recipes. To see recipes, go to new RECIPE tab.
Minutes by Mary Stack
