Tag: Houston

Michael and Winifred Hennessy Browne

March 21st, 2024

Michael (1809-1852) and Winifred (1812-1884) were both from Ballylanders, County Limerick, Ireland. (The spelling of Winifred varies – sometimes it is written as Winnefred, and on her tombstone is spelled Winefred, but is most often spelled Winifred. She also appears to have gone by Winnie).

They were the parents of John Thomas and maybe six other children – it’s not completely clear. The information we have about them comes from a letter written by their granddaughter, Jane Browne Glass.

What we know about Michael is sketchy, only that he was a farmer whose elderly uncle was a priest who lived with him and Winifred in Ireland, and apparently admonished Winifred about attending daily mass. Michael and Winifred sold their belongings after their third potato crop failure and boarded a ship headed to New Orleans in 1852. Michael was 43, and Winifred 40. With them were seven children, according to the ship’s manifest: James, 20, Margaret, 14, Bridget, 12, Michael, 11, (probably the baby – maybe 11 months?), Dennis, 9, Mary, 5, and Sarah, 3. These were the names on the ship’s record, but it oddly doesn’t include their other children, John Thomas, age 6, Johanna, 9, and Thomas 12. Whether the mistakes are in the ship’s record or the ancestry record isn’t clear. James, Bridgett, and Sarah only appear on the ship’s record, so that does seem like it might be in error, and they may have been someone else’s children, or just had the names wrong.

Michael fell ill on board the ship and died a few weeks after arriving. He did fill out naturalization papers though, so must have been hopeful for the future. Their baby, also named Michael, died on board and was buried at sea.

Here is an excerpt from the website Irish American Journey:

Traveling to America by ship during the Irish Famine could be quite perilous. In the mid-19^th century, English landlords looking to evict penniless Irish tenants would pay to have them shipped to British North America. In many cases these ships were poorly built, crowded, disease-ridden, and short of food, supplies and medical services. As a result, many Irish immigrants contracted diseases such as typhus, and many others died before reaching land. Of the 100,000 Irish that sailed to British North America in 1847, one out of five died from disease and malnutrition. Appropriately, these treacherous sailing vessels became known as “coffin ships.”

Most of the ships carrying Irish immigrants to America, however, were well built and adequately supplied. And although sailing across the Atlantic in the 19^th century presented many challenges, most Irish ships brought Irish immigrants safely to America to begin their new lives.
irishamericanjourney.com

Winifred was left to fend for herself and her children in New Orleans. They had originally planned to go to her uncle’s house (Dr. Patrick Hayes, a herbal doctor and farmer in Madison County, Texas), but when Michael died she had to put the children in an orphanage and try to find work. The letter from Jane Browne Glass says she was left with five children and 95 cents.

Eventually her uncle came and took her and the children on a boat to Galveston and then another boat up the Trinity River to Cairo (Texas). She and the children were ill with possibly yellow fever (recurring fever and chills) and Winnie remembered the priest’s admonitions about attending mass, and when her nephew John Hennessy from Houston came to check on them, they all piled into his wagon and moved to Houston so they would be closer to a Catholic church.

They stayed for a while with her brother Tom, until she rented a house and she and her eldest daughter learned the dressmaking business. Her oldest child, Thomas (16) was living with another family “in the country”, and Winifred received word that he had died – she never found out when or how. The letter states she found it hard to recover from this latest sorrow.

During the Civil War, life was difficult and they lived with a Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham who had a school that the children attended, and Winifred did the housework.

After the war, she bought land and built a home at the corner of Rush Avenue and Jackson Street where she lived until her older years when she went to live with her daughter Margaret.

Michael and Winifred Hennessy Browne

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John Thomas Browne

March 14th, 2024

John Thomas Browne was born on March 23, 1845 in Ballylanders, County Limerick, Ireland and died on August 19, 1941 in Houston Texas, at the age of 96.

He was the son of Michael and Winifred (Winnie) Hennessy Browne, and in 1852, when the third consecutive potato crop failed, they sold all their belongings and bought passage to New Orleans with their six children. The baby of the family, Michael Jr., died on the ship and was buried at sea. John was six years old when they came to America.

They intended to then go to Winifred’s uncle’s house (Dr. Patrick Hayes – a herbal medicine doctor and farmer in Madison County, Texas), but Michael (Winifred’s husband), had fallen ill on board the ship and died after a few weeks in New Orleans. Winnie had no choice but to put her children in an orphanage and look for work.

