September 11, 2001... Never Forget.

It touched all of our hearts in so many ways... of the 3,000 people murdered that day, one of them was our own family. He will always be missed and remembered.

"Capt. Walter Hynes was the person his extended family relied on for everything. If you needed your plumbing fixed or a room painted, Walter would do it. He would change your tire. He was the family lawyer. He even met his wife while lending a hand: he was helping another firefighter, Richard Fanning, move into a new house and was introduced to Mr. Fanning's sister.

Captain of Ladder Company 13 at 85th Street and Lexington Avenue, Walter lived in Belle Harbor, Queens, with his wife, Veronica, and their three daughters. He had worked as a firefighter in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and put himself through law school at St. John's University at night."

The rest of the Wrights...

I am back after taking the summer off from blogging and looking forward to providing some new and interesting information on the Wright and Fanning families.

The previous post on the life and family of Reverend William J. Wright, wife Lucy, and his daughters. They appear to have led a moderate lifestyle in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. However, Frederick and William's sister, Madeleine Wright (not to be confused with my grandmother, Madeleine Hurley Wright), married into a wealthy New York family. They were descendents of English aristocrats who immigrated to the new world in its infancy.

Madeleine (1861-1932) married into the Ely family. Her husband, Cheever Newhall Ely (1849-1929), was a successful textile businessman and they were socialites. In the late 1890's they lived in a large Victorian home in Yonkers that had been profiled in a few architectural periodicals of the era. The below photo is of the home at 526 Warburton Avenue across from the Trevor Estate. The structure still exists but recent photos show the property has not been maintained to its original splendor.

The Ely family apparently played a significant role with the Wright family and socialized in the same circles. Cheever's cousins, Moses and Smith Ely, were in the wedding party of Frederick Wright & Marie Antionette Finck. While doing my research, I learned that there was a NYC Mayor by the name of Smith Ely Jr., but the dates of his life do not match up with the one mentioned above.

Madeleine & Cheever had 3 children but only one lived past childhood. Even wealth could not protect the children of this time period from disease and misfortune. Their daughter, Madeleine, died as an infant in 1885 and their son, Cheever Marsfield Ely, died at the age of 2 in 1893.

The surviving child, Grace Ely (1889-1953), has conflicting formation for the birth date. It appears that October 6, 1889 is the correct date, however, a passenger manifest on a cruise liner listed it as October 10, 1893. She married David Edward Cain (1891-1965) in 1914. David Cain was a Colonel in the US Army, serving in World War 2 and the Korean war, and they resided in many places across the country. Grace died in Jamestown, Rhode Island in 1953 and David died in 1965.

They had two children, Virginia Ely Cain (1916-?) born in NYC and David Edward Cain, Jr. (1917-?) born in Honolulu, HI.

Virginia married a man named Henry Lloyd Thornell Koren. HLT Koren was a well known Foreign Service Officer, who also dabbled in CIA activities, and was once the chief of the Congo Mission in Africa in the mid-1960's and also a Deputy Ambassador in several other countries. His State Department biography is posted here. I have not located Virginia's death records but Henry passed away in June 1994 in James City, VA. They had 2 children, Henry Lloyd Koren (b.1944) and Ann Koren.

David Cain Jr. married Martha Appleton (1919-1994) in 1942 but died just 4 years later in Rhode Island. I believe they had 2 children who are still living.