Sunday's Obituary - Mary Brown nee Barrett

Hazleton, PA newspaper*

Yet another obituary that I had no idea I hadn't shared. No idea until the other day when I was doing some research into my Barrett line and tried using this obituary to narrow the search down a bit. You see Mary was a Barrett and she had 5 siblings: Edward, William, Hugh, Walter, and Alice.

I know that Edward moved to Buffalo, New York with his family and most likely died there. His wife, Esther Corrigan, is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery (Cheektowaga, Erie, NY) and my guess is that Edward is most likely buried there too. Sadly, there was a problem with my photo request on FindAGrave and it appears that her tombstone is overturned and unreadable so I can't see if her husband is on the stone with her. There was no memorial for Edward on FindAGrave, just Esther so I'll most likely contact the cemetery and see if they have a burial for him. I have a date of birth, but only know that he died after 1944 because of this obituary. Edward is mentioned as surviving his sister. I have a few possible dates of death for him which I will try to check in the local Hazleton newspaper when I go back home. Since he was originally from the area chances are something made it in there.

Now the obituary names her sister, Alice, as surviving her, but William, Hugh, and Walter are left out of the mix. From searching the online Pennsylvania Death Index I can see that William died in 1915 and Walter died in 1910. Walter never married. William did (to Carrie Bittenbender) and had three known children: Marie, William Jr., and Thomas.

In my research I had been trying to find Hugh and Alice. Both moved from Hazleton and became fairly elusive. Neither married and both have common names. At least when Edward moved to the Buffalo area I was able to track him down because I knew the names of his wife and children. I couldn't do that with Hugh and Alice. With Hugh I can see that he isn't mentioned in his sister's obituary so that most likely means that he died before she did. I also know that Alice out-lived her sister. Aside from that it's a dead end.

I'll dive deeper into some possibilities with Hugh and Alice and some documents I found in another post. Until then I'll share the obituary and funeral notice for my paternal great grandmother:

"Deaths

Mrs. Thomas J. Brown

Mrs. Thomas J. Brown, of 3322 West Broad street, this city, died at 3:15 this morning at her home following eight weeks' illness. She was born here and spent her entire life in Hazleton. Her maiden name was Miss Mary A. Barrett and her parents were the late Patrick and Bridget Barrett.

Mrs. Brown was a member of St. Gabriel's church and the Altar and Rosary Society. In her younger days she was a school teacher in Hazle township.

Surviving are her husband and the following children: Marian and Edward Brown, city school teachers; Sergeant Walter Brown of the army air forces stationed in the South Pacific and Thomas Brown, Jr., of Elmira, N. Y. One brother, Edward Narrett (sic), of Buffalo, N. Y., and one sister, Miss Alice Barrett, a registered nurse of New York City, also survive.

The funeral will be held at 9:30 Friday morning. Services will be conducted at 10 a.m. in St. Gabriel's church and interment will be in St. Gabriel's cemetery."

Hazleton, PA newspaper*

"The funeral of Mrs. Thomas J. Brown, of 832 West Broad street, was held at 9:30 this morning with the blessing at 10 o'clock in St. Gabriel's church by Monsignor D. J. Kane, who also gave the blessing at the grave. The pallbearers were: Daniel Meehan, Michael Welsh, John McHugh, Michael Conner, John O'Donnell and Charles O'Donnell. Interment was in St. Gabriel's cemetery."

*The clippings were taken from the Hazleton, Pennsylvania newspaper. It is called the Standard Speaker, but was once The Plain Speaker, The Standard Sentinel, and possible something else. Problem is that when I printed these clippings from microfilm I didn't source my information properly...bad, Cherie...I know, I know! I just wrote 04APR1944 on the back and that is actually her date of death not the publication date. I've improved in my sourcing since then...