Soon, though, her uncle arrived and took the family on a boat to Galveston and then up the Trinity River to Cairo. The children were continually sick with a recurring fever and Winifred worried they were far from a Catholic church, and that they were in danger of losing their Catholic faith, so when her brother came to visit, they loaded up in his wagon and moved to Houston.

Young John Thomas earned his first money as a bearer in a brickyard at $4 a month. He brought all his wages to his mother, and then soon got a regular job as a driver of a baggage wagon, which led to a job as messenger with the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.

At the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the Confederate Army (Company B, 2nd Texas Infantry), and because of his youth was assigned to work as a locomotive fireman on the railroad going to San Antonio.

On September 10, 1871, he and Mary Jane Bergin (Mollie) were married in the Annunciation Church in Houston – the first couple to be married there. In the Houston Chronicle (3/17/1940) he was described as “sharp-witted, honest and industrious” and found work in the grocery business as a bookkeeper and clerk , and then went into partnership with Charles Bollfrass to open a wholesale and retail grocery store on the corner of Milam and Preston in Houston. They started with $500 in capital in 1872, and by the early 1890’s were earning $340,000 annually.

John Thomas Browne

He and Mary Jane had twelve children, one of them being Thomas J. Browne, a city assessor and tax collector who the newspaper described as one of the best-loved figures in Houston history.

John served as an alderman in Houston for two terms, then became mayor in 1892. He served two terms as mayor and was known as “Honest John Browne” and also as the “Fighting Irishman”. According to Wikipedia, he was instrumental in forming the Houston Fire Department as a paid force. He later served two terms in the Texas legislature.

The Houston Chronicle interviewed him the year before he died, and mentions the “merry twinkling of his eyes and the laugh creases about his lips as he talks about old Houston. He wears the short, neatly clipped beard and moustache, both brown but lightly touched with white, like his hair which shows but few signs of thinning. If you weren’t told you would hardly believe his age could be more than 72 … his hearing is not as good as it used to be and he likes to hear every word you say, especially if you’re talking about Old Houston, his Houston.”

John Thomas Browne and Mary Jane Bergin Browne

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Joseph Edward and Reba Browne

February 29th, 2024

Joseph Edward Browne (September 2, 1913-January 6, 2000) and Reba Maureen Newland Browne (June 26 1913-July 5, 2005) were both born in Texas – Joe in Houston and Reba in Groveton in Trinity County.

They married in Houston in 1930 and had two children, Joseph Edward Jr. (1931-2012), and Mary Ann (1943-)

Joe was the son of Joseph Edward Browne and Irene Rickert. His father died of appendicitis at the age of forty when young Joe was nearly two, and his mother remarried William McShan (who was in the grocery business) in 1920. His siblings were Emma, John T., Catherine, Irene, and Mickey (half-sister).

Joe entered into the pharmacy profession and started the Joe E. Browne Pharmacy in Albuquerque. He worked as a pharmacist his whole life – over 60 years. He enjoyed gardening and working in the yard as well.

Joe Browne, Mr. Miller, unknown, Don Roberson at Joe E. Browne Pharmacy in the 1950s.

Reba’s parents were Frank Newland (1892-1922) and Mary Belle Davis Newland (1896-1984). Reba’s father died on December 27, 1922, when she was only nine. His lumber truck went off the road, and it seems they tried to transport him to Houston on a freight train, but he was too badly injured and didn’t make it. Reba and her mother were on their own until her mother (Mary) married Herbert Bigham in 1928 when Reba was fifteen. Some of Reba’s memories of her childhood included everyone running for cover when an airplane would fly overhead for fear that it might be the “Kaiser.” (Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany). Also she remembered her family and the town being hit hard by the Spanish Flu.

Reba and Joe moved to Albuquerque in the 1930s and lived there for the rest of their lives, first at 610 Richmond, and later at 3104 Lykes.

Mary and Reba about 1948

They had nine grandchildren (Mary’s children – Melanie, Lisa, Michelle, Reba and John; and Joe’s children – Colleen, Suky, Buddy and Steve).

Reba was a gracious, kind person. When Joe’s older sister Emmy developed the disease ALS, Reba was the one who took care of her. She always dressed very fashionably, and had lots of high heels that her granddaughters liked to try on. They belonged to St. Charles Catholic Church and she was active in the women’s auxiliaries – always worked at the State Fair booth for example.

Reba and Joe about 1931

Granny Bigham (Mary), Colleen, Granny (Reba)

Colleen, Nick, Reba, Mary, Amy, Suky

Joe and Reba

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