52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 10 - Strong Woman

When I think of strong women, many come to mind, in fact I dont know if I know of any weak women in my family.  But as I dont want to write about recent generations, for privacy reasons, I will write about Margaret Brady.

Just learning what I know of her life makes me think she had to have a strong spirit.

She was born January 20, 1857 in most likely Choconut, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. She was the fifth child of seven, born to John Brady and Mary Mullen Brady.  She was a first generation American, both of her parents having been born in Ireland. When she was just 8 the civil war broke out and being in Pennsylvania she must have heard quite a lot about the events of it.  I am unsure if her father fought in the war or not as John Brady is a rather common name and it is hard to discern him from the others.

In 1860 the family lived in choconut and in 1870 in Plains Township. Between 1870 and 1880 the family must have moved in or around Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. In 1877 Margaret was working as a nurse at the Wilkes-Barre hospital. She may have started working there as early as 1876 as that is when, according to their site, the Wilkes-Barre City Hospital officially opened.

Wilkes Barre City Hospital Circa 1884 - site

Wilkes Barre City Hospital Circa 1907

It was in that city that Margaret met John Joseph Buckley. According to the Buckley Family Book written by Philip Buckley, Margaret later described their first meeting as love at first sight on her part.  She would say that she wanted to marry that tall, handsome, young Irishman from the first time she laid eyes on him.  The feeling must have been mutual as they quickly fell in love and married on January 20, 1878 in St. Mary's Church of the Immaculate Conception in Wilkes-Barre.

 I found a description of the church in 1872 and this is what John and Margaret would have experienced while being married.

 The church room proper, or auditorium, is the most important and attractive part of the structure.  It is about 60 by 135 feet, and has on the main floor 228 seats, each of which will accommodate six persons.  It has a gallery upon three sides, supported by 24 ornamental iron posts.  There are 88 seats in the gallery which will accommodate at least 528 more persons, making the sitting room of the church sufficient for 1896 grown persons.

     There is room in the aisles and the rear entrance to accommodate several hundred more with temporary seats, if desired.  The sacred emblematic ornamentations about the altar, with the seven high windows upon each side of the church, beautifully distinguished from each other by the varied colors and designs in the glass in each, contribute to make the large room very attractive to visitors and members.  The glass and paintings of the windows at the altar were the gifts of Charles Barry and his wife.  The glass and paintings of the windows of the body of the church were the gifts of different persons and societies, viz: Rosary Society, Terrence Rooney, St. Mary's Benevolent Society, Father Matthew Total Abstinence Society, Mary Campbell, Michael Regan, A. J. Mallery, Allen Walsh, andSt. Joseph.  The six massive gold covered candlesticks, statues of angels, the eight large fluted columns in the rear of the altar, the painting of the crucifixion, the emblems, characters, etc., which adorn and illustrate the inner temple, were fully described by the correspondent referred to and need not be repeated.

     The church is lighted by numerous side gas brackets, without the aid of a ponderous central chandelier, as in older times, to put in peril all those seated under it.  The old organ is used for the present, but everything else is new and creditable.

     There are three front entrances, and stone steps the full width of the building.  In case of emergency the two entrances in the rear would facilitate the exit of an audience.

     In connection with this praiseworthy improvement, the Society erected a three story brick parsonage upon the church lot, only a few feet off, and both buildings are nearly completed, outside and in, and enclosed by a substantial iron fence.

After their marriage, the couple started their wedded life together living with John's older brother, William, and his family above a saloon on North River Street, where William worked as a bar keeper. Within three months of their marriage, Margaret was expecting their first child who would be born almost on their first anniversary, on January 16, 1879. They named her Mary, most likely after Margaret's mother.

Margaret had grown up around the mines, her father had been a miner, as were several of her brothers. Her mother ran a boarding house at the cole mines as well.  She knew well the dangers of the occupation, and didn't want that for her family.  With the promise of more land and opportunities Westward, John set out for North Dakota in the spring of 1880, leaving Margaret and little Mary behind.

Margaret moved into the home of her parents as evidenced by the 1880 census.

