The Wright Family - setting the stage for a journey

I suppose I should have started with this branch of the family but somehow I got sidetracked. My mother's side of the family is named Wright. It was given to them from my grandfather George Godfrey Wright (1906-1955). My mother has 2 brothers, a sister, and a half sister, who actually helped my grandmother raise the other kids after George died.

George was born May 12, 1906 in Manhattan to Frederick Harriman Wright and Marie Antoinette Finck. He was baptized at the Calvary Episcopal Church at East 21 St & 4th Ave by the Rev. William J. Wright, his uncle, on July 3, 1906. He resided with his parents at the house of his grandmother, Marie, on East 19th St according to the 1910 census. Then, by 1920 he lived with his family at 302 West 79 St near Riverside Dr. George contracted polio as a child which left him with difficulty walking.

George was married previously to Celia Konefsky (1906-1941) and they had one daughter, Phyllis (my mother's half sister). Celia was born in Russia and came to America sometime as a child between 1906 & 1909 with her mother Hannah Konefsky. Her father, Louis, had traveled to America a year earlier, as was typical back then. He established residence and sent for them the next year. Celia had three sisters according to the 1920 census, Rachel (Rifka), Rose, and Clara. Upon moving to NYC they lived in the Lower East side with the thousands of other new immigrants trying to navigate their way in a new world. The 1910 census shows the family living at 701 East 9th Street but by 1920 they had moved to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. They resided at 109 Herzl Street near Pitkin Ave. Ironically, I worked in the 73rd Pct and have patrolled down that street many times without the knowledge of any relationship.

George and Celia were married August 24, 1935 in Brooklyn. Phyllis was born in 1937. I have found four death records for Celia Wright's and the only one that fits properly would put her death on February 28, 1941. The 1940 census records will be released in the next week or so and perhaps we will discover where they were residing at the time.

George

Madeleine

George and my grandmother, Madeleine Hurley (1919-2006), met and later married on August 20, 1944. They lived in Highbridge section of the Bronx. Like I said before, they had 2 boys and 2 girls together.











George was a commercial artist and was also a character model for some of the detective mystery magazines that were popular in the 1940's and 1950's. It appears he always played the bad guy in these portrayals but I always considered them pretty cool as a kid. Today, they are priceless gems connecting me to a man I never knew.

George died at Saint Francis Hospital in the Bronx on December 23, 1955. I know that his death, just 2 days before Christmas, always left a dark side to the holidays for my mother who was just 9 when he died. And her brothers and sister were even younger than she was when he passed. They really never got to know their father, either. And his death made life difficult for a single mother with 5 children to care for... and probably caused the children to grow up faster than most.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

 

 As Saint Patrick's Day approaches, we should remember our ancestors of Irish heritage. For a variety of reasons they traveled far across the Atlantic ocean in ships driven by wind or steam in search of a better life on the shores of America. 

On my paternal side, the my most immediate direct ancestors to make the journey were Peter Fanning & Mary Jane Carroll Fanning brought my great-grandfather, Joseph Patrick Fanning, as a 2 year old to Ellis Island in 1889. They moved from the city of Dublin. My great grandmother, Marion Scully Kempen, was born in New Jersey, but her parents, Michael Scully and Ann O'Neill Scully, immigrated separately from Ireland in the 1880's. Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine where they lived in Ireland.

On my maternal side, my great-great grandfather came to 'the states' in 1865 as a 12 year old boy. I do not know who his parents were so I am not sure why or where he traveled from. He married Margaret Hickey several years later, but she traveled as a young girl with her parents, Andrew Hickey and Mary Ann Duncan Hickey. Different records indicate different years in which they emigrated but it was sometime between 1860-1866. I am still in the process of researching the various connections but I think this family came from County Offaly.

Other surnames of Irish heritage found in the family tree include:

Buckley, Burke, Butler, Breen, Brennan, Carr, Carney, Carroll, Clough, Coll, Cummins, Dolan, Donaldson, Dwyer, Farragher, Fraser, Gallagher, Healey, Hickey, Hughes, Hurley, Hynes, Kavanagh, Kelly, Kilpatrick, Lyons, MacGregor, Magee, McDonald, McGlade, McGovern, Murphy, Murray, O'Keefe, O'Roarke, Pearce, Scully, Stack, Sweeney.

Have a happy and blessed Saint Patrick's Day to you all.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.