Bridget Rourke, My Great Great Grandmother

 

Agnes Fennessy and her grandmother Bridget Rourke Kinane in June 1919

My great great grandmother was Bridget Rourke or O’Rourke. It has been hard to find information about her. In fact, I’m not sure if her name was Rourke or O’Rourke, since there are records for her that used either name. Also, I’m not 100% sure this photo is of her. The photo album page it was on was labeled “Dan Agnes & Grandma June 1919.” I’m guessing this is her, because my grandmother (Agnes Fennessy, on the left, labeled Nana) and her brother Dan lived in Jersey City, and Bridget also lived in Jersey City. Their other grandmother, Mary Mullaney, lived in Brooklyn. That is not terribly far, but correspondence I’ve had with other descendants of Mary’s indicates the Jersey City and Brooklyn families didn’t spend much time together.

I have not yet found any record that states exactly when and where Bridget  was born or when she married.

However, all records available show she was born in Ireland about 1845. So in the photo she was about 74 years old. Her daughter said that Bridget’s parents were Patrick Rourke and Catherine Winn.[1]

She was probably still in Ireland as a small child when the Famine killed a significant percentage of the population. If so, it surely stunted her growth. Surviving the Famine as a little girl may also have affected her ability to have children. At a time when most women had a large family, she only had three children.

Her husband, William Kinane, arrived in New York City in 1863, and was still single in 1864.[2] So, she probably married him in America. His name was spelled many different ways, and her name was common. In fact, there was another Bridget Rourke that had a baby baptized in the same church our Bridget belonged to, in the same year (St. Peter’s). Her mother also came to America and lived with her.[3]

Bridget was the mother of our ancestor Mary Kinane, born in 1866.[4] Bridget also had a son, John, born about 1868, and a daughter, Agnes, who died of whooping cough at only 8 months old.[5] Today’s mothers don’t have to worry about that because there is a vaccination against it (the Tdap).

William was a laborer and the family lived at various addresses in the area of Jersey City that Google Maps calls Liberty Harbor and Historic Downtown.

Of the two children Bridget raised, only Mary married and had children. After William died in 1914, Bridget lived with her son until his death in the flu pandemic in 1919.[6] I have not found any record showing Bridget living in her old age with her daughter.

She lived for another decade after John died. At an age when most of us now are retired, she had to go to work. In 1920, at age 73, she was assistant housekeeper for an Irish priest in Newark, N.J.[7] In 1924 she was employed at the Van Court Inn Hotel in Roselle, N.J., probably as a maid.[8] In 1925 she was in St. Petersburg, Florida, which was probably a huge change for her.[9]

By the fall of 1926 she had moved back to New Jersey, where she lived at the Home for the Aged in Newark. At age 84, she died of kidney disease and pneumonia at St. Francis Hospital in Jersey City on April 29, 1929. She’s buried at Holy Name Cemetery, the largest Catholic cemetery in Jersey City, but without a grave marker.[10]

                                     


Dan Fennessy & Grandma June 1919




[1] State Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, death certificate no. 1725 (1929), Bridget Kinane, Jersey City, Hudson County, N.J. 29 April 1929.

[2] For year and ship name, “New York, Emigrant Savings Bank Records, 1850-1883,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 29 Oct. 2023) > Test Books > 1864 > image 114 of 355, entry for Willilam Kinane, account no. 40,054.

[3] 1870 United States Federal Census, Hudson County, N.J., population schedule, Ward 6, Jersey City, p. 40A (stamped), dwelling 287, family 672, Catharine Rorke in household of William Kinnan; “United States Census, 1870,” database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNDV-5JM : accessed 29 Oct. 2023); from NARA microfilm publication M593, roll 867.

[4] St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Jersey City, N.J. Parish register, Baptisms 1856-1871, 24 June 1866, Mary Canaan; “Church records, 1838-1925,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/: accessed 4 Oct. 2020) > DGS 1403371 > item 7 > image 673.

[5] Death record, Agnes Canaan, 18 May 1870, line 15, Return of Deaths, 6th Ward of Jersey City, Hudson County, N.J.; “Deaths Atlantic-Warren Co. v. AO-AP 1870,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.com: accessed 26 Sept. 2023) > DGS 4210798 > image 398 of 807.

[6] State of New Jersey, death certificate no. (none) (24 August 1914) William Kinnane; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, N.J. “Kinane,” The Jersey Journal (Jersey City, N.J.), 3 Feb. 1919, p. 11, col. 8; image, GenealogyBank.com: accessed 29 Oct. 2023).

[7] 1920 United States Federal Census, Essex County, N.J, population schedule, Ward 4, Newark, ED 128, p. 8B, 22 Mulberry St., dwelling 109, family 154, Bridget Kinane in household of Michael P. Corcoran; “United States Census, 1920,” database and images, FamilySearch (familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M455-9P5: accessed 29 Oct. 2023) > image 610 of 1,170; from NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1032.

[8] Elizabeth, Hillside, Roselle and Roselle Park Directory 1924 (Newark, N.J.: Price and Lee Co., 1924), Kinane, Bridget, 297; “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” database with images, Ancestry (ancestry.com: accessed 29 Oct. 2023) > New Jersey > Elizabeth > 1924 > image 154 of 396. Note: the address given for Bridget is the same as the one for the Van Court Inn (see image 246 of 396).

[9] Elizabeth, Hillside, Roselle and Roselle Park Directory 1925 (Newark, N.J.: Price and Lee Co., 1925), Kinane, Bridget, 311; “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” database with images, Ancestry (ancestry.com: accessed 29 Oct. 2023) > New Jersey > Elizabeth > 1925 > image 169 of 421.

[10] State Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, death certificate no. 1725 (1929), Bridget Kinane, Jersey City, Hudson County, N.J. 29 April 1929.

 


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