Let's wrap up Michael and Margaret (Moriarty) Dwyer

Michael and Margaret (Moriarty) Dwyer are still on Elm Street in 1901, but the 1902 Newport Directory reports Michael Dwyer, engineer, has removed to Providence. I wonder why?

The 1903 directory lists Michael Dwyer, an electrician, living at the rear of 28 Clarke Street – in 1904, below, he is living at 28 Clarke Street. Clarke Street is off Washington Square - it runs parallel to Thames Street.  It is near the oldest synagog in the United States and the courthouse.

 In 1905 electrician Michael Dwyer has a house at 26 Charles Street. Clarke Street is on the opposite side of Washington Square from Clarke Street.

I'm presuming that I found the same man in the 1905 Rhode Island Census for Electoral District 238. His is the 125^th family visited, and there are 2 in the family. He is living at 25 (not 26) Charles Street in Newport – voting district 3, ward 3. He is head of the family and is 45 years old. He was born in Ireland on Sept 8, 1859. He is foreign born and immigrated in 1886 – he has been in the country for 19 years and lived in Rhode Island all that time. He has lived in Newport for at least the last 12 months. He is married. His parents were also born in Ireland. He is a naturalized American citizen who can both read and write. I’m not sure what “Personal” has to do with voting. Michael works as a marine engineer and has not been unemployed. He is not a veteran and does not receive pension. He is a Roman Catholic.

I also found an entry for Margaret Dwyer at the same address. She is 43 years old and was born August 1, 1861 in Ireland. She is the mother of 3 children, but none are living. She reads and writes. She immigrated in 1878 and has been in the country 27 years – all of them in Rhode Island and at least the last 12 in Newport. She has no occupation. So these are definitely ours!

Electrician Michael Dwyer has moved again in 1906 and is boarding at 36 Marlborough Street. This is not far from Charles Street. I wonder why they moved so often?
Michael has moved to 133 Thames Street by 1907. Thames Street runs along the docks, and 133 is just past Washington Square before Mary Street. And here they stay for awhile. We find them still there in the 1910 U.S. Census for Newport’s Ward 3; Michael is 50, and Margaret is 51. They have been married 20 years; Margaret has been pregnant 5 times but has no live children. (How sad - they must have been excited when she first found out she was "in the family way." But then how heartbreaking to lose 5 children.) Michael is working as a marine engineer. They are renting, and Michael has not been out of work.

In 1914 Michael Dwyer is still living at 133 Thames Street but now is running a boarding house. 

In the 1915 Rhode Island Census, Michael and Margaret Dwyer are living at 133 Thames Street in Newport’s Ward 3. Michael is 53; Margaret is 52. Both were born in Ireland as were their parents. Michael is a naturalized citizen. He works as a marine engineer but was out of work on 15 April 1915. Margaret is listed as a keeper of a boarding house. Julia Leary (another Sneem name) is her 30 year old Irish cook who was working on 15 April 1915. There are 6 boarders – all born in the United States. 4 are machinists for the U.S. Government. One is a barber and one is his apprentice. They were all working 15 April 1915. 

And the Dwyers still have the boarding house in 1916.

According to Dwyer Family research, Margaret Moriarty Dwyer died 25 January 1917 in Newport. I found a brief death notice in The Newport Journal and Weekly News for Friday, February 9, 1917 at the bottom right. Unfortunately, it does not give us any new information.

"Dwyer - Suddenly, in this city, 25th inst., at her residence, 133 Thames Street, Margaret M., wife of Michael F. Dwyer." 

Sometime after the death of his wife, Michael went to reside at the Howard Complex of the State Infirmary in Cranston, R. I. The 1920 U.S. Census shows Michael # 82 residing there. He is a 59 year old widower, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and an inmate!

The Cranston, RI web page gives us the following information.

“The State Institutions at Howard 

On a hill that rolls gradually up from the Pawtuxet River across Pontiac Avenue stands the Howard Reservation … Its story is part of the social history of all of Rhode Island, not just Cranston.  The development of Howard was Rhode Island’s first attempt to provide social services statewide through publicly supported and publicly administered institutions … In the early years of the country’s history, poverty, crime and mental illness were considered matters manageable by and within each town … In Rhode Island communities, as in other colonial towns, vagrants and others who did not belong were “warned out” and summarily driven from the town line, but those who did belong were accommodated either by public humiliation or imprisonment, in the case of culprits, or charity, in the case of the impoverished and diseased. 
In practice, individual towns paid a fixed sum for the maintenance of each indigent person, with the town supplying the necessary clothing and medical care.  Frequently, the needy were auctioned off to the lowest bidder …
“With the coming of the American Revolution and the nineteenth century, a new 
philosophy evolved.  It held that deviance and poverty were not inevitable but simply the result of a poor environment.  The solution was believed to be the isolation of the poor, the mentally ill, and the criminal in an environment that eliminated the tensions and chaos engendering deviant behavior. 
Poor farms and asylums sprang up around the country … The situation of the poor and the insane poor was not only scandalous, as revealed in Thomas Hazard’s 1851 Report on the poor and Insane in Rhode Island, which graphically delineated the miserable living conditions of most of the state’s poor, it also reflected a continuation of the local approach to social problems.  Following Hazard’s report, the legislature abolished the chains and dark rooms that had characterized the treatment of the insane in many towns. 
Legislative attention did not return to the poor and insane until 1864, when the 
General Assembly appointed a committee to inquire into the expediency of erecting a state asylum.  Two years later, a state Board of Charities and Corrections was established similar to that in Massachusetts, to “devise a better system of caring for the unfortunate unlawful classes of the state.” The act that created the Board provided for the establishment of a state workhouse, a house of correction, a state asylum for the incurable insane, and a state almshouse.  The board moved to consolidate facilities by establishing a “state farm” that would simultaneously raise standards for the indigent and - a key development - relieve the localities of their responsibilities.  Two adjacent Cranston farms were acquired - the old Stukeley Westcott farm belonging to Thomas Brayton and the William A. Howard farm further west. 

“Plans for a state farm reflect the adoption by the state of Rhode Island of some of the current thinking affecting social services.  The selection of a pastoral site far from the city is indicative of the prevailing philosophy that many of the nineteenth-century’s social ills derived from the chaos of the urban industrial environment.  Institutionalization, to create a new, controlled and ameliorative environment, replaced assignment of the destitute to local families.  Almshouses would care for the “worthy” or hard-core poor, the permanently disabled, and others who clearly could not care for themselves.  The able-bodied or “unworthy” poor who sought public aid would be institutionalized in workhouses where their behavior could be controlled and where, away from the temptations of society, they would develop new habits of industry to prepare themselves for more productive lives and less dependence …. 
The Almshouse became the State Infirmary and attention was focused on the medical, not the social, disabilities of the inmates.” So was Michael Dwyer living at the state infirmary because he was poor or because he was ill and had no one to care for him or both? 
 “In 1923, … a new Public Welfare Commission was established, and under its supervision a new dormitory and men’s hospital were constructed, several older buildings renovated, and sprinklers installed to maximize safety.  An innovation initiated by the Commission was a rehabilitation work program begun in 1928.  This program permitted patients to live with families and work in the community.  Nonetheless, most of the patients at the state institutions worked the 225 acres of state farmland, harvesting far in excess of the needs of the reservation.  As late as 1941, 750,000 quarts of milk, 400,000 eggs and 14,000 tons of beef were being produced on the farm.” 

So Michael would have been there for the new construction and renovations. I wonder if he worked here on the state farm?

Michael died 10 years after Margaret on 5 October 1927 in Cranston, R.I.