Liberty, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania: Listed as Margaret Buckley, daughter of John and Mary Brady.  She was 23, her parents were both born in Ireland, and Mary, age 1, is listed as her daughter. Listed as "at home"

It must have been a hard situation for her, waiting for her husband to send for her, as she took care of her new child. He traveled to Yankton by train and up from there on the Missouri River on a scow to Mandan where he found employment with the N.P. as a section foreman.  Upon getting settled he sent for his small family in Pennsylvania and Margaret and Mary arrived in September of 1880. Their travel included coming to Bismarck by train, crossing the river by ferry, and then coming the rest of the way to Mandan on a switch engine. The below image is from 1885 but is probably very similar to what she would have seen upon her arrival at the depot.

Main St traffic in foreground, original wood depot building circa 1885 after freighthouse expansion. Roundhouse in background - source

John was boarding at the Peoples Hotel (later known as the Mandan Hotel) at the time and that is where Margaret found employment so that she could receive boarding for herself and the baby, and earn twenty dollars a month.

Picture from 1924 - George Peoples, a resident of Bismarck at the time, purchased lots 14 and 15 of block six in Mandan in July of 1881 from the Northern Pacific Railroad for $375. In 1882-83 and at a cost of $23,500 he built a hotel from brick manufactured at a facility just east of Mandan.

Located in the heart of Mandan on the northeast corner of Main Street and Collins Avenue, it became the city's second three-story building (after the InterOcean Hotel located four blocks west on Main Street) and the city's first brick three story building.  Since the description states it was built in 1882, I don't wonder that the couple didn't live at the InterOcean Hotel or another hotel before the building of this one since the Buckleys arrived in the summer of 1880.

Regardless of the exact hotel in which she worked, at 20 dollars a month she was able to save up her wages and bought a a city lot and a small one room shack for fifty dollars which she had moved on to her lot at a cost of five dollars. Adding to their home a small wood-burning stove, the family now had a home of their own. Despite the stories she told about the first winter being so cold that one night the kerosene in the lantern froze, it must have seemed like they were doing well for themselves, they had improved their lives, John was out of the dangers of the mine, and they had room and opportunity to grow their family.

However, in March of 1881 there was a flood and many of the residents of Mandan had to leave their homes and flee to higher land.  John and Margaret were forced to take cover in a wagon on a small hill-top called Court House Hill for several days. Many of the items Margaret had brought with her form home were destroyed, but more tragic was the death of little Mary who, due to exposure, had caught pneumonia and died. Below are pictures of the flooding that occurred in Mandan, and to the left and above is a description of the flood from a newspaper article.

Though the Missouri River usually flooded in June, if the river was blocked by ice, the river would flow over the banks in early spring. Mandan was flooded by water and broken ice in 1881. - source

The flood of 1881, which peaked on March 31, stands out as one of the worst calamities in Mandan's history. The ice gorges backed up the Missouri and Heart Rivers, which submerged the business section and most of the residential sections of the city. -source

The Buckleys, among the other Irish Railroad workers, were Catholic and in September of 1881 St. Joseph's Catholic Church was completed.  This was due in part to John and Margaret and 75 other Catholic families in Mandan joining together and organizing a new parish and building the church. This may have given Margaret a mission and soothed her spirit to practice her faith within a church.

The Church of St. Joseph was organized in 1879 with 75 families, making our parish the first Catholic church in Mandan. The first Mass was celebrated in the Linnehan's house in 1879 and the first resident priest, Fr. Cassidy, arrived in late 1880, offering his first Mass on November 1, 1880. At that time the parish had no boundaries and the priest took care of the faithful for miles around, to parishes as far as Glendive, MT.  The first church structure, a small wood frame church of 70'x80' was completed at a cost of 5,000 in September 1881. Source

1882 saw changes for the Buckley family, Margaret had a little boy named John Buckley on March 29, 1882. This must have been a very bittersweet moment for her so close to the first year anniversary of Mary's death.  Her husband, the same year, was made Mandan City Policeman. He would end up serving on the force for nineteen years.

Due to his work, in 1884, he was able to file on a homestead five miles west of Mandan. While John Sr. worked in the city of Mandan, traveling back and forth on horseback, Margaret and her now two children (Michael having been born in 1883), lived on the homestead to prove it up. Upon proving up on the land, the family moved back into town, but as the children grew older they would live summers on the farm, the boys doing most of the farm work.  Like most farming families, winter was used as a time for learning and the family would live in Mandan in the winter so that the children could have schooling privileges.

John Sr.'s job as a police officer took him out into all sorts of weather and in 1899 he took ill and was discovered to have tuberculosis.  He retired from active work and moved out to the farm, but failed to improve, and on May 10, 1909 passed away after an illness of 10 years, which no doubt Margaret helped him through.

Margaret and John had eleven children, seven who survived into adulthood (John, Michael, Thomas, James, Philip, Rose, and Agnes Maria) and four who passed away in either infancy or as toddlers (Mary, Agnes Ellen, William, and Edward). Upon John's death in 1909 there were two children who were under the age of 18, Rose who was 17 and Agness Maria who was 13. They were certainly a comfort to their mother.   Philip who was 20 continued to live with the family as in 1910 he is listed on the census alongside Margaret as head of house and Rose and Agnes.

Michael Buckley and his wife Margaret

The 1910 census had her occupation listed as farmer so she must have continued to work on the homestead and kept the farm running, most likely with the help of her family.

According to the Buckly Family Book by Phil Buckley, once her youngest child turned 17 she sold the family farm and went to live with her son Michael and his family at 303 4th Ave NW.  Michael's wife had passed away in 1918 due to the influenza epidemic of that year, and Margaret moved into the household to help him with his children of which there were three, ranging from ages nine to two.

Erue, Thomas, and Edward Buckley

Margaret lived with the family until around 1923 when she went to live with her son Philip in Glendive, Montana. Then in 1925 she was living in the home of her son James according to the ND census. It seems that tragedy would continue to cause Margaret to be a strong woman as she moved into the home of yet another son 3 years later. Thomas Henry Buckley's wife, Erue, passed away in the year of 1926 due to complications of  childbirth.  He had seven children who depended upon Margaret to help raise them. Their ages ranged from the oldest being 17 to the youngest only a day old. Grandpa John spoke of her living with them for a while.

Margaret lived with her son's family for five years until he remarried to Gladys Smith in 1931. Grandpa would have been 2 at the time she moved into the home and 7 when she moved after his father's marriage.

Following that marriage Margaret went back to her son's Michael to live out the rest of her years. She died in his home at the age of 79 on January 13, 1936. Mass was said at St. Joseph's Church and she was buried next to her husband John, and four of their children in Mandan's Union Cemetery.

Her obituary ran in the Bismarck Tribune January 18, 1936:

Mandan Woman Buried 

Mrs. Margaret Buckley, 78, pioneer Mandan woman, was buried in the Union Cemetery at Mandan Thursday after furneral services conducted at St. Joseph's Catholic church. Father Marcellus officiated.

The current St. Joseph's church building and former rectory circa 1924
Source

Margaret was definitely a strong woman of our family.  She moved her life from the Pennsylvania cole mines to the unpredictability of life in the new territory of North Dakota. She and her husband were pioneers of the Mandan area and grew along with the city. She raised a family and buried four of her children and her husband. She helped her sons in their times of need.  And perhaps this was out of necessity but it took a strong will to continue on.  None of her family ever moved to the North Dakota area, although she visited Pennsylvania at least once (her son James was born in PA). It seems that she focused on the family she built and she kept that family strong through her own efforts.

Much of this was taken from:

1. History of the Buckley Family by Philip A Buckley (c) 2009
2. Historical Data Project - Pioneer Biography Files, 1936-1940. Bismarck, N.D.: North Dakota Work Projects Administration.
3. Mandan Historical Society
4. Census Records
5. St. Mary's Church of the Immaculate Conception
6. Wilkes Barre General Hospital