Sunday's Obituary - Edward Lee

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"Edward Lee Passes Away.

Rope Breaks, Car Comes Down - St. Patrick's Day Parade.

(Handwritten - Jan. 19 - 1904)

Edward Lee, aged 81 years, one of the oldest and best known citizens on this side, died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. William Quirk, at Jeanesville last night about 7 o'clock.  The deceased was in perfect health up to Monday.  He partook of his Monday dinner as usual, but shortly after while lying on a couch he was stricken suddenly ill with what looked like paralysis and he was unable to utter a word from the time he was taken ill until he died.  Mr.  Lee was born in county Cabin (sic), Ireland, and emigrated to America about fifty-seven years ago.  He resided in New York and Nesquehoning previous to locating in Jeanesville.  His wife preceded him in death about sixteen years ago.  He was a man who was well liked by every person.  He was very active notwithstanding his advanced age and was a great lover of base ball.  During all of last season he witnessed every game that was played at Park View and was first among the spectators on the ground.  He was a great favorite of the children and often he could be seen with a crowd of little ones about him as they listened to the tales he used to relate.  He enjoyed a large circle of friends and all will be sorry to hear of his death.  He is survived by one daughter, Mrs. William Quirk, with whom he resided for the past number of years."

For those of you that have done Irish genealogy research or are familiar with Ireland, you'll know that there is no County Cabin, but County Cavan.  In Irish Cavan is spelled Cabhán.  You don't really hear the "b" in the pronunciation, but perhaps there was some miscommunication when relaying the information for the obit.  Edward, given the time of his birth in Ireland, would have most likely known Irish.  Spelling wasn't necessarily as important as it became over time and who knows how well Edward was educated.  I could hypothesize for hours, but the bottom line is they got that bit wrong in the obit.  I have no proof that Edward was from County Cavan, but this does give me a starting point when trying to continue his line.

The obituary also gives me an approximation for when he came to America, although still trying to find an immigrant by the name of Edward Lee is no small task.  Knowing that he lived in New York and Nesquehoning before Jeanesville will help as well.  A bit disappointing that no mention of his parents were made or any other brothers and sisters in America or Ireland.  Disappointing, but not surprising.  Almost as equally disappointing is that his grandchildren were not mentioned in his obituary.  They were adults and many were living together.  I blogged about the individual children of William and Mary Quirk nee Lee here.

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This clipping was regarding Edward's burial in Saint Gabriel's cemetery.  It was in a scrapbook (see note below) and was obviously torn.  Not too surprising since it was clipped in 1904.    Not much information here except where he was buried and a bit about the funeral.  Still, it would be nice to have an untorn copy.  Sadly, the local newspapers from this period are gone.  At least in microfilm.  The local library has an enormous gap...which covers almost 2 decades of family members that I really want to know more about.  Next step is to contact the local newspaper and see if they have copies.  Sadly the local paper was bought out a few years ago by a larger non-local company.  Hopefully, they will be as helpful as they had in previous years. Fingers crossed there.

Edward Lee.  One of the first people that I learned about when starting out on my genealogy research over a decade ago, and I never posted his obit.  Shame, shame on me, but better late than never.  Rest in peace to my 3rd great grandpa.

NOTE:  Attached to the inside cover of an old family photo album that was passed on to me were newspaper clippings.  None of the clippings had the name of the paper that they were taken from, but it's safe to say that they most likely came from the local Hazleton area papers (The Standard Sentinel, The Plain Speaker, or the Standard-Speaker).