Edmund English - Part II

Granddaughter, Dolores English Young (Dode), remembers her father talking about his father.  

Edmund was a very tall, slender, good-looking, rather quiet gentleman, but he loved a good time.  He met often with his old buddies and played a good game of cards.  His oldest son, John, remembers going down to the corner saloon for a bucket of beer for the card players--and the bartender would dunk in a hot poker before John would run home with it.  

About 1895 Edmund purchased a home at 99 Litchfield Ave. It was originally built by Wm Hellmann in 1887 and some remodelling was done by Edmund in 1895. All records with an address for Edmund show the 99 Litchfield address except the 1920 census which uses the number 105.  In fact it seems that Edmund owned two different houses right next to each other and even the city has mixed up the addresses in their records using 99, 101, 105 and 107.  In obtaining the historic building permits from the Minnesota Historical Society it became evident that the records of the two houses were mixed up.  For records and more for each house see 101 Litchfield  105 Litchfield The houses stayed in the family for many years.  The original home was the first home of John and Mae Geraghty English.

Edmund was also a good carpenter and did a lot of handy work in their home.  He was a very gentle and kind in handling his children.  

Edmund and Anna had eleven known children. One of the eleven died unnamed in 1907, the rest survived to adulthood.  Check the next post for Notes on the Children of Edmund.

Edmund must have worked for the Great Northern Railway from its formation in 1889. Various railways combined at that point.  His wedding announcement stated he worked for a St. Paul Railroad.

Edmund died on 23 December 1920 at the age of 63 from heart failure following a colocystectomy operation.  Burial was from St. Patrick's Church and interment in Calvary Cemetery. [see note]

Edmund was a member of the Great Northern Railroad Veterans[1], The ancient order of Hibernians[2], the Brotherhood of American Yeomen[3] and the Telegraphers Union[4].  With five minor children at the time of his death, the insurance that was part of at least the APH and BAY must have served as a welcome help to Anna.




 

In Memory of Edmund English

One by one a link is severed

   In the golden chain of love;

One by one some dear one leaves us

  To dwell with the saints bove

One by one our ranks are thinning

  "Round our firesides warm and bright

But the numbers there are swelling,

  In God's mansions fair and bright.

One by one a tie is broken--

  Long united, and so dear;

But it draws our hearts to heaven,

  And it seems so very near.

One by one we, too, shall enter

  That dear home of all the bless'd

And 'twill be so much the sweeter

  To be our dear loved one's guest.

Dora Erickson, a friend

• NOTE.......Edmunds children, Frank and Ceil were both of the impression that their father was 67 when he died, but Ceil found part of a letter from Ireland which gave his baptismal record and recorded his birth date as January 28 1857.  The same letter mentioned that his sister Bridget had died, and that Minnie and Kate were in St. Louis MO.  Maggie was home from America, single and 27 and planning to return to America.  The only brother Martin died at birth as did a sister Nora.  The beginning and end of the letter had been torn off so Ceil did not know who wrote it or when.  What is apparent from further research is that Maggie, Martin and Nora were not siblings of Edward, but rather his neices and nephew, children of his brother John.  Bridget died 19 Nov 1903, which dates the letter after that date.  Martin was born and died in 1877.  Nora was born in 1889 and died at the age of three in 1892.  Maggie was living with her parents in 1911.  It is unknown whether she returned to america.  By process of elimination it seems the letter must have been written by either Johanna who died in 1911 or Julia who married Patrick Rynne in 1915. Edmond's brother John and his wife Margaret Flahavin outlived at least four of their children. John died in 1918 and Margaret in 1932.
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1. Great Northern Railway Historical Society, History of the Great Northern Railway
2.  "The Ancient Order of Hibernians is a Catholic, Irish American Fraternal Organization founded in New York City 4 May, 1836. The Order can trace its roots back to a parent organization of the same name, which has existed in Ireland for over 300 years. However, while the organizations share a common thread, the North American A.O.H. is a separate and much larger organization."  Click link for more and 
3. The Brotherhood of American Yeomen, a fraternal insurance society is an Iowa production,
   
   and was organized by J.E. and C.B. Paul, at Bancroft, Iowa, February 25, 1897, under the name of "Farmers' Mutual."  The society was popular from the start, the founder evidently having formed a plan of mutual insurance that seemed reasonable and just and which provided for a surplus fund for reserve.  The name, however, did not altogether suit and before the articles of incorporation were filed it was changed to Brotherhood of American Yeomen.  The word yeomen as used in old times meaning land holders.  Soon after incorporating the headquarters were removed to Cedar Rapids and later to Des Moines, where they are now permanently located.  The order has had a rapid growth and its jurisdiction extends from ocean to ocean north of a line drawn east and west through the mouth of the Ohio river, with a few exceptions.  The society has an entertaining ritualistic ceremony of adoption, the work being taken principally from Scott's "Ivanhoe."  The members are called archers and the lodges homesteads.  In 1914 the Brotherhood was located at 517 NY Life Bldg in Saint Paul.
4. It would seem likely this was the Order of Railroad Telegraphers.  There is a collection at the MN historical society that is on my research